Is anyone else thinking of this as a potential Chromebook replacement? I love my Toshiba Chromebook 2 (and am using it to type this up!), but there are always those one or two applications that are Windows-only.
This tier of Windows laptops and Chromebooks have always been in competition. If you absolutely only need a browser, are happy with Chrome, and don't care that it's Not Windows(tm); a Chromebook is a great choice because of the simplicity and lower attack surface. If any of the prior don't apply get the Windows model instead.
Not too mention the OS is made by the worlds largest internet advertising business specifically to spy on you in order to serve unwanted advertising. How much better than Windows is that!
Absolutely. Been looking at cheaper Chromebooks for travel, but looking down the specs list for this I'm starting to find little reason to anymore. Beats the pants out of previous efforts like the HP Streams.
I'd like to see them offer a single M.2 slot in there somewhere - that way we could get a super cheap beater laptop and outfit it with a decent M.2 SSD storage device. Plus that would really leave any storage bottlenecks far... far... behind.
Indeed, there is, people are using it well, although, there's no way found to install the Windows on it (at least according to 4pda.ru). Someone, apparently, succeeded to install linux-like something
I love using my Toshiba CB2 when I'm travelling, but the crouton Ubuntu can sometimes be flaky. Having a native PC I can dual boot into windows or Ubuntu would be gold, especially at a price of $250, 14 inch size and under 3 lbs with an IPS screen.
When my CB2 bites the dust, I'll definitely buy this thing, or whatever equivalent is selling, its a no-brainer.
I do not understand why this cheap chinese laptops do not offer a pre installed and even cheaper Ubuntu Kylin option with the new UKUI for those that dislike the MS WOS 10 desktop, and or a cheaper Chrome OS version.
If MS WOS 10 cost near 100 USD in this prices the Kylin or Chrome OS version lower price would make them best sellers.
Unless MS has changed its policy, the Windows license is super cheap, if not free, for OEMs making Chromebook competitors, so Ubuntu or ChromeOS wouldn't make the laptop cheaper.
It's $15, exactly. The reviewer mentions that this laptop fluctuates between $250-265, but actually it's $250 for the one with the fake license, add $15 for the real license, when you order from the source. They actually explicitly mention this on the chinese page.
That means Chuwi charges $15 for the real one. It doesn't necessarily mean that's what MS is charging them for it, MS does offer cheaper licenses for low end hardware. With a 64GB SSD this laptop doesn't qualify for any of the thresholds that MS was using last fall though. OTOH MS has been having problems with companies buying the really low end cheap OS license and using it on non-qualifying machines. So it's entirely possible your choices are a fake licence and one not valid for the hardware you're actually getting...
Scary. The reviewer blew away windows with no reassurance that Linux was going on this thing (it failed to give the option numerous times). I'd recommend learning to use Knoppix (or some other "live OS") and use dd|compress to save the windows image onto a USB stick or something.
I've owned a x205ta and it was a nightmarishly miserable disaster for Linux conversion. As of early last year, there was a 33 page long forum thread in the Ubuntu forums documenting the struggles of people to get Linux working and stable on it. Maybe things have changed since then, but I'd suggest looking elsewhere for a Linux laptop, but people were running them without audio support, with skittish wifi, and periodic crashing. I struggled with one for a couple of months before restoring Windows 8 and donating it to a local charity for resale.
Thanks for looking into this market and providing a unique review. I see these products available but there's rarely any reliable info on how they really perform. Especially on battery life, where I always suspect the worst since the metrics are so fuzzy. At least, with this review, the picture is clear.
I bought an HP Stream 11 when they were closed out, and it does fine for web browsing including Youtube-type videos, document editing etc. So this Chuwi machine should satisfy those needs very well.
Chuwi hits all the right specifications for RAM and storage space that I'd like to see in a budget laptop and being fanless is nice too. I'd actually prefer a 11.6 inch screen and a 1366x768 screen because, for a small and cheap portable, 14 inches is actually more than I'd need and I'd rather push fewer pixels with the relatively weak GPU. Some of the touchpad and heat concerned expressed in the Amazon review section are a bit off-putting as well and I don't like an all white system. I just with HP would offer up a 64GB version of their Stream 11. If they did, I'd be falling all over myself to buy one.
According to what I found the really cheap windows license comes with a 32GB SSD requirement from MS. Assuming that's still the case 64GB would require HP to charge nearly $100 more for $10 of hardware, Chuwi is probably cheating MS to hit this price with 64GB.
Doubtful that 32GB is really an MS requirement but more likely the minimum recommended size for a boot drive
I've restored Win 8.1 32-bit to 16GB and 64-bit 8.1 to 20GB boot partitions before
32GB is likely the smallest SSD boot drive you will see in actual use
If I had problems booting Windows from the internal M.2 slot, I would run Windows to Go from the USB3 port which is fast enough for this class of processor and can then easily switch to a Linux thumb drive whenever I like
A 256GB Corsair GTX thumb drive would boot Windows a hell of a lot faster than that internal 64GB eMMC drive anyway and provides better security for my data
For example, anyone stealing the laptop would have an empty internal drive while my data remains safe in my pocket until the insurance replaces the hardware
I'm pretty sure it's legit. That was just the 1st cite I found, but matches what I've seen a few other places since W10 launched. MS has offered heavily discounted windows installs to low end computers since the initial linux based netbooks appeared almost a decade ago. In one way or another they've always limited it to the lowest tier of systems. The fact that mainstream makers either don't offer 64GB varients or charge prices significantly above the cost of the extra flash (eg the HP stream is $200 vs 260 on Amazon) is strongly suggestive that its where they're currently setting the cutoff.
32GB is restrictive enough (to the extent of causing problems with major win10 updates) that I wish MS would raise the limit to 64GB; but I haven't seen any evidence that they have. Other than that, the numbers are IMO reasonable for the netbook class system that have always been the targets of the program.
Would you test the Asus 402 and 403 ? In a similar sort of vein, they're apparently marketed as "premium budget notebooks" and go for 250-350$. The difference is the 403 is 1080p and the 402 is 768p. I think this category has some potential. If I found a 4GB/1080p e403 in the UK I'd buy one now.
In the registry, change the ExcludeFromCPL value for windowslogon to get the option in the sound panel, or just replace the windows logon .wav file directly.
Nice! Very cool to see a review of this cool little device!!! I got one of these for my wife this past Christmas. Was on a flash sale @ Newegg for $200 and she really wanted a super cheap 2 in 1 type system that supported micro sd. Before recovering it I had 0 faith in the product at that price and really thought a far more expensive known brand would be better for what she was going to use it for. Boy was I wrong. Other than our main computers it's the single most used device in the house. A bit heavy, but works far better than I would have ever expected of such a cheap device. Color accuracy of the screen is the shining aspect of this little machine. The color accuracy is so good, and the performance is good enough to do basic quick photoshop work, that my wife now uses it to give clients "sneak peaks " post photo op.
If I could don my tin hat for only a few seconds...Has anyone ever looked at the outbound traffic on these lesser known Chinese designed electronics? There was some controversy with Xiaomi router traffic even iirc.
A quick search didn't turn up anything. I don't think they're selling in large enough numbers to attract a lot of interest in sniffing their outbound traffic. It's a reasonable concern, but I don't think Chuwi would actively attempt to perform mass data collection. That's a pretty widely cast net that wouldn't reap much value because you're probably looking at largely home users. The data collection would be almost entirely uninteresting. Maybe some social networking, shopping and general web browsing, someone's hidden inappropriate photos and videos...that kind of thing isn't worth a lot unless you have a specific target in mind and in that case its more prudent to isolate that individual rather than everyone buying your products. Probably the best you'd get is access to someone's personal finances and a deep enough investigation would do a lot of damage to business interests. It's really worth more to establish a good brand reputation and land decent numbers of sales than it is to go through the trouble of getting one or two generations of hardware out there to a small number of people that probably are collectively deep in debt and have little liquid cash.
I think the concern would lay more on the government's involvement (The Chinese government is involved with virtually all exported electronics). I agree with every single thing you wrote, but Chinese businesses don't all exist for the sole purpose of making money.
to make such low costs devices you buy standard chips so I don't think they can put anything in it.
If chinese-designed chips have espionage software in them, then a bunch of the network infrastructure we rely on is bugged because huawei is everywhere in them. Also phones that use mediatek devices.
So worrying doesn't make sense, also because it's well-known from the various leaks and stuxnet that the NSA and the CIA and mossad don't need hardware to snoop or damage critical infrastructure so the chinese don't either.
Good to read about how Goldmont finally played out. MS must've been pissed when Intel cancelled Broxton, but I imagine it's now Intel's turn with Windows on 835 coming. It's a shame Intel did what they did as Goldmont appears to be good silicon.
The main competition in this price category is Chromebooks.
The fact that you are pitting this device in your comparisons against a Yoga 3 Pro and a Asus UX305, and not a single Chromebook, says all that needs to be said about the sorry state of AT these days.
Sure, I miss Anand & Brian, but when they left we got Jarred Walton Andrei Frumusanu, who at least knew what they were talking about. Ryan, these new writers you have hired do not stack up.
To clarify an obvious error: Jarred was here 10 years, and both Andrei and Brett were here well before Anand left. Brett has been one of our freelance editors for over two years and attends events such as CES and Build as our Senior Laptop Editor. If you dislike the context of this review, sure, I'll grant you that opinion, but he has a large body of great work under him already. He's not new, he knows the score.
On the testing front, it's a factor of what we get in for testing at any given time. Ultimately 90% of the time vendors want us to test their premium units, not something low cost. And there's a thousand low-cost options out there to potentially compare them against. When you've got a freelancer with time for 6-10 reviews a year, most of those will be high-end premium reviews. So if something interesting comes along, even at a super low price point, you compare against what you can or have at the time.
Which in this case, the HP Stream 11 is the perfect comparison point for all these benchmarks. The Yoga/Surface are added to show the comparison to what a high-end notebook investment would be, which users always want to know without having to dig through our results database. We do have some Chromebooks in our database, but they are old. We haven't tested one in a long while (so we don't have one in for retesting), and they were all done by a different reviewer over 1000 miles away at the time. Most of the Chromebooks are Atom based anyway, which is why the HP Stream is still a relevant comparison. Heck, I even recommended the Stream 11 to someone I know a couple of weeks ago, and she loves it (especially now there's a 360-degree hinge version).
I get what the OP is saying but it is misguided in this case. Brett's reviews are solid. Some of the review product choices (case and PSU reviews) have been questionable but other than mobile reviews I haven't seen a real decline in the quality of Anandtech's journalism. Yes, they have had some major misses in the last year (especially in the GPU space) but what they have actually written has been fairly solid content.
There is a chance, but not as 4 core parts. Maybe if they do a special 2C4T part with smaller gpu just for cheap and low tdp devices. Sorta like stoney ridge.
Not directly. 4C4T 2GHz @ 6W sounds more like Bobcat/Jaguar in the AMD world (what's in PS4/XBox1). Half a raven ridge would still suck twice the power (at max, probably doing more than twice as much).
On the other end, this whole architecture is a dead end. No idea how long Intel will produce it (or even update the GPU, they aren't updating the CPU). I doubt AMD is all that interested in updating the "cat" architecture either (although obviously they will continue to produce PS4/Xbox1 SOCs). Given time, "1/2 raven ridge" will probably become pretty competive for this type of thing, assuming you don't go straight to ARM chromebook/android/Linux on ARM/Win10ARM [Microsoft keeps insisting that last bit *is* a thing, but haven't managed to convince anyone else].
Maybe, but their 8/16 desktop parts being at the same TDP as Intels 4/8 ones suggests that their core design power is significantly lower than Intels, and the last few generations of their architecture can scale down to 4-6W from 90 at a 50% core count so AMD being able to do the same with Ryzen wouldn't surprise me. OTOH a 2/4 core chip at that level seems a lot more likely as a potential atom challenger. OTOH with the first Ryzen laptop parts not due until the second half of this year (and probably the 4th quarter or they'd've said Q3 instead of H2) I wouldn't be surprised if the first chip in this power class isn't available for a full year.
Ryzen 8/16 being lower than Intel 4/8 isn't as big a deal as it's being made of. The intel parts being used in that comparison all have a gigantic iGPU that takes up half the die space. This is the same issue as "Ryzen's chip is smaller than Core" well yeah because there is no iGPU! If you were to compare the non-iGPU portion of the Core die, you will see that it's smaller than the Ryzen die, and likely the same would hold true with power consumption. All that said, AMD will definitely have low power cores and they will most likely be on the Ryzen architecture. Way too early to even guess at performance but all signs point to it being a competitive chip.
This review is completely useless. Thanks for pushing the manufacturers to offer IPS laptop screens. Now that everybody has IPS models, the new frontier are the no-PWM displays.
Compared to Atom (22nm Silvermont and die shrink 14nm Airmont), Goldmont is a bit of a beast. Both Atom and AMD’s Bobat/Jaguar/Puma core can fetch and issue up to two instructions. Goldmont can do three. Like AMD’s (or VIA’s) Goldmont has a full out of order execution engine. „Much of the changes with Goldmont were about improving the out-of-order execution compared to Silvermont, with a wider decoder, better branch prediction, and a larger out-of-order execution window. Goldmont can perform one load and one store per cycle, and it can execute up to three simple integer ALU operations per cycle. There’s new instruction support for hashing with SHA1 and SHA256, and there’s new support for the RDSEED instruction.“
Is the RAM soldered? Last year I bought a couple of very cheap Acer ES1-331s where I could easily upgrade ram (up to 8GB) and add a bootable SATA SSD. Too bad they have a Braswell Celeron N3050 and a 768p (matte) TN display.
Adding something with x5 Z8300/Z8350 in the benchmarks would have been nice. There are a lot cheap-ish tablets and laptops and convertibles using that.
I bought this laptop and i'm loving. It's light, good for my use and affordable. The only problem is the trackpad but the rest its really good for its price
I´ve won a a Chuwi Hi12 tablet which can be converted to a notebook with the 40 dollars metal dock/keyboard that I frankly believe is good for the price. Even though support service quality is unknown, I recommend it.
for a 25 degrees C temp reduction for cpu at max load. in the video linked below, the guy does a minor heat sink modification. currently the heatsinking stack is: cpu to 1mm heat transfer pad to aluminum plate that acts like an internal heat sink. the mod is: add adhesive backed copper foil to plastic case, add 1mm copper shim between cpu and aluminum plate, and use heatsink compound. move heat transfer pad to transfer heat from aluminum plate to copper foil on case.
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comomolo - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I only wish they provided ANSI keyboard layouts (I need es-es). Using stickers is less than ideal. The price is not so slow as to justify this.comomolo - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
lowAndrew Vanelli - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Come on, man, lazer printing costs 10 bucksYaldabaoth - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Is anyone else thinking of this as a potential Chromebook replacement? I love my Toshiba Chromebook 2 (and am using it to type this up!), but there are always those one or two applications that are Windows-only.DanNeely - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
This tier of Windows laptops and Chromebooks have always been in competition. If you absolutely only need a browser, are happy with Chrome, and don't care that it's Not Windows(tm); a Chromebook is a great choice because of the simplicity and lower attack surface. If any of the prior don't apply get the Windows model instead.Diji1 - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Not too mention the OS is made by the worlds largest internet advertising business specifically to spy on you in order to serve unwanted advertising. How much better than Windows is that!TheinsanegamerN - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
A lot better, considering I trust MS far less then google, and chromeOS doesnt break itself nearly as often as windows does.mitcoes - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
You can use wine now in crossover apk or via croutontipoo - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Absolutely. Been looking at cheaper Chromebooks for travel, but looking down the specs list for this I'm starting to find little reason to anymore. Beats the pants out of previous efforts like the HP Streams.
bill.rookard - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I'd like to see them offer a single M.2 slot in there somewhere - that way we could get a super cheap beater laptop and outfit it with a decent M.2 SSD storage device. Plus that would really leave any storage bottlenecks far... far... behind.bill.rookard - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Never mind, apparently there IS an M.2 slot! Outstanding!Andrew Vanelli - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Indeed, there is, people are using it well, although, there's no way found to install the Windows on it (at least according to 4pda.ru). Someone, apparently, succeeded to install linux-like somethingwebdoctors - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I love using my Toshiba CB2 when I'm travelling, but the crouton Ubuntu can sometimes be flaky. Having a native PC I can dual boot into windows or Ubuntu would be gold, especially at a price of $250, 14 inch size and under 3 lbs with an IPS screen.When my CB2 bites the dust, I'll definitely buy this thing, or whatever equivalent is selling, its a no-brainer.
tipoo - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Still my favorite Chromebook design, it's a shame Toshiba exited the NA market. Would have loved a CB3.mitcoes - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I do not understand why this cheap chinese laptops do not offer a pre installed and even cheaper Ubuntu Kylin option with the new UKUI for those that dislike the MS WOS 10 desktop, and or a cheaper Chrome OS version.If MS WOS 10 cost near 100 USD in this prices the Kylin or Chrome OS version lower price would make them best sellers.
keeepcool - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Fuck thiskeeepcool - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Can post my comment, a fuck this is not spam, but two phrases saying that Windows licenses in volume are under 5 bucks is spam.asgallant - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Unless MS has changed its policy, the Windows license is super cheap, if not free, for OEMs making Chromebook competitors, so Ubuntu or ChromeOS wouldn't make the laptop cheaper.niva - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
No, it's not free. You can bet at least $10 went towards that license, maybe as much as $50.andychow - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
It's $15, exactly. The reviewer mentions that this laptop fluctuates between $250-265, but actually it's $250 for the one with the fake license, add $15 for the real license, when you order from the source. They actually explicitly mention this on the chinese page.DanNeely - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
That means Chuwi charges $15 for the real one. It doesn't necessarily mean that's what MS is charging them for it, MS does offer cheaper licenses for low end hardware. With a 64GB SSD this laptop doesn't qualify for any of the thresholds that MS was using last fall though. OTOH MS has been having problems with companies buying the really low end cheap OS license and using it on non-qualifying machines. So it's entirely possible your choices are a fake licence and one not valid for the hardware you're actually getting...http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/09/02/hardware-re...
wumpus - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Scary. The reviewer blew away windows with no reassurance that Linux was going on this thing (it failed to give the option numerous times). I'd recommend learning to use Knoppix (or some other "live OS") and use dd|compress to save the windows image onto a USB stick or something.GekkePrutser - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
Yep I also do exactly the same as that (using GRML as live OS).I always keep the image in case I need to return or want to resell the laptop.
hojnikb - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
i really wish there were more super cheap laptops in 11-14" range. Something like a 720p 11" display that can run linux for ~100$Can't find those.
dragosmp - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
refurb x205ta aren't too far from that markBrokenCrayons - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I've owned a x205ta and it was a nightmarishly miserable disaster for Linux conversion. As of early last year, there was a 33 page long forum thread in the Ubuntu forums documenting the struggles of people to get Linux working and stable on it. Maybe things have changed since then, but I'd suggest looking elsewhere for a Linux laptop, but people were running them without audio support, with skittish wifi, and periodic crashing. I struggled with one for a couple of months before restoring Windows 8 and donating it to a local charity for resale.andychow - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I've been waiting for the PINEBOOK ARM Linux Laptop to come out. ARM chip, but 79$ and 99$ for the 11" and 14" laptop, 720p display.hojnikb - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Same here. Looking for this one just because it's cheap and small, so if i lost it or break it, i don't care.Too bad not much info about it.
BFH - Saturday, March 25, 2017 - link
Refurbished Acer C720 chrome book fits the bill. I got one for $140 3 years ago.Arbie - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Thanks for looking into this market and providing a unique review. I see these products available but there's rarely any reliable info on how they really perform. Especially on battery life, where I always suspect the worst since the metrics are so fuzzy. At least, with this review, the picture is clear.I bought an HP Stream 11 when they were closed out, and it does fine for web browsing including Youtube-type videos, document editing etc. So this Chuwi machine should satisfy those needs very well.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Chuwi hits all the right specifications for RAM and storage space that I'd like to see in a budget laptop and being fanless is nice too. I'd actually prefer a 11.6 inch screen and a 1366x768 screen because, for a small and cheap portable, 14 inches is actually more than I'd need and I'd rather push fewer pixels with the relatively weak GPU. Some of the touchpad and heat concerned expressed in the Amazon review section are a bit off-putting as well and I don't like an all white system. I just with HP would offer up a 64GB version of their Stream 11. If they did, I'd be falling all over myself to buy one.DanNeely - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
According to what I found the really cheap windows license comes with a 32GB SSD requirement from MS. Assuming that's still the case 64GB would require HP to charge nearly $100 more for $10 of hardware, Chuwi is probably cheating MS to hit this price with 64GB.http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/09/02/hardware-re...
Bullwinkle J Moose - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Doubtful that 32GB is really an MS requirement but more likely the minimum recommended size for a boot driveI've restored Win 8.1 32-bit to 16GB and 64-bit 8.1 to 20GB boot partitions before
32GB is likely the smallest SSD boot drive you will see in actual use
If I had problems booting Windows from the internal M.2 slot, I would run Windows to Go from the USB3 port which is fast enough for this class of processor and can then easily switch to a Linux thumb drive whenever I like
A 256GB Corsair GTX thumb drive would boot Windows a hell of a lot faster than that internal 64GB eMMC drive anyway and provides better security for my data
For example, anyone stealing the laptop would have an empty internal drive while my data remains safe in my pocket until the insurance replaces the hardware
DanNeely - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
I'm pretty sure it's legit. That was just the 1st cite I found, but matches what I've seen a few other places since W10 launched. MS has offered heavily discounted windows installs to low end computers since the initial linux based netbooks appeared almost a decade ago. In one way or another they've always limited it to the lowest tier of systems. The fact that mainstream makers either don't offer 64GB varients or charge prices significantly above the cost of the extra flash (eg the HP stream is $200 vs 260 on Amazon) is strongly suggestive that its where they're currently setting the cutoff.32GB is restrictive enough (to the extent of causing problems with major win10 updates) that I wish MS would raise the limit to 64GB; but I haven't seen any evidence that they have. Other than that, the numbers are IMO reasonable for the netbook class system that have always been the targets of the program.
dragosmp - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Would you test the Asus 402 and 403 ? In a similar sort of vein, they're apparently marketed as "premium budget notebooks" and go for 250-350$. The difference is the 403 is 1080p and the 402 is 768p.I think this category has some potential. If I found a 4GB/1080p e403 in the UK I'd buy one now.
crimson117 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I'm really hoping this laptop makes a Chewbacca sound when you open the lid.andychow - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
In the registry, change the ExcludeFromCPL value for windowslogon to get the option in the sound panel, or just replace the windows logon .wav file directly.pattycake0147 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Or provide you with some chewy granola bars in the box.wolfemane - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Nice! Very cool to see a review of this cool little device!!! I got one of these for my wife this past Christmas. Was on a flash sale @ Newegg for $200 and she really wanted a super cheap 2 in 1 type system that supported micro sd. Before recovering it I had 0 faith in the product at that price and really thought a far more expensive known brand would be better for what she was going to use it for. Boy was I wrong. Other than our main computers it's the single most used device in the house. A bit heavy, but works far better than I would have ever expected of such a cheap device. Color accuracy of the screen is the shining aspect of this little machine. The color accuracy is so good, and the performance is good enough to do basic quick photoshop work, that my wife now uses it to give clients "sneak peaks " post photo op.coder111 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
How well does this run Linux?Is there a version with Linux preinstalled?
BrokenCrayons - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Here's a link to a reviewer that tested the Lapbook with Ubuntu:http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/02/07/installing-...
The results look promising.
tipoo - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
If I could don my tin hat for only a few seconds...Has anyone ever looked at the outbound traffic on these lesser known Chinese designed electronics? There was some controversy with Xiaomi router traffic even iirc.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
A quick search didn't turn up anything. I don't think they're selling in large enough numbers to attract a lot of interest in sniffing their outbound traffic. It's a reasonable concern, but I don't think Chuwi would actively attempt to perform mass data collection. That's a pretty widely cast net that wouldn't reap much value because you're probably looking at largely home users. The data collection would be almost entirely uninteresting. Maybe some social networking, shopping and general web browsing, someone's hidden inappropriate photos and videos...that kind of thing isn't worth a lot unless you have a specific target in mind and in that case its more prudent to isolate that individual rather than everyone buying your products. Probably the best you'd get is access to someone's personal finances and a deep enough investigation would do a lot of damage to business interests. It's really worth more to establish a good brand reputation and land decent numbers of sales than it is to go through the trouble of getting one or two generations of hardware out there to a small number of people that probably are collectively deep in debt and have little liquid cash.fanofanand - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
I think the concern would lay more on the government's involvement (The Chinese government is involved with virtually all exported electronics). I agree with every single thing you wrote, but Chinese businesses don't all exist for the sole purpose of making money.Bullwinkle J Moose - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Good point tipooThis article just today and all the turmoil at Samsung and S Korea makes me think we should be looking out for malware popping up in other places
Even places we have considered to be quite reliable up till now
https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/03/preinstal...
Things seem to be escalating but I'm sure the CIA will put a start to any malware threats to this Country (LOL)
Murloc - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
to make such low costs devices you buy standard chips so I don't think they can put anything in it.If chinese-designed chips have espionage software in them, then a bunch of the network infrastructure we rely on is bugged because huawei is everywhere in them. Also phones that use mediatek devices.
So worrying doesn't make sense, also because it's well-known from the various leaks and stuxnet that the NSA and the CIA and mossad don't need hardware to snoop or damage critical infrastructure so the chinese don't either.
Meteor2 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Nice review of a nice machine.Good to read about how Goldmont finally played out. MS must've been pissed when Intel cancelled Broxton, but I imagine it's now Intel's turn with Windows on 835 coming. It's a shame Intel did what they did as Goldmont appears to be good silicon.
aryonoco - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
The main competition in this price category is Chromebooks.The fact that you are pitting this device in your comparisons against a Yoga 3 Pro and a Asus UX305, and not a single Chromebook, says all that needs to be said about the sorry state of AT these days.
Sure, I miss Anand & Brian, but when they left we got Jarred Walton Andrei Frumusanu, who at least knew what they were talking about. Ryan, these new writers you have hired do not stack up.
Ian Cutress - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
To clarify an obvious error: Jarred was here 10 years, and both Andrei and Brett were here well before Anand left. Brett has been one of our freelance editors for over two years and attends events such as CES and Build as our Senior Laptop Editor. If you dislike the context of this review, sure, I'll grant you that opinion, but he has a large body of great work under him already. He's not new, he knows the score.On the testing front, it's a factor of what we get in for testing at any given time. Ultimately 90% of the time vendors want us to test their premium units, not something low cost. And there's a thousand low-cost options out there to potentially compare them against. When you've got a freelancer with time for 6-10 reviews a year, most of those will be high-end premium reviews. So if something interesting comes along, even at a super low price point, you compare against what you can or have at the time.
Which in this case, the HP Stream 11 is the perfect comparison point for all these benchmarks. The Yoga/Surface are added to show the comparison to what a high-end notebook investment would be, which users always want to know without having to dig through our results database. We do have some Chromebooks in our database, but they are old. We haven't tested one in a long while (so we don't have one in for retesting), and they were all done by a different reviewer over 1000 miles away at the time. Most of the Chromebooks are Atom based anyway, which is why the HP Stream is still a relevant comparison. Heck, I even recommended the Stream 11 to someone I know a couple of weeks ago, and she loves it (especially now there's a 360-degree hinge version).
fanofanand - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
I get what the OP is saying but it is misguided in this case. Brett's reviews are solid. Some of the review product choices (case and PSU reviews) have been questionable but other than mobile reviews I haven't seen a real decline in the quality of Anandtech's journalism. Yes, they have had some major misses in the last year (especially in the GPU space) but what they have actually written has been fairly solid content.Mikuni - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Pointless, probably $400 in Europe.vladx - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
It's around 300 euros here in Europe.YoloPascual - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Given the perf/watt of zen architecture, can we expect AMD to release ryzen mobile chips at this tdp?hojnikb - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
There is a chance, but not as 4 core parts. Maybe if they do a special 2C4T part with smaller gpu just for cheap and low tdp devices. Sorta like stoney ridge.YoloPascual - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
This is what I am thinking too. AMD seems to emphasize "scalability" of zen architecture. I wonder if they can scale downwards too.wumpus - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Not directly. 4C4T 2GHz @ 6W sounds more like Bobcat/Jaguar in the AMD world (what's in PS4/XBox1). Half a raven ridge would still suck twice the power (at max, probably doing more than twice as much).On the other end, this whole architecture is a dead end. No idea how long Intel will produce it (or even update the GPU, they aren't updating the CPU). I doubt AMD is all that interested in updating the "cat" architecture either (although obviously they will continue to produce PS4/Xbox1 SOCs). Given time, "1/2 raven ridge" will probably become pretty competive for this type of thing, assuming you don't go straight to ARM chromebook/android/Linux on ARM/Win10ARM [Microsoft keeps insisting that last bit *is* a thing, but haven't managed to convince anyone else].
DanNeely - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Maybe, but their 8/16 desktop parts being at the same TDP as Intels 4/8 ones suggests that their core design power is significantly lower than Intels, and the last few generations of their architecture can scale down to 4-6W from 90 at a 50% core count so AMD being able to do the same with Ryzen wouldn't surprise me. OTOH a 2/4 core chip at that level seems a lot more likely as a potential atom challenger. OTOH with the first Ryzen laptop parts not due until the second half of this year (and probably the 4th quarter or they'd've said Q3 instead of H2) I wouldn't be surprised if the first chip in this power class isn't available for a full year.fanofanand - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
Ryzen 8/16 being lower than Intel 4/8 isn't as big a deal as it's being made of. The intel parts being used in that comparison all have a gigantic iGPU that takes up half the die space. This is the same issue as "Ryzen's chip is smaller than Core" well yeah because there is no iGPU! If you were to compare the non-iGPU portion of the Core die, you will see that it's smaller than the Ryzen die, and likely the same would hold true with power consumption. All that said, AMD will definitely have low power cores and they will most likely be on the Ryzen architecture. Way too early to even guess at performance but all signs point to it being a competitive chip.OnthroX - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
$230 at GearBest with a EU Plug (vs $270 at Amazon)http://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_602696.html
I added DHL Shipping for $5 -- order came out to a total of $235.23
My first time shopping at GearBest but I hear they are okay.
Diji1 - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
Good to see Ars covering a Chuwi product.The "Chinese manufacturers" phone, tablet and ultra/laptop recieves relatively little coverage in English speaking media which should change IMO.
It would be great if you looked at Cube, another Chinese brand on tablets andultrabooks.
lakedude - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
"Good to see Ars covering a Chuwi product."Um, Anandtech?
pSupaNova - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
https://techtablets.com/ he covers them all with videos tooPWM_IS_THE_NEW_IPS - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
PLEASE TEST FOR PWM!!!This review is completely useless. Thanks for pushing the manufacturers to offer IPS laptop screens. Now that everybody has IPS models, the new frontier are the no-PWM displays.
osamabinrobot - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
anyone check to see if its phoning home yet? thats my biggest fear from some of these brandsTralalak - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
Compared to Atom (22nm Silvermont and die shrink 14nm Airmont), Goldmont is a bit of a beast. Both Atom and AMD’s Bobat/Jaguar/Puma core can fetch and issue up to two instructions. Goldmont can do three. Like AMD’s (or VIA’s) Goldmont has a full out of order execution engine.„Much of the changes with Goldmont were about improving the out-of-order execution compared to Silvermont, with a wider decoder, better branch prediction, and a larger out-of-order execution window. Goldmont can perform one load and one store per cycle, and it can execute up to three simple integer ALU operations per cycle. There’s new instruction support for hashing with SHA1 and SHA256, and there’s new support for the RDSEED instruction.“
My Asus Aspire ES13 (ES1-332-P2VZ) with Intel Pentium Quad Core N4200 1.1GHz - 2.5GHz (Goldmont - Apollo Lake):
source: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/intel-pentium...
jimjamjamie - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
"This is one of the worst sounding speakers I’ve ever seen in a notebook"That's a special set of eyes you have there, Brett
BrokenCrayons - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
There's really nothing wrong with that statement. One might hear the sound the speakers make, but can also physically see them inside the notebook.LED Lights Undg - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
Is the RAM soldered?Last year I bought a couple of very cheap Acer ES1-331s where I could easily upgrade ram (up to 8GB) and add a bootable SATA SSD. Too bad they have a Braswell Celeron N3050 and a 768p (matte) TN display.
0ldman79 - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
Single chain, not channel.Just makes those of us that deal with it regularly twitchy. :)
Visual - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
Adding something with x5 Z8300/Z8350 in the benchmarks would have been nice. There are a lot cheap-ish tablets and laptops and convertibles using that.WJMazepas - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
I bought this laptop and i'm loving. It's light, good for my use and affordable. The only problem is the trackpad but the rest its really good for its priceBadelhas - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link
I´ve won a a Chuwi Hi12 tablet which can be converted to a notebook with the 40 dollars metal dock/keyboard that I frankly believe is good for the price. Even though support service quality is unknown, I recommend it.mikegrok - Thursday, March 16, 2017 - link
for a 25 degrees C temp reduction for cpu at max load.in the video linked below, the guy does a minor heat sink modification.
currently the heatsinking stack is:
cpu to 1mm heat transfer pad to aluminum plate that acts like an internal heat sink.
the mod is:
add adhesive backed copper foil to plastic case,
add 1mm copper shim between cpu and aluminum plate, and use heatsink compound.
move heat transfer pad to transfer heat from aluminum plate to copper foil on case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhtgUHZYjZ8
PCHardwareDude - Wednesday, March 22, 2017 - link
I guess the code has already expired because it says it's not valid for me. That's a shame.Brett Howse - Thursday, March 23, 2017 - link
They sent a newer one that's good until today you can find it here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9798/best-laptops