Just a few months after launching a crowdfunding campaign for a handheld gaming PC with detachable controllers and an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor, One Netbook is working on a new model that has the same basic design, but features an Intel Core i7-1370P Raptor Lake processor instead of an AMD chip.
The company hasn’t announced pricing or availability details yet. Even the name is uncertain (although there’s some evidence that it will be sold under the same ONEXPLAYER 2 name as the AMD model). But One Netbook has already begun recruiting beta testers in China.
The Intel Core i7-1370P processor is an interesting choice for this sort of device. The 14-core, 20-thread chip is the highest performance processor lineup in Intel’s Alder Lake-P. But it’s also a power-hungry processor. While it’s nominally a 28-watt chip, the processor can consume as much as 64 watts under heavy load, which is likely to take a toll on battery life.
With 1.5 GHz Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics featuring 96 execution units, it should deliver decent gaming performance… but it’ll likely lag behind AMD’s Ryzen 7 6800U and Ryzen 7040 series chips, which feature RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 integrated GPUs, respectively.
One area where a Raptor Lake-P processor is likely to shine, though, is CPU performance. It’s a chip with 6 Performance cores capable of hitting speeds up to 5.2 GHz and 8 Efficiency cores that top out at 3.9 GHz.
So I guess if you’re looking for a general-purpose computer that you plan to use for more than gaming, maybe a Core i7-1370P processor isn’t such a bad idea. Just don’t expect to get more than a couple of hours of battery life while playing AAA games.
But what’s nice of the Nintendo Switch-like design of the ONEXPLAYER 2 (and whatever the new model is called) is that it’s not just made for gaming. Slide the game controllers off the sides and you’ve basically got a chunky, but powerful Windows tablet with an 8.4 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel display and support for pen and touch input (assuming the new model keeps the same screen as the OXP2).
Connect it to a docking station (or just use the built-in ports) and you can hook up an external display, keyboard, mouse, or other accessories and use the system like a desktop. Or hook up a detachable keyboard and use it like a notebook (or at least like a tablet with a keyboard).
That said, a multi-mode handheld with an Intel Core i7 Raptor Lake-P processor is likely to be rather expensive, and I can’t help wishing that if One Netbook was looking to expand its ONEXPLAYER detachable lineup that the company would have considered making a cheaper, less powerful model rather than one with a pricier, more power-hungry processor.
via Zaeke, MINIXPC, and Rahim Masters