Buy your next laptop on Aliexpress... MAYBE?

I haven't used a Chuwi for about 3 years, but my experience was similar, the build quality felt way better than expected for the price. The CPU was disgustingly slow though, some random Celeron I'd never heard of, so it's cool to see that they're using something decent now.

Never thought I'd hear Linus say 'Buy' and 'AliExpress' in the same sentence without grinning

i noticed a pretty consistent pattern servicing laptips - business laptops are designed to be relatively easy to service and come with good manuals for technicians. Premium consumer goods are hit or miss, but budget laptops are purepousfully difficult to disassemble.

That easy access panel for the SSD is pretty sweet. My first ever laptop was $500. It's cool seeing how far the price range has come, especially if you're willing to poke around.

I'm glad you are calling out HP at 16:34 for hiding the screws, my last 3 laptops have been HP, and they all had this problem for when I upgraded RAM or SSD. (Pavilion, Laptop, then Pavilion again, both pavilions are 1366x768, actually most specs for the laptop were all better than the pavilions but it had a plastic chassis). Another thing, here in El Salvador, they are selling models with 4/8 GB RAM, lower CPUs and the aforementioned screens at 800-900 USD, so I will definitely be exploring chuwi when I am due for a laptop renewal

I got an HP 15 with an R5 5500U, about 2.5 years ago for $450. It only came with a 1x8gb 3200 stick of RAM and a 256gb SSD. I upgraded it with a matching spec 1x8gb 3200 stick of RAM and got a way bigger m.2 SSD for it for cheap on Ebay. Still works great. I don't use it a lot but with dual channel 3200mhz memory those Vega 8 graphics can slap. Even runs Diablo 4 pretty stable with FSR. The screws being under the feet is the only thing I greatly dislike about this generation of HP Laptop. They've been using this chassis for like 3-4 years now, it's the one little detail that will keep me from looking at HP for my next laptop.

I bought a Chuwi tablet in 2016 for $275 and it was way better than the price would indicate. That quad core atom CPU wasn't amazing but it was fine for schoolwork and content consumption. The thing that sold it for me was the screen and I/O. It used the same 12" screen as the previous gen Microsoft Surface. 2 USB A ports, micro SD slot, and mini HDMI out all in an aluminum chassis. FOR $275!!! OH and that included a magnetic keyboard. Really cool to seem them still making fantastic cheap computers.

7 days later and there's at least two things to note here. 1. Chuwi does sell on Aliexpress, and they have laptops on AliExpress right now, however, they are cheaper and even more low-end than the laptop featured in this video. As Linus said in this video, they bought this laptop directly from Chuwi's website, not AliExpress. 2. Chuwi's website went down for at least a full 24 hours in this past week. Once it returned, the laptop that you see in this review was no longer available, and is still no longer available. The cheaper laptops look nearly identical, but they have a lesser spec cpu, and less RAM. No word on whether the better laptop will return later, but for now it looks like this video has done its damage to Chuwi's inventory.

I'd like to see you guys test their entire lineup of laptops vs more mainstream options. This one did so well, that I am now curious if that ends up being the case for the others.

Yes, the Chuwi has some problems with the battery, but if you think about the fact that you can easily have a battery back-up for it due to USB-C, then it becomes less bad in my opinion. I sometimes used my powerbank on my laptop and even though it can't really charge it, it at least solws down the discharge

I agree on the arrow key thing. I hate using the half keys on the two arrows I use the most. I need full keys (or at least consistently sized ones if they MUST be slimmed).

I daily a Dell Inspiron with i5-1135G7 and 16GB of RAM. It get a plastic chassis, but it have a 2.5 inch HDD mount and a NVMe bay. I dual-drive it. For daily driver you want robust reliability, above all else. Hp will be able to push BIOS and other updates along the way, smaller companies cannot be said equally.

Asus Zenbook 14 and 14X goes on sale often for 500-600usd, 14X is more It has a 2.8k oled display, 14X is 120hz as well. They have 13th gen core H processor

"It's a big deal for a student" *proceeds to plug $250 backpack

Laptop display brightness is huge imo. I got my GP66 thinking the 1080p 300 nit screen wasn't a big deal but swapped in a 1440p 400 nit screen a few months ago and the difference is insane.

also another thing I think the Chuwi has over other cheap laptops is that the trackpad is centered. I know its a super small detail, but it is just such a pet peeve of mine when manufacturers have the trackpad off to the left a little bit. The centering of the trackpad is enough to give it the premium look

It's always depressing for me when I see fantastic tech prices (especially laptops from HP/Dell) only to find out that the identical model available in Germany costs at least 50-70% more..

Chuwi has been making budget laptops and tablets in China for more than a decade now. They have always been great at this budget segment, though I'd say the laptop in this video is probably one of the higher end and more expensive option they offer.

Chuwi, from my experience, feels really close to what a Huawei laptop feels especially between the Huawei Matebook 14 (one I own) and the Chuwi Corebook 14. So far, I have been using the Matebook for work and I'm quite satisfied. Chuwi has always been notably slower and now I know why. I wonder if LMG can do a quick review of the Matebook series and see how it really compares to the Chuwi. If anything, you can have a slew of comparisons since other chinese companies have done the same trend with their notebook and laptop models like Realme (Realme Book), Infinix (INBook Y1), and Xiaomi (RedMi Book). From what I can tell, this seems to be a decent attempt at making Macbook clones but I kinda like it. Not everyone will though and I respect that.

Hey Linus, I met one of the members of your production staff this weekend while at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. It was a good vibe. Thanks for doing your tech tips.