Chuwi LapBook Review - ComputerShopper.com
Introduction, Design & Features
If you’re a relatively unknown PC manufacturer, it makes more sense to focus on entry-level systems than on high-end or even mid-level ones. You might be able to convince prospective buyers to part with a few hundred dollars if the deal looks good enough. But getting them to drop a couple of thousand on a brand they’ve never heard of is a much harder sell.
The Web site for Chuwi, a laptop manufacturer based in the tech-manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, China, says that it was established in 2004. But while Chuwi may be known well enough in its home country, the company and its products haven't yet made any kind of a splash in the United States. Indeed, we'd heard of this firm only tangentially before this laptop surfaced for review.
So when GearBest.com, a popular e-commerce site that sells lots of mainstream and esoteric tech gear shipped (mostly) directly from China, approached us about reviewing the 15.6-inch-screened Chuwi LapBook, we were equal parts intrigued and skeptical. We knew GearBest.com well for its inexpensive accessories and straight-from-Asia gadgets, but we hadn't before sampled the Chuwi brand of laptop, available in the U.S. primarily via this seller.
The reason we agreed to a review? On paper, at least, the Chuwi LapBook sounded like a pretty good deal. And—to an extent—is. But the execution and the caveats leave a lot to be desired.
At this writing, the Chuwi LapBook we tested came in at $245.99 direct from GearBest, as our system came configured. (The pricing seemed to fluctuate in the several weeks we had the laptop on hand.) The Chuwi LapBook sports a 15.6-inch full-HD display (the native resolution is 1,920x1,080), and it is powered by a 1.44GHz Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor. (This is from the generation of Atom chips known as "Cherry Trail.") The supporting components are 4GB of RAM, a 64GB chunk of eMMC flash memory (acting as the boot drive), and the integrated Intel HD Graphics that are part of the Atom CPU.
Before we go on, we should note that the only place we could find to buy a Chuwi LapBook in the U.S. at this writing, apart from a few random eBay sellers, was indeed from GearBest.com. And it seemed that all shipments of this product were originating directly from China. GearBest.com does have a network of warehouses in various countries, including the United States, but this laptop wasn't shippable from a U.S. source at this writing, from what we could tell on its site.
Indeed, our review unit came shipped via DHL straight from China. (It also came without a U.S. power plug; more on that later.) Note that, according to the warranty terms on the site, should you need to ship the system back, for any reason, it will be at your expense. That gave us some pause.
Design & Features
Consisting mostly of white plastic, the Chuwi LapBook’s case measures 14.6x9.4 in footprint and 0.87 inch thick, and it weighs 4.1 pounds. With the lid closed, you’ll see the Chuwi logo, scribed in grey, with “LapBook” written underneath it. Black accents appear at the rear of the system and at its sides, where you can see the black plastic of its display’s bezel.
As you make your way to the LapBook’s sides, you’ll find that port offerings are a little on the sparse side for such a big-screen laptop. On one side, you’ll find one USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, and a card slot that can be used for MicroSD cards up to 128GB in capacity...
On the opposite side, you’ll find the power jack, one USB 3.0 port, and a micro-HDMI port...
That’s it, as far as physical connections go. So with only two total USB ports and no full-size HDMI, you may need to keep a dongle or two on hand, and perhaps even a USB hub on your desk.
As you pop open the lid, the black keys on the LapBook’s keyboard and the black bezel around its display provide a nice contrast to the white plastic surrounding the keys. The keyboard is not lit, as you'd expect at this price, but it was responsive, and furthermore, more comfortable to type on than we expected for the bucks. The top-right key serves as the power button, with no other physical buttons to be found on the keyboard surround or the edges. A little unusual is the fact that no dedicated keys (or even key combinations) were available to control the brightness of the display, forcing you to use Windows 10's own software menus to make such adjustments. That was especially odd as there were function-key combinations available, for example, to adjust the speaker volume level.
Nothing about the keyboard was more unusual, though, than how hard it could be to get the system to boot up.
On multiple occasions, the system simply would not start up unless the power button was held down for a good 20 seconds or more. Now, this didn’t happen every time we booted, leading us to believe (hope?) that this was just an issue with our specific unit. But it was disconcerting on the occasions that it did occur. To the system’s credit, though, the boot process was sprightly enough once it did get going, thanks to the flash memory. And an interesting thing to note, power-wise, is that while the power jack on the Chuwi LapBook itself seems to be proprietary, the other end of the power cable uses a standard micro-USB connection. That said, GearBest shipped us the laptop with an "EU power plug," meant for European sockets. We had to supply our own international adapter to make it work with U.S. wall power. That said, you can get the laptop shipped with a U.S. plug. But you have to be careful when buying that that is what you specify.
Above the keyboard are just a few indicator lights. Below the keyboard, meanwhile, was a nicely sized touch pad that was responsive once we learned to avoid the left and right edges. Swiping in these areas triggers Windows gestures, either zooming out to show open windows, on the left, or bringing up the action center, on the right.
Opposite the keyboard is the LapBook’s 15.6-inch display, surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick black bezel. The display itself was underwhelming. While it is billed, by Chuwi, as being an IPS display, it looked more than a bit faded and didn’t offer nearly the viewing angles that we have observed on other IPS panels. Particularly when viewing it from a bit above the panel, it was close to impossible to read any text on the screen. Also, colors, in general, looked a little washed out, even when looking at the panel straight-on.
In the center of the bezel, just above the display, you’ll find the obligatory low-quality Webcam. The video quality it offered was as grainy as we’ve come to expect from integrated Webcams. (Chuwi notes that Windows 10 limitations limit it to an effective 0.3 megapixel in resolution.) While the camera isn't great, this isn’t uniquely a knock against the Chuwi LapBook.
The LapBook’s audio capabilities, meanwhile, are markedly worse than we expect from a laptop of its size, most of which have enough interior real estate to house speakers that are at least passable. While budget laptops have never offered sound quality that would satisfy any audiophile, the LapBook’s audio sounds like it’s playing through a tin can, possibly via an attached string. It's as thin as we’ve heard from a modern laptop, and it sounded like it was playing in mono. You'll want headphones.
For network connectivity, the LapBook offers 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. There is no support for 5GHz Wi-Fi networks via 802.11 or 802.11ac, and no Ethernet port available for wired connections.
Moving, finally, to storage, the LapBook offers a 64GB serving of flash memory as the boot drive; it's a chunk of eMMC memory. Though this is flash memory, don't confuse this with a true solid-state drive (SSD). It's more akin in responsiveness and traits to a flash drive or a memory card. For secondary storage, you do get the option of using a MicroSD card to add up to 128GB of additional space. With Windows 10 eating up about a quarter of the initial 64GB on its own, keep in mind that you won’t be installing all that many programs onto this drive.
Software & Support
One thing you don't have to deal with here is bloatware. Not much software comes pre-installed on the LapBook beyond Windows 10, some basic utilities, and a few Windows Store apps ready to use. With only 64GB of storage space to play with, after all, there’s only so much bloatware that Chuwi could possibly stuff onto the system.
Chuwi offers a one-year limited warranty on the LapBook. But, as we mentioned, earlier, the Web site specifies that shipping costs to return the system, if needed, are at the customer’s expense. And, as you can probably guess, shipping a 5-pound laptop and its accessories to China isn’t exactly cheap, nor fast.
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