Owning a modern PC gaming handheld is a wonderfully convenient way to enjoy AAA gaming on the go, but it frequently involves playing uncalled-for matches of digital Tetris with your internal storage. As modern video games continue to swell in size—often demanding well over 100 gigabytes per installation for top-tier titles—players find themselves constantly juggling which games to keep installed and which to uninstall.
Storage expansion has traditionally come by way of microSD cards, which offer a straightforward remedy that can be added externally without requiring the user to open up the console. While convenient, microSD cards have long been hampered by performance bottlenecks, offering significantly slower read and write speeds compared to the blistering NVMe solid-state drives that modern gamers have come to expect. BiWin’s newly revealed CL100 Mini NVMe SSD aims to tackle both of these stubborn storage problems head-on, arriving in a remarkably diminutive 15 x 17 mm form factor complete with a custom casing. In terms of sheer physical dimensions, it is effectively the size of a standard microSD card, yet it harnesses true NVMe solid-state technology.
The existence of this tiny storage unit was first spotted earlier in the year by hardware enthusiasts tracking component leaks and industry trade shows, but it had not yet been given a formal product name or a clear commercial selling price until recently. As details continue to emerge from manufacturers, it is becoming clear that the BiWin CL100 Mini is designed to serve a very specific niche within the rapidly expanding portable PC market.
Currently, the unit is bespoke to a select lineup of hardware, tailored specifically for BiWin’s ecosystem of OneXPlayer consoles—including the OneXFly Apex, the OneXFly Air, the OneXPlayer 3, the X1 Air, the X2 Mini, and the Super V/X series—as well as the GPD Win5. These particular gaming handheld systems have been engineered with dedicated hardware slots specifically built to accommodate this exact miniature drive size. Because of this specialized design, users can insert the CL100 Mini directly into the device much like they would insert a traditional SD card, bypassing the tedious and often intimidating process of internal hardware installation.
To fully understand the engineering leap that the BiWin CL100 Mini represents, it helps to look at the current industry standards for portable gaming hardware storage. For comparison, the standard M.2 2230 solid-state drive found tucked away inside the Valve Steam Deck and various other popular portables on the market is, unsurprisingly, 22 millimeters wide by 30 millimeters long. While compact by desktop PC standards, an M.2 2230 drive is still vastly larger than the BiWin CL100 Mini. More importantly, upgrading or replacing an M.2 2230 drive in devices like the Steam Deck requires users to physically open up the console chassis, carefully disconnect internal components, handle delicate ribbon cables, and deal with tiny, easily lost M.2 screws—a procedure that can easily deter less technical consumers who simply want more space for their video game libraries.
By shrinking the NVMe form factor down to a 15 x 17 mm footprint that fits into an external or easily accessible slot, BiWin is pointing toward a potential paradigm shift in how handheld manufacturers might design future generations of portable gaming PCs. Eliminating the need to pry open a delicate handheld console just to swap out a storage drive removes a major barrier to entry for casual users. At the same time, maintaining NVMe-tier performance speeds addresses the primary grievance that tech enthusiasts have long held against traditional microSD card expansion.
As the market for portable PC gaming hardware continues to mature and diversify with new entries from specialized manufacturers like OneXPlayer and GPD, component innovations such as the BiWin CL100 Mini highlight the industry’s ongoing efforts to balance raw performance with user convenience. Whether this ultra-small form factor will eventually find its way into a broader array of mainstream devices from other manufacturers remains to be seen, but its introduction marks a notable milestone in the ongoing evolution of handheld storage solutions.
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