An Intel based PC gaming handheld based on its latest chips has emerged out in the wild.
As reported by HotHardware, a Windows OEM named Emdoor has been showing off and 8” handheld that touts a Meteor Lake CPU in the Hong Kong Electronics Fair.
Emdoor is a Windows OEM that specializes in rugged Windows laptops and tablets. They sell consumer facing rugged laptops, and Windows based devices used on an industrial level. These include computers for the healthcare industry, for use in smart buses, automation, agriculture, forklift operations, and more.
Emdoor’s handheld gaming device is named the EM-GP080MTL, and they provide these figures for the device:
- CPU: Intel Meteor Lake-H (20W-35W)
- GPU: Intel ARC Graphics 5
- LCD: 8″ 16:10 1200 x 1920
- Memory: Up To 32GB LDDR5X
- Storage: 1x SSD M.2-2280 up to 2TB-PCIe
- Gen4 x4
- OS: Windows 11
As you can see, these are all impressive specs. One could build a desktop computer with similar specs that could run games on high performance metrics.
Now, someone also uploaded footage from the event, but that video has gone offline. So what we know about this device comes exclusively from HotHardware’s coverage. It is possible that this device is a prototype for now.
Alternately, Emdoor might have been showing this off, not because they intend to produce it themselves, but because they are looking for a client they can sell this concept to. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for another OEM, such as Dell or Acer, to contract Emdoor to make this device or something like it.
The most interesting aspect of this device display is that it uses exclusively Intel parts. While Intel had recently left behind their NUC microcomputer/picocomputer business, they could be looking to find new business opportunities in this market.
The first Windows based gaming PCs started coming out around a decade ago. In fact, the original GPD Win ran on a modest Intel Atom x7-Z8700. For the next few years, the market for these devices were taken over by AMD, as they worked on making more power efficient chips.
AMD’s mobile chips now are more capable of running high specification games than Intel’s chips for a gaming portable. However, Intel has had more experience making laptop chips for decades, and they may actually be better equipped to address the needs of this market.
We haven’t really seen Intel directly make chips and technology for this market until now. AMD seems to have been content to make chips for a comparatively smaller niche of PC gaming, with many more gamers still buying Intel and AMD based laptops.
Intel entering this market could not just create competition for AMD, but it could open all the doors to make these devices mainstream. Intel need not compete with AMD on the high end – if they made gaming devices that ran smaller games, but were reasonably priced and had better battery performance, they could expand that market. There’s no lack of lower spec eSports games, and mass market games, like Fortnite and Minecraft, that could sell such devices and bring about mass adoption.
This is all speculatory talk at least, but there’s definitely something to be excited about simply knowing this device exists. We hope Intel will emerge as a serious contender to AMD in this market in the coming months and years.
