In the last couple of months, we got to see plenty of sleek gaming handhelds to cater to the growing demand of the audience. Take the GPD Win Max 2, for example. It takes a different approach compared to the other handhelds, as it appears more like a handheld gaming laptop with plenty of power inside.
GPD Win Max 2 vs Steam Deck
But how powerful is GPD Win Max 2 compared to Valve’s Steam Deck? In this article, we’ll compare them head-on to help you decide better.
Design & Build
As mentioned earlier, GPD Win Max 2 is a handheld laptop that offers the best of both a handheld and a laptop. The form factor is easier to carry, while the qwerty keyboard will let you perform various sets of tasks other than gaming. As for gaming, it includes hall sensor joysticks, D-Pad, and triggers that are comfortable to game with. It also has plenty of connectivity options, including a headphone jack, 1 HDMI, 2 USB A, and 2 USB-C ports on the back. So users can easily pair it up with an external display or GPU.
Steam Deck, on the other hand, is quite big and bulky compared to most handhelds that currently exist on the market. It is loaded with buttons that include 2 Precision Trackpads that make navigation and aiming a bit easier. Another cool thing about the Steam Deck is its 4 grip able buttons at the back that can be customized for seamlessly performing in-game actions.
Connectivity
The steam deck has a 3.5-millimeter audio jack and a MicroSD slot for connectivity. While the Win Max 2 has more connectivity options and a multipurpose form factor, the Steam Deck has plenty of gaming-oriented features that are ideal for handheld gaming.
Display
Display-wise, the 10.1-inch GPD Win Max 2 has a very thin bezel with about a 90% screen-to-body ratio. The touch IPS panel on this thing has 60 hertz of refresh rate with a native resolution of 2560 by 1600p. As for the Steam Deck, it has a 7inch diagonal screen with a native resolution of 1280 by 800p and 60 hertz of refresh rate. The screen is also touch enabled and has a typical 400 nits brightness. A bigger screen with enhanced pixel counts does sound sweet on the GPD Win Max 2. However, the screen on the Steam Deck will also get the job done while draining less of the battery.
Internal Specs
Under the hood, Steam Deck is packing an AMD Zen 2 APU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads. As for the GPU, it has 8 RDNA 2 CUs. The entire APU operates at a minimum of 4 Watts and a maximum of 15 watts. This is coupled with 16GB of LPDDR5 memory, making it quite a capable machine.
Win Max 2, however, has two CPU options. You can either get it with a 12th Gen i7 1260p or a Ryzen 7 6800U chip. Other than that, it has 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and 1 TB of internal storage.
Final Verdict
“So comparatively, Win Max 2 has powerful CPU options while the Steam Deck packs a capable GPU for gaming. You also get more storage in the Steam Deck while the memory stays the same for both.”
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