Chinese budget tablet manufacturer Chuwi began branching out into laptop territory this year, and as per usual with "China speed," the Shenzhen company has already fine-tuned the design a couple times over. Back in July, I tested the Chuwi 12.3, a mid-range laptop with the exact same 12.3-inch 2k resolution display panel as the Microsoft Surface. I liked that laptop, and worked off of it for a two week test period, but found it a bit generic looking.
Chuwi has addressed the problem with a new laptop, named the Lapbook Air. As the name sort of hints at, it takes design cues from Apple's MacBook Air line, and for the most part, Chuwi has succeeded. From the matte grey finish to the tapered profile (its thinnest part is just 6mm thick) to the full-sized keyboard with individually spaced keys, the Lapbook Air is hands down Chuwi's best-looking device yet. At 3-lbs and roughly 13" x 8.6" x 0.8" in size, it's portable enough, though still bigger than the 13-inch MacBook Air.
The computer is powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron N3450 processor clocked at 2.2GHz. This is firmly in mid-range category and cannot compete with the high-end Intel i7 processor on more expensive devices like the Eve V. The story's the same with the Lapbook Air as is with every budget Chinese laptop or tablet: you can't play heavy games and you can't edit 4K videos in big chunks, but running Chrome with dozens of tabs, Spotify, Slack, and basic Photoshop worked just fine. In other words, this laptop is more than enough the majority of consumers.
In terms of I/O ports, it's a bit of a letdown. There are two USB-A 3.0s, a Micro-SD card slot, a mini-HDMI out and a headphone jack. There is no USB-C port, and charging is done via Chuwi's proprietary port, which sucks because I've fallen in love with the idea of charging all my devices with USB-C. The Chuwi Surbook can be charged via USB-C, as can other Chinese tablets by Teclast.
USB-C is the future of ports. Its reversible nature, fast data transfer capability and ability to deliver a much higher voltage makes it easily the best option for gadgets. Everybody in tech knows this -- even Apple, which is why the company swallowed its pride and ditched the MagSafe power adaptor for USB-C in its new MacBooks. So for Chuwi to use a proprietary power port for the Lapbook Air after giving us USB-C charging in older devices is a frustrating.
Anyway, in addition to the ports, the laptop has two bottom-firing speakers (both sound decent despite the odd location at the bottom of the device) and supports Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. All of these work fine and are in line with budget laptops.
The 1920 x 1080 14.1-inch IPS LCD panel is solid, with a max brightness of 243 nits (which is acceptable), but it's also a step back from the Surbook's 2k-resolution resolution screen. I always say that the average human can't tell the difference between Quad HD (aka 2k resolution) and standard 1080p on a mobile display, but on a display north of 12-inches, I can, in fact, see the difference. It's not a big deal -- and basic thing computer things like sending emails and browsing Facebook won't matter -- but the difference is noticeable if one were to look for it.
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The Lapbook Air also sports a 16:9 screen aspect ratio instead of the 3:2 on the Surbook. This makes the Lapbook Air a bit better for watching movies and videos, but less useful for writing papers. That's about it for complaints, however, as the Lapbook Air is still an excellent budget device for those who do basic work. The keyboard, as you can probably tell from photos, are comfortable to type on, offering very satisfying travel. The trackpad, however, is again hit and miss. I've resigned myself to the fact that trackpad tech is perhaps too sophisticated for budget devices to get right. While the trackpad area is large enough, it's way too sensitive and the gesture shortcuts are too easily triggered. I gave the trackpad a shot for two days before switching to a mouse, after which my frustration level dropped to almost zero immediately.
Battery life is a bit below par but not too bad. The 10,000 mAh battery gave me about six to seven hours of power on average. That's sufficient, since it's never hard to find a power outlet in a big city like Hong Kong anyway, but I would feel more safe using this as a travel work machine to somewhere more remote if Chuwi upped the battery to something 12,000 mAh. For about $400, I suppose I can't complain much. Overall this is relatively cheap device that looks great and can get the job done for me.
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This is something that's hit me this past year as I get my hands on more and more budget Chinese devices. They're all getting very high quality, to the point that it almost doesn't make sense for people who don't need the most power to buy anything else. For example, my 65-year-old mother uses an iPhone 7, and all the iPhones' "premium features" are wasted on her. Like most older people, she's not tech-savvy, she doesn't know how to use 3D touch, she's not going to be multi-tasking super heavily (not that you can truly multi-task on an iPhone anyway); she takes photos with flash on (ugh) meaning she doesn't really care about photo quality. So to her, a $150 budget smartphone from one of the dozens and dozens of obscure brands can do the exact same job for her as an iPhone.
The same applies to laptops. I'm much more of a power user on smartphones than on the computer. I don't play computer games, and the bulk of my work is word processing and basic photo/video editing. To me, a sub-$400 laptop from any brand can get the job done. But yet I paid $2,000 for a Dell XPS13 earlier this year because I'm a gadget geek who likes to splurge.
I'll be honest: I feel like a fool paying $2,000 for a Dell XPS13 just for word processing and YouTube watching when there are $400 laptops like the Chuwi Lapbook Air around.
