I’ve never been a fanboy of any smartphone or laptop company as I review so many devices on a regular basis, but my relationship with Chuwi devices is as close as it gets. Ever since my first Chuwi device, the Chuwi Vi10, their products have been consistently good, and many of them great also.
Chuwi Lapbook Air Review
This is without a doubt the finest laptop Chuwi has ever made, and they have created a perfectly balanced laptop that is sure to satisfy everybody looking at an Apollo Lake device. A metal chassis, abundance of ports, and a great screen is just half of what the Lapbook Air offers. However, it has a massive flaw, and that would be the price. The Lapbook Air commands a huge premium over the similarly performing Chuwi Lapbook 14.1 which admittedly doesn’t have as many accoutrements as this Air, but is good where it counts. Let’s see what Chuwi has done.
Chuwi’s Best
Chuwi Lapbook Air Specifications
| Processor | Intel Apollo Lake N3450 |
| Display | 14.1″ 1920×1080 Glossy LCD Display |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 128GB SSD |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
| Cameras | 5MP Camera |
| Battery | 10,000mAh |
| Physical Dimensions | 32.92 x 22.05 x 2.05 cm, 1.74 kg |
Big thanks to Gearbest for providing this review unit.
Chuwi Lapbook Air Hardware
This Chuwi laptop is worthy of the “Air” moniker. With a body made of handsome, aircraft grade aluminum, the Air cuts a very nice figure. The chromed, chamfered edges shimmer prettily with the matte body providing a striking contrast (you can tell I’m gushing at this point).
We are given an excellent array of ports, two full size USB ports, a headphone jack (rarer and rarer nowadays), microSD card slot, and a full size HDMI port. Full size HDMI ports on these ultraportable laptops have been life savers on many occasions (on my Xiaomi Air 12) and I salute Chuwi for including one here. If I were to complain about port selection, it would be the lack of a USB-C port (or a microUSB port). I wish companies like Chuwi would not only include these ports but use USB-C for charging instead of regular DC ports.
Opening up the laptop, I’m greeted by black bezels around the screen. These black bezels are not exactly large or unsightly, but they aren’t tiny either. The Chuwi Lapbook 14.1 had very thin side bezels, why couldn’t the Chuwi Lapbook Air? Nevertheless, the bezels while not huge are not as small as they could be either.
The keyboard here provides adequate travel and adequate feedback when depressed, I was able to type very easily on this laptop. Its backlit as well, but the backlighting is somewhat uneven, making it look slightly cheap. However, the backlighting does come in very useful in dark situations. I do have one complaint, and that would be the pressure required to depress the power button. It’s the exact same as the other keys, meaning that you will definitely press it by mistake, putting the computer to sleep. I would have much preferred a power key that required significantly more pressure to press than this did.
The trackpad here is excellent, very accurate, multi-finger gestures are nice and smooth, it looks like Chinese manufacturers are quickly catching up to their bigger competitors in terms of multi-finger gesture software. Left and right clicks require quite a bit of effort to press, thus I usually rely on a light tap to activate the capacitive click instead of a physical one.
The trackpad surface is also unnaturally sticky, to the point of interfering with an otherwise normal finger slide. Wiping it down with a cloth does wear down the surface coating somewhat.
Gizchina News of the week
Exquisite
Chuwi Lapbook Air Display
The 14.1” IPS LCD is glossy, which makes it a pleasure to look at. Colours popped out of the screen and colour saturation was more than satisfactory also. Text looked crisp from regular laptop viewing distances and viewing angles are similarly good. Maximum brightness isn’t great though, maxing out at 250 nits, not bright enough even in shade outdoors.
Chuwi Lapbook Air Audio
The speakers are decidedly the weakest part of the laptop. Audio volume is adequate but not loud, and audio quality involves fairly average treble, below average bass, and less than crystal clear differentiation. Its definitely useable in every day life to watch movies or Youtube, but your phone most likely has better speakers than this for listening to music.
Chuwi Lapbook Air Battery
Battery life on the laptop is fairly characteristic for Apollo Lake laptops, the typical 10,000mAh battery can power the laptop for about 6 hours of web browsing if using Chrome and about 8 hours using Microsoft Edge. Understandably, this is at lower brightness levels, turn the brightness up or play a game and battery life will take a nosedive. While this isn’t ideal battery life, its not out of the ordinary for laptops utilizing the Apollo Lake chipset.
Average battery life
Chuwi Lapbook Air Software & Performance
We have activated Windows 10 on the laptop and this is installed on a 128GB eMMC. eMMC drives aren’t the fastest, and this Sandisk eMMC is not the fastest eMMC drive on the market today. I did see slight lag here and there that I didn’t otherwise see on a faster eMMC, but you can still do many basic things with ease, web browsing in Chrome, email, word etc. I was able to do some photo editing and basic video editing on this laptop but its not recommended as video editing is slow. Gaming performance is also typical of Apollo Lake devices, it struggled with 720p DOTA2, outputting 25-30FPS. Civilization 6 at 1080p was reduced to 10-15FPS, basically a slideshow at this point. This is definitely not a gaming laptop but you can run some older and lighter games on this laptop, Stardew Valley runs beautifully. The laptop does get quite warm during gaming and benchmarks, but the internal temperatures never got high enough to throttle the processor.
Chuwi Lapbook Air Connectivity
Chuwi has installed a dual band WiFi chip inside the laptop which was able to provide some very fast internet speeds, I experienced no issues with speed or range during my testing at all, standing with the best laptops in terms of connectivity. Bluetooth works well with all my devices also.
Chuwi Lapbook Air Verdict
Unfortunately, I still have to give this Lapbook Air a solid “don’t buy”. Even though Chuwi has slam dunked this Lapbook Air, making this pretty much the best Apollo Lake laptop available on the market today, the price is still too high. Selling for a rather exorbitant $379.99 USD, this laptop is not worth the money when a no sale Chuwi Lapbook 14.1” costs $250 and a Jumper EZBook 3 Pro costs $240. Sure, these two latter laptops are worse than the Chuwi Lapbook Air, but not $100 worse. However, bring that price down to $300 or even $330 and the Lapbook Air turns into a solid buy.
Amazing laptop, too expensive
Chuwi Lapbook Air Gallery
Sorry, but I don’t trust this company nor recommend it. I’ve bought a 15,6 Lapbook from them some months ago and its screen got defective. There is no one selling a replacement part anywhere. Then, I tried to contact Chuwi’s support. To begin with, it took about a week for them to answer my message. I’ve asked if they could sell me a spare part via aliexpress. They said they could, but it would cost me about US$90. WTF! I’ve payed US$195 for the whole laptop and they want all that money just for the screen? Then I asked if they could sell it for a more affordable price and they’ve never answered me. So, to sum up, they really sell affordable and relativelly good products (considering the price), but don’t expect a minimal support from them. If you buy anything from Chuwi, pray for it never get any defective. Or, don’t buy anything expensive from them.
chill out, you’re not the center of the universe, We got it you got a defective one
I think you didn’t get it. The problem is not getting a defective unit, but being uncapable to fix it due the lack of support.
You realize every single chinese manufacturer with the exception of Xiaomi and Huawei are like that right?
That is the main risk you take buying from China.
I would mention some other brands too, like oneplus, zte, lenovo, meizu…
But I totally agree with your conclusion at the end of this review. Paying almost 400 bucks for a chuwi laptop (that may got defective and be unfixable, like mine, due lack of support) is foolish.
And the same applies to over US$200 smartphones from all these new companies, like elephone, umidigi, vernee and others.
I have a vernee thor E, that I’ve payed 99 bucks for and I’m very satisfied with it. If its screen shatters and I can’t find a replacement one, it’s ok. But it wouldn’t be like this if I had payed US200 for it.
Hey. Elephone and Umidigi are not any new. They produce smartphones like forever. But not meaning they do it right. 😀 But Elephone is getting much better right now, when having a look at the S8 for example. And for Service and guarantee, Paypal is the only opportunity here to get any kind of Security there. It helped me a lot in different cases 😀
Greetings
Yeah Elephone is getting a lot better
Elephone is getting better but I still would advise against buying one because of their release schedule. A month after you buy their “new flagship” they launch a different one and abandon any chance at support for the one you bought.
Yeah that’s a huge risk you take if you want to save money
I have had a few Chuwi tablets including the Hi12, Hi10 Plus and Hi8. All of them worked fine, the Hi12 had some of the best battery life I have ever used. Never had an issue with any of them, sounds like you just got a defective unit.
Sorry, but I don’t trust this company nor recommend it. I’ve bought a 15,6 Lapbook from them some months ago and its screen got defective. There is no one selling a replacement part anywhere. Then, I tried to contact Chuwi’s support. To begin with, it took about a week for them to answer my message. I’ve asked if they could sell me a spare part via aliexpress. They said they could, but it would cost me about US$90. WTF! I’ve payed US$195 for the whole laptop and they want all that money just for the screen? Then I asked if they could sell it for a more affordable price and they’ve never answered me. So, to sum up, they really sell affordable and relativelly good products (considering the price), but don’t expect a minimal support from them. If you buy anything from Chuwi, pray for it never get any defective. Or, don’t buy anything expensive from them.
chill out, you’re not the center of the universe, We got it you got a defective one
I think you didn’t get it. The problem is not getting a defective unit, but being uncapable to fix it due the lack of support.
You realize every single chinese manufacturer with the exception of Xiaomi and Huawei are like that right?
That is the main risk you take buying from China.
I would mention some other brands too, like oneplus, zte, lenovo, meizu…
But I totally agree with your conclusion at the end of this review. Paying almost 400 bucks for a chuwi laptop (that may got defective and be unfixable, like mine, due lack of support) is foolish.
And the same applies to over US$200 smartphones from all these new companies, like elephone, umidigi, vernee and others.
I have a vernee thor E, that I’ve payed 99 bucks for and I’m very satisfied with it. If its screen shatters and I can’t find a replacement one, it’s ok. But it wouldn’t be like this if I had payed US200 for it.
Hey. Elephone and Umidigi are not any new. They produce smartphones like forever. But not meaning they do it right. 😀 But Elephone is getting much better right now, when having a look at the S8 for example. And for Service and guarantee, Paypal is the only opportunity here to get any kind of Security there. It helped me a lot in different cases 😀
Greetings
Yeah that’s a huge risk you take if you want to save money
Yeah Elephone is getting a lot better
I have had a few Chuwi tablets including the Hi12, Hi10 Plus and Hi8. All of them worked fine, the Hi12 had some of the best battery life I have ever used. Never had an issue with any of them, sounds like you just got a defective unit.
As for your customer support issue, that is what happens when you buy from China. If it’s not one of the big companies (Xiaomi, OPPO, Huawei, Lenovo) you will never have any chance at support.
Elephone is getting better but I still would advise against buying one because of their release schedule. A month after you buy their “new flagship” they launch a different one and abandon any chance at support for the one you bought.
The CHUWI Lapbook Air is 8GB RAM ,128G ROM and the screen is OGS it can give you more vivid visual ,the keyboard is backlight , so I think $359-369 is good
anyway, it is good for me
There’s price to every additional feature, you get what you pay for, truth in universe.
Remember they use an eMMC which is cheaper than an SSD also.
Bought this for $300 with a coupon on gearbest when it was available in limited units. I thing it is unbeatable at this price.
I also think that buying it with a coupon makes the price much more attractive. There is also one pushing the price down to 330 USD (ChuwiAirDe, Gearbest). But don`t know if that works for not german customers too.
Greetings
Yes at $300 this is a good deal. However, which eMMC did you get? I know different units use different brands, Samsungs are the best
I’m awaiting delivery. I will tell you when I get it.
great thanks
It’s a SanDisk.
I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s only $45 for 128GB SSD
https://kingspecfactory.aliexpress.com/store/group/NGFF-M-2/2348331_509510632.html
That’s really cheap! Didn’t know it was so cheap. But I really wouldn’t trust my data on a unknown manufacturer. At least if it was Foresee I might.
techtablets002 brings the price down to $320.99
Hello from Russia!
I have the same laptop. A great device, and it justifies its price by 100%, because have 128 + 8 GB on board. Cool that it has a metal body, it’s fine. Of course, there are some flaws, but you can find everywhere. And I especially liked the keyboard’s backlight, very good feature.
Very important though, I think not all Chuwi Lapbooks have the same eMMC drive. Techtablets has a Samsung drive in his and I have a Sandisk, what do you have?
The CHUWI Lapbook Air is 8GB RAM ,128G ROM and the screen is OGS it can give you more vivid visual ,the keyboard is backlight , so I think $359-369 is good
anyway, it is good for me
There’s price to every additional feature, you get what you pay for, truth in universe.
Remember they use an eMMC which is cheaper than an SSD also.
Bought this for $300 with a coupon on gearbest when it was available in limited units. I think it is unbeatable at this price.
I also think that buying it with a coupon makes the price much more attractive. There is also one pushing the price down to 330 USD (ChuwiAirDe, Gearbest). But don`t know if that works for not german customers too.
Greetings
Yes at $300 this is a good deal. However, which eMMC did you get? I know different units use different brands, Samsungs are the best
techtablets002 brings the price down to $320.99
I’m awaiting delivery. I will tell you when I get it.
I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s only $45 for 128GB SSD
https://kingspecfactory.aliexpress.com/store/group/NGFF-M-2/2348331_509510632.html
That’s really cheap! Didn’t know it was so cheap. But I really wouldn’t trust my data on a unknown manufacturer. At least if it was Foresee I might.
great thanks
It’s a SanDisk.
Hello from Russia!
I have the same laptop. A great device, and it justifies its price by 100%, because have 128 + 8 GB on board. Cool that it has a metal body, it’s fine. Of course, there are some flaws, but you can find it everywhere. And I especially liked the keyboard’s backlight, very good feature.
Very important though, I think not all Chuwi Lapbooks have the same eMMC drive. Techtablets has a Samsung drive in his and I have a Sandisk, what do you have?