This is the 1x player 1x fly apex the fastest gaming handheld in the world
But we're not gonna look at that just yet because I want to look at this the frost bay a
Water-cooling unit that takes it from 80 watts TDP all the way up to a whopping
120 Wow
What is handheld about this
This is a whole freaking water cooling setup you got your radiator you've got your
Seriously, you're ripped off the cooler master logo and called it cooler doctor
Philport Wait, wait
No Ain't no way. I mean that's all that's in here other than of course this quick connect water cooling tube thing
Rotates counterclockwise to lock that is counter
Intuitive Let's have a look at the apex. I'm legitimately so excited to check this thing out
It's a direct competitor to the gpd win 5 which I've been really enjoying
I played through just about all of expedition 33 on it and I had an amazing experience
Thanks to the up to Ryzen AI max 395 plus processor that thing is an absolute
Monster I'm talking 16 Zen 5 CPU course 32 threads
8,000 megatransfer per second LP DDR5 x memory which matters a lot because of the Radeon 80 60 s
GPU you can run triple a games on this handheld on its 8 inch
1200p display at like high settings and
I gotta say I
Think they actually kind of nailed the ergonomics for it to be clear. This is a heavy handheld
And I don't even have a battery attached to it yet
But it's quite holdable for an 8 inch Alright, let's have a look at the inputs and outputs. Shall we we've got capacitive joysticks pretty satisfying feeling clicky d-pad
Oh, I really like the face buttons, too
Nice clicky micro switch style, but with a little bit of travel before you get to the click. I really like that
It's almost like a like a hybrid approach Hall effect triggers that have a
Hair trigger switch That's not the most responsive hair trigger switch. I've never seen but it's not bad very reachable shoulders
Actually love the ergonomics of that along the top. We've got a headphone jack
Fingerprint sensing power button volume rocker USB a barrel jack. Okay
We're gonna have to talk about power profiles and charging quite a bit and a USB 4 port that does 40 gigabit per second and can charge but
Okay, I guess we're gonna get into it a little bit now The device is limited to 55 watts TDP while we're plugged into that. What's this?
All right So the water cooling is actually
Optional you can get it with or without and then if you get the water cooling add-on you can buy the frost bay for another
$200 which I
Mean it's not a little bit, but it's also not a lot for an external water cooling
It doesn't seem outlandish also on the back here
got a couple paddle buttons and oh
Interesting did 1x player use the same battery interface as GPD it looks
Extremely similar, but apparently is not quite the same. That's actually a bit of a disappointment
I'd prefer they were the same along the bottom. We've got another type C port a micro SD slot and then
Speaking of copying homework a mini SSD slot
There aren't a lot of options for occupying this But by when makes one and it can be found in up to two terabyte capacities and is much faster than a micro SD card
What else is in the box? Now let's talk about that battery
Whoo She was already a little on the heavier side
Now she's even a heavier. This is an 85 watt hour battery that
Unfortunately at the highest wattage that this thing can run at
It's not actually gonna last you that long to their credit though
One X player did what I would have liked GPD to do and they put a kickstand on the battery
So you can actually use a kickstand with this thing. Wow more copied homework. This is pretty much the same
like interface I
Suspect that one X player knows that not many people are gonna buy this water cooled option unless they're planning to use this like
Functionally as a desktop, which you could I mean it's a Ryzen a I max 395 plus
This is new it's a hex driver
That whoa Whoa, whoa Phillips head whoa flat head. Yeah, I think we've got better screwdrivers at LTT Store calm
Dude Strix Halo is so cool I just wish it wasn't so expensive
And I also wish that one X player was using the newly announced SKUs that have lesser CPUs
But still have the full-fat GPU, but unfortunately I have to assume that development was done on this unit before those were announced
Here we go
Not gonna lie I'm into it. Oh
Okay, this is pretty clever
So this is the air-cooled version which costs a little bit less because it doesn't include the water block, right?
There's your Ryzen AI max down there pretty standard, you know handheld layout at this point
Then you just take the top of
that cold plate for the CPU and
You just huck this copper plate on it This will allow you to assist the integrated air cooler by pulling heat
Directly off of over top of the chip here. You know what this handheld needed more weight
Apparently this thing's about 70 grams. So if you're not gonna use the external water cooler, I wouldn't opt for that version of it
Okay, you know what that's not that bad
One fan one piece of tape and I can get at a full 80 millimeter m.2. I
I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. That's not bad I think you could get a double-sided SSD in here, but you'd be putting more pressure on this ribbon cable than I would be comfortable with
It's not the sort of thing that I would be
Recommending even if maybe you could get away with it
Let's turn it on after telling you about our sponsor
Oh now seems like a good time to address that like the Win 5 there is an umbilical cord option
You have to pay extra for it in this case, but it allows you to run the battery separately with just like a lead to it
I Kind of thought that was silly back when I did my unboxing of the Win 5
But when I was using it for a period of a couple months actually
I found myself almost exclusively using it that way because it turns out that having all this weight hanging off your hands
It's just it's not great
This kickstand helps a fair bit. It would make me more likely to care about having the battery attached, but
Wow is this over a kilo with the battery on it because it feels like it's over a kilo and also there's a little bit of play in
this attachment
Doesn't feel reassuring, you know Think what I would probably do is put like a
Higher I see they've already done it, but I would put a bigger foam sticker here
So you like really compress that so it doesn't move around. Oh, I haven't shown you guys the power brick yet
Dude, this is the unboxing that never ends man
Is That an XT60?
Everyone knows I was kidding when I talked about using XT60s for PC power, right?
You have got to be kidding me here
One X
One X player advertises up to 240 watts of charging off of this again brick and
XT60 connector and Is this
Is this only a three-foot cable? I mean, I guess being an XT60 you could kind of mod any cable you want
But this is this is not a very good handheld experience ladies and gentlemen like look at this
I have to get that all the way to the top of the device
What the Sam heck were they thinking putting this short cable on it?
They were thinking you put it to the frost bait first
Does it matter which ones which they're not labeled. Okay, okay, so it's just one is just
Passed through okay. This is also not great. This is an extremely short cable
Okay, we'll get to the we'll get to the frost bay later first
I want to see this thing in its maximum performance glory
By the way, it's worth noting that while it supports 240 watt charging like
Basically any device it only does that for a little while and it especially only does that for a little while before really
settling down you know in
theory a capacitive joystick is a really high quality way to
build a joystick Unfortunately, this is about the cheapest feeling implementation that I've ever felt the responsiveness of it is great
The feel is not I feel like something's wrong here
Okay, let's press the 1x button. Ah, yes, we're at 20 watts
Let's go to 80 shall we?
Whoa, that's more like it
Listen to those fans go buddy. This is 50% fan. Ah
You can control the vibration motors
Wow, this is a really nice little resolution tool
1x players overlay has improved a lot since the last time I looked at it. This is
insane Like sure, I'm only getting
30 FPS, but guys, this is cyberpunk 2077 and
Sure, okay, I'm using some fidelity FX upscaling, but I'm running up freaking like high
Like here if we actually went to the steam deck preset, okay steam deck preset 720p like a steam deck
Jeepers creepers 150 160 FPS
This thing is an absolute monster. It's so loud
but So is the win 5 give me a second I
I Almost exclusively game on it using my AirPods so that I can tune out the fan noise quite blockable
Quite blockable indeed. Okay, what about the speakers?
Those are shockingly rich
speakers It's kind of a shame that I'll never get to use them because the fans are so loud
Okay, let's go to a power profile that I'd be more likely to actually use
Now we're talking reasonable fan noise to the point where I can actually use the speakers
still incredible performance at very usable image quality and
If you're running at 45 watts, you'll actually get like a couple hours of battery life out of it
or at least I Don't know it's complicated because unlike the win 5
One X player has made the odd decision to limit the power to 20 watts for the last
20% of your battery and there's no obvious way to override that that we've been able to find either way up until that time
It'll be pretty solid. Let's try the water cooler. So I'm gonna assume this needs to be full of water first
There's no real power switch on it. The frost bay doesn't have a conventional on off switch
so So we need to go into the full one X player utility and
Then we have to pair it via Bluetooth in summary
Getting the water cooling system connected is not super intuitive. Okay connect. Hey, I
Think we're there. We are connected now
What did it? Oh, there it is. It just kicked in 120 watts. Let's go. Okay, so the cooling system
Is in smart fan curve mode. We're getting 50 milliliters per minute
Is anyone else seeing that number and going Yo, what that's like nothing. I'm pretty psyched right now though. I can't wait to try this
You can't have the battery kickstand on at the same time as this
But they do have like a cardboard eco stand that you can put it on with the
Dock with that said the way this dock is configured with like no tether distance or anything
It's pretty clear that it's a it's a desktop
Dock like this is not meant for handheld use at all
This thing is so insane
We're closing in on 200 FPS late. Okay. Yeah, it's turned down pretty low. But watch this
Okay, forget this steam deck nonsense now. We're gonna go ultra
Yeah, sure. We'll use upscaling, but we're gonna use the native resolution of the panel this time
So we'll upscale to that and we're getting a casual 80 plus FPS
Holy crap
Freakin Smooth and could I even run native?
dude You could run native 1200p ultra on this thing. That is so sharp
We're still getting like 70 plus FPS and the temps are fine
not amazing all things considered I
Would kind of think that the water cooling unit would be doing more man
I mean, it's definitely carrying heat away. This tube is warm and
This one is cool It it needs more water flow and I'd be down to like put a better pump in this thing get some real water flow going like this is
This is so cool
Pump is running at 50% look we can turn it up and the water cooler is disconnected again
And I can't get it 220 watts, but you know what as I already said realistically
the water cooler is not something that I expect pretty much anyone to
Actually use with this thing and the good news is that it already has I
Was gonna say class leading performance without the water cooler, but it just has
Leading performance without the water cooler. It manages a slightly higher maximum TDP compared to the GPD win 5 and even at 75 watts
Because of 1x players emphasis on GPU power versus CPU power in graphically intensive games
You should expect a little bit more performance with that said the GPD win 5 did outperform
The apex in for example rocket league at 1080p, which is a little bit more of a CPU bound scenario
Bottom line you're getting other worldly performance in a handheld form factor with this thing like it's just mind-blowing
I mean black myth that 720p was what like over a hundred FPS well over a hundred FPS at reasonable settings
With all of that said as someone who has daily districts halo device in a handheld form factor
I'd say unless you're plugged into the wall it's very unlikely that you're actually gonna be running it at maximum wattage and that's where 1x players solution for
Their barrel charger really falls short for me. I'm not a big fan of that. I need a longer cable with that said
I feel like they make up a lot of that ground in the superior ergonomics of the device
Compared to the GPD win 5 not to mention the larger display. It has about the same peak brightness around 500 nits
And it does 120 Hertz variable refresh rate. So there's no real compromises there. It's just a big
Pretty bright beautiful display. We're gonna throw up some battery results here
But there's a very important caveat and that is that as I mentioned before the apex
Drops to 20 watts when it has 20% battery left. So realistically
I'd expect real-world results that are a lot closer to what's listed in the GPD win 5 column because they are very similar devices
Now the only question is if all this looked appealing
What could it cost Michael? $10 for the base model with a Ryzen AI max 385. It's oh
Then for the upgraded one with more RAM and a 395. It's oh
Then if you want the water cooler, it's
I'm just making noises because they keep changing the pricing. It's actually gone up since we started shooting this video
So it's really cool though water cool
Subscribe to ShortCircuit if you guys are looking for another video to watch
Why not check out the unboxing of the GPD win 5?