The other day I sent GPD a list of interview type questions so as to get a better understanding of GPD the company etc.
Wade was kind enough to respond, the interview questions and answers are below. Forgive me if I missed your question, in hindsight, I know I forgot some.
1) A lot of people still do not know much about GPD / Softwin the company, can you tell us some details about the company like:
a) When was GPD started? Wade: 2012
b) How many employees do you have? Wade: 30
c) Who are the owners of GPD? Wade: There are 4 founders - wade wang, ricky xie, sky yang, samty chen
d) Can you provide a photo of the GPD office and team. No one has ever seen the office or the faces behind GPD Wade: This is not on hand now, it will be necessary to go back to the opportunity to make up for it. In fact, we like low-key products, not very good or care about external image publicity
2) Can you tell us about the long term goals of GPD. Wade: Small and beautiful, focus on a point (mobile handheld game device), to do this niche consumer favorite innovation product
3) I understand that GPD used to make consoles and products for other companies , is that something you still do? If so, are there any third party brands GPD make products for that you can mention? Wade: OEM / ODM is our main business model before
2015 we have stopped the OEM / ODM model, the transition to do their own brand
over the past 10 years, most of the Chinese manufacturers are OEM / ODM model for other national brands do product design Production, but the drawbacks of this model is the production of manufacturers profit too little, the vicious commercial competition led to
1, product homogeneity
2, design and production only the pursuit of low-cost low prices, resulting in extremely poor product quality
3, manufacturers away from the consumer , Because their customers are only OEM brands and sales channels rather than consumers, the channel is the first factor to consider the product profit margins / how much money rather than the product itself
4) What GPD branded products are being produced at the moment (XD, WIN, G5A, Q9 etc etc) ? Wade: Currently there are only three products: xd win pocket
5) In the past GPD has done crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo, Makuake and on JD.com. I know Kickstarter is not open to China, but are there any plans to partner with a western company to do a Kickstarter campaign in the future? Wade: The future will not be in kickstarter
because our sales chain is very short, GPD - terminal retailer - user
our price system only authorized distribution price - terminal retail price
if we operate our own activities, all the price is very close to the distribution Price, which means that third-party companies do not have enough profit space to operate all. In addition, the global logistics and transportation work is a very tedious work, the various countries of the customs policy and transportation costs are very different, if the third party to operate these, there may be a lot of risk.
6) Can you tell us how many GPD WINs have been sold? Also, how many XDs have been sold and how many GPD Pockets have been sold? Wade: That is confidential
7) One of the issues a number of users have faced, is the lack of ability to obtain a replacement battery for the GPD WIN. I understand you may be oganising supply with the Pandora shop in Germany to cater for regional customers there. But do you have plans to get supplies of batteries out to other regional resellers in the US, Australia etc? Wade: For the moment, the German Pandora's shop is being considered because other regional distributors have not raised the demand
8.) Does GPD have any plans to make a gaming smartphone? Wade: No, we're not good at it.
9) What are GPDs current plans for a GPD XD 2?. Will we see the XD 2 launched in 2018?. Any planned specs you can share with us? Wade: We will now give priority to the xd upgrade to Andrews 7.0, named xd +
Xd2 priority is not the highest, we have other projects have a higher priority
10) Kendy Zhu had been the PR face for us here on Dingoonity for some time. I understand she has now left GPD and someone else has taken that role. Who is the new person and how can they be contacted? Wade: All the suffix is gpd.hk mailbox can be contacted, if the previous staff left, there will be other people take over the use of this account, so continue to contact the mailbox before
11) During the Indiegogo campaign for the GPD WIN, backers were told that a Linux distribution would be developed and made available via download for the GPD WIN. Is Linux still coming for the GPD WIN? Wade: Linux is not the domain we are good at, the solution to this problem is that we upgrade our products to the core M series as soon as possible, the Linux driver of this chipset is very perfect
12) I noticed a company in Japan had started making accessories for the GPD WIN. I think I saw anti glare screen protectors and protective cases. a) Is GPD actively working with other companies to produce accessories for your devices?. Wade: Sorry, we didn't take the initiative to do this.
b) Does GPD have plans to produce their own accessories? Wade: There are some, such as pocket protection package
13) What consoles and products are GPD planning to build in the future? Wade: Confidential
14) Can you tell us more about this device being developed by GPD? -> https://i.imgur.com/HdLj4DY.jpg Wade: This is a new attempt, but also a concept. For mobile phone travel (especially the Moba type game with a very much-pointed skill release key), it will use a single joystick touch-screen hybrid operation mode, which is a new mode, and XD's handle button image mode is different (not support the joystick touch-screen hybrid operation mode)
15) One of the biggest issues that people mention regularly that I believe is holding GPD back as a company , is the issue of repair support for customers outside of China. The feeling is that there needs to be regional places around the world where people can send their faulty consoles to for repair. Is GPD working with their regional resellers for them to receive consoles needing repairs. With the resellers then sending the consoles to GPD in china for repair, and back out to the customers when they return back from GPD? Wade: Most of our distributors do not have professional maintenance capability, the current solution is to contact our official online mailbox, we will have someone to follow up. The usual approach is: 1, the hardware problem to send the product back to repair 2 software problems through the brush firmware can solve 3) parts of the problem can be mailed to replace the part
16) Are you concerend about competition from the upcoming Smach Z console which is now scheduled to launch in 2018? Wade: I've been watching Smach Z. If their first product can reach a high standard, there is no doubt that the future will become GPD's direct competitor.
17) Ok, so a number of people are interested to know more about the GPD WIN 2. Here are some questions that the community has about the WIN 2: a) What mAh size will the battery be? Wade: For the time being, I can only say it's big.
b) Will you be able to swap the battery out easily with another battery like you can with the Pyra? Wade: Sorry, I do not understand what can be easily replaced by the battery, in fact, the replacement of the battery is not complicated.
I do not know whether the user needs to spare battery can be charged, if there is a need to develop a separate charge of this
separately, we all developed Products are supported 5v mobile power charging, another point of view on the market today, all mobile phone mobile power can be called a backup battery
c) What size and resolution will the screen be? Wade: For now, that's confidential
d) Can you confirm the WIN 2 will have a M.2 2242 slot? Wade: Yes
e) Will it come in a number of configurations and price points? Wade: For now, that's confidential
f) What price will the WIN 2 be? Wade: For now, that's confidential
g) Is the M3 7Y30 SOC confirmed for the WIN 2? Wade: Yes
h) Will there be a WIN2 model with 4G / LTE Mobile Data? Wade: No, I personally think there is no need, now the smartphone has WiFi hotspot function, if you need 4G Internet, just turn the mobile phone WiFi hotspot on
i) One of the things peoples want in the WIN 2, is clickable joysticks. I noticed the Nintendo Switch has low profile clickable sticks which were developed by a company called Hosiden. Has GPD made contact with Hosiden to try and get a supply of these low profile clickable joysticks? Wade: L3/R3 placed as shoulder buttons is also a viable solution, I personally prefer ALPs joysticks
j) I see the Dinput mode has been removed from the WIN 2. Why was that removed? Wade: Mouse ---- handle This statement is more concise and intuitive, sacrifice 10% of the compatibility in exchange for 90% of people more simple and easy to understand that the definition of the function of the switch, which is a more I agree with the design and development orientation. Senior professional players like the more comprehensive the better, and most people prefer simple and intuitive things.
k) What are the dimensions of the GPD WIN 2? Wade: Temporarily confidential, there is little difference to the current WIN (WIN 2 is slightly larger)
