This new Steam Deck rival wants you to stick its battery in your pocket

One of the most powerful upcoming rivals to the Steam Deck, the GPD Win 5, is set to launch in just a few weeks time, but its maker is already showcasing an experimental new feature that it hopes will make it lighter and easier to use. In a recent video, GPD has shown off a new battery extension cable for the gaming handheld that allows you to detach the battery to make the device lighter and easier to use.

Unusual battery options aside, this AMD Strix Halo-powered GPD handheld looks set to take portable power to a new level with specs that easily best those of any other model on our best handheld guide. There's already been an GPD Win 5 performance teaser showing it playing Black Myth Wukong with a high and steady frame rate, and we were impressed by the same 16-core AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 CPU that this handheld uses in our Asus ROG Flow Z13 review, but we'll still have to wait and see just how well the Win 5 performs ourselves.

The key to this new battery cable is that the GPD Win 5 is already designed to not use a built-in battery, instead requiring a separate battery pack. Initial images and videos shared by the company showed this pack to be quite a bulky solution. To solve some of those concerns, the company has shown off a prototype for a power extension cable to lighten some of the load.

The prototype cable, shown in the video above, attaches the GPD Win 5 to the battery pack using a separate cable without having it directly attached to the device. This has the benefit of making the handheld lighter in the hands, with GPD claiming a 1.1lbs (500g) weight reduction, allowing you to keep the battery in your pocket or on your lap.

One of the early concerns raised about the GPD Win 5 was that, without a built-in battery, you'd have to switch the device off to swap battery packs once it died. The company hasn't directly addressed this but has announced a charging station that allows for charging a second battery so you can make you batteries changes as rapid as possible.

Given that this is an engineering sample, it's unlikely that GPD is ready to deploy this cable for the handheld's launch. Still, given the concerns, it's interesting to see the company work quickly to test and develop new solutions to improve its design. With handhelds getting more powerful and hotter to run, keeping the battery physically separate is certainly one solution to making it easier to keep on gaming, while keeping devices easy to handle.

We'll have to see how this handheld handles in the real world once GPD releases it on October 17. Other Strix Halo handhelds are on their way, too, including this unusual OneXPlayer hybrid that's a tablet, laptop, and handheld, all rolled into one.

Make sure to check out our best gaming laptop guide if you're looking for a slightly bigger portable rig for your gaming sessions, with options to suit any budget.

Keen to try out one of these new handhelds? Start up a discussion in our Discord server with staff and other readers to let us know which one is tempting you, especially if you're thinking about ditching your Steam Deck for a powerful alternative like this one.