With more than 50 million copies sold in the latest news, the Switch has something to turn heads. The Nintendo console has indeed established itself as the portable machine par excellence thanks to its autonomy and its catalog. Several manufacturers, often from the PC world, are trying to design their own Switch. And the idea of an ultra-compact laptop-like computer was not born yesterday.
"In the middle of a living room, someone took out his wallet and tried to offer us cash in exchange for one of our machines". For sure, the scene is unusual. Eduardo Goyanes and Kevin Turchin, Dell’s marketing consultant and engineer respectively, tell the story on the site Trusted Reviews. They presented at the last CES – annual meeting dedicated to technological innovations – Alienware's UFO project, a PC at the edge between traditional computer and portable console. And that looks furiously like the Nintendo Switch.
Alienware's UFO
Everything is there: detachable controllers that can be combined in a joystick; dock to connect the machine to a screen; back support in order to place the machine. The differences are actually hidden inside. The UFO embeds a configuration “worthy of a gaming PC” (Dell did not say more on the subject) as well as a tenth generation Intel processor. On the CES showfloor, the machine comfortably turned Mortal Kombat 11 and F1 2019 without reaching 60 frames per second. Another big difference is the screen. At Alienware, we have the right to eight inches in Full HD (1920×1080) against 6.2 inches in HD (1280×720) for the standard version of the Switch.
"We had very positive feedback during the CES" says Daniel Charbit, marketing manager at Alienware (and therefore Dell) for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "But today, we don't have big news to share on the UFO. We are on the spot. We are continuing to work on the project". The machine is still in the concept state and therefore far, very far from commercialization. Last January, when we tested the beast, we noticed a rather disturbing ventilation noise as well as insufficient autonomy (two hours on the go). But the wait generated by Alienware means one thing: there is a demand on the market for devices similar to the Switch.
Success makes people envious
Because the Nintendo laptop created a real phenomenon when it was released in March 2017. We then praised its comfort of use despite a back attachment to the strawberries. Its sober interface and its screen quite honest for 720p. Its very good catalog with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from day one. And especially its hybrid side, the first convincing proposition of its kind, which allows you to play in your living room and on the road.
Nintendo Switch
At the end of 2019, Nintendo announced more than 50 million switches sold in the world since its launch (standard model and Lite combined), knowing that the laptop made its first steps last December in China, one of the largest markets in the world, and that it achieved a tour de force in March 2020, even exceeding sales of its first month of marketing (900,000 copies at the time). In short, the success of the hybrid is not about to stop. And for the past three years, other manufacturers have prepared machines that have everything from more powerful alternatives to the Nintendo laptop.
Among these alternatives is the Chinese GPD Win Max recently unveiled. It’s a very small laptop dedicated to mobile use. It runs Windows 10 and has an Xbox 360-like controller built into its chassis. On the resolution side, it's 1280×800 (16:10). The machine has 16 GB of RAM as well as a tenth generation Intel Core i5 processor (Ice Lake). Level graphics power, it is Intel Iris Plus 940 (slightly more powerful than an AMD Radeon RX Vega 10 according to Notebook Check). Finally for autonomy, GPD evokes three hours of the game in the context of "intense use".
GPD Win Max
More concretely, if we trust the benchmark shared by the firm, the Win Max will be able to run games like Rainbow Six Siege or the remake of Resident Evil 2 very comfortably (75 frames per second for the first and 95 for the second) and will do pretty well on more open titles (36 fps on Sekiro and 47 on Metro Exodus). Win Max would only fall below 30 fps with Devil May Cry 5 (27 frames per second). As noted PC Gamer, these tests were performed with the default graphics settings. Lowering these will therefore make it more fluid. “Most PC games will run smoothly on Win Max” GPD told us by email.
Find balance
As reported on the site Liliputing, the Win Max has just started its pre-orders in China to the tune of 779 dollars. The Western market will probably be entitled to a higher price, knowing that the previous GPD machine, the Win 2, is still displayed at 750 euros on Amazon. Obviously, the invoice will be salty. But the device promises higher performance than the Switch.
This gain in power brings with it its share of problems: first the price, inflated by the cost of recent components and the poor reputation of GPD which is not able to negotiate the bill like a Nintendo; the weight as Daniel Charbit notes, an important factor for the comfort of using a portable device; but also hardware level, concerning the performance, battery and power ratio.
With a powerful object, there are bound to be problems related to heat. This can easily be adjusted on a conventional laptop, but for ultra-compact devices that we can hold in hand, we still need to find a balance between power, cooling system and autonomy – The Chinese manufacturer GPD, at the origin of the Win Max
For a PC manufacturer who works on this kind of machine, the idea is to know what it will be necessary to compromise, especially with a current market turned towards Full HD, 4K and high refresh rates. We can not have it all. Choosing between performance and autonomy is the big challenge – Daniel Charbit, marketing manager at Alienware
If the Switch is not free from defects (especially on the temperature side), its autonomy, at least for the second generation marketed in August 2019, is greater than that of the GPD Win Max. By changing the processor, Nintendo managed to increase the longevity of its battery by 50% (from 3h to 6h for the first model to between 4.30 and 9h for the second, the Switch Lite retaining the basic components). This gain was also possible thanks to the other elements of the hybrid, less powerful and energy-consuming than the organs of Win Max. It's all about choice. And with the Switch, Nintendo has smelled the good vein despite the PS4 and One, much more powerful, as direct competitors.
The benchmark for the new Switch model
Learn from past mistakes
The Razer Edge
GPD does not consider itself as a competitor to the Switch, however: its machine can do everything a conventional computer can do, unlike Nintendo's laptop. "Benefiting from the PC ecosystem is an important added value concerning the uses that can be made of it" notes Daniel Charbit. "Not to mention the huge catalog of games". An advantage which also explains the high price of "portable console PCs", the offer of which is ultimately close to traditional computers dedicated to gaming.
The Win Max and the UFO make one think a lot about the Razer Edge released in 2013, by the eponymous American manufacturer. It is a Windows 8 tablet with an Intel Core i5, 4 GB of RAM and an Nvidia GT 640M. The beast is able to properly run games like the Tomb Raider reboot or Crysis 3. But it drags the same pans as the ultra-compact range of GPD: a high price (1,000 dollars for the standard version and 300 more for the Pro model, not counting the controllers sold separately) and not really convincing autonomy : one hour of play that can be doubled by buying a second battery.
The Nvidia Shield
If we had to redo the Game Boy / Game Gear match in 2013 with PC manufacturers – the power monster against the one that was retained -, the Razer Edge's opponent would be the Nvidia Shield, a sort of Xbox 360 controller to which we would have stuck a five inch screen. Released the same year as Razer's product, the device runs on Android and naturally gains autonomy : it takes six hours to exhaust the beast. Good point also for the price, set at 300 dollars.
But the comparison with the famous Game Boy stops there, especially at catalog level. Limited by a conventional tablet operating system, the Shield only runs games from the Google Play store. Games that are not all compatible with a pad. Not easy to take advantage of fully tactile titles – or worse, in landscape format – with a screen attached to the controller. Clarifications anyway that the console is compatible with the Gamestream system, which allows you to stream your PC games on the Nvidia Shield. And there is always the possibility of downloading an emulator.
The wonderful world of Chinese portable consoles
Incidentally, if you like the emulator / mobile machine combo, there is a world for you: that of foreign portable consoles – mostly Chinese – with emulation software pre-installed. There is one impressive amount, whose design is as close to the classic Game Boy as to its Micro iteration. Depending on the price, they can more or less manage 3D games well, even if the limit seems to be the PS2 and Gamecube titles (the GPD Win 2, however well equipped, barely spin them). A new step could be taken with the Win Max. The Chinese firm told us that its machine could run PS3 games at 30 fps.
The Wikipad
There was even a kind of hybrid between Razer Edge and Nvidia Shield: it’s the Wikipad, a seven-inch tablet also running Android, to which you can attach a large controller. In 2017, the eponymous company also tried to continue Nintendo in court under the pretext that the Joy-Con looked a little too much like its removable pad. But the Kyoto firm recently won the case.
In any case, whether it is the Wikipad, the Edge or the Shield, these products have not given any sign of life since their release in 2012-2013. We tried to reach Nvidia and Razer to learn more about the subject, but got no feedback. The first subsequently transferred its product to a classic tablet and then to a controller accompanied by a TV box, and the second continued on its way to the path of high-performance laptops. There is also no information on their sales figures. One had power and games, the other had autonomy. In 2017, Nintendo won over players with both.
