This is shaping up to be a busy year for mini-laptops, with new models coming from GPD, Chuwi, and One Netbook. The One Mix 3 Yoga is the first out of the gate, and it’s a little laptop with an 8.4 inch touchscreen display, a 360-degree hinge, and Intel Amber Lake processor.

It went up for pre-order in May, and should begin shipping in a few days. GeekBuying is taking orders for $760 and up (you can save $10 when using the coupon code BELWFNVY).

The folks at One Netbook sent me a demo unit to try out, and while I won’t have a full review for a little while, I wanted to share some initial impressions.

The model I’m testing is the entry-level version with an Intel Core m3-8100Y processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of solid-state storage. One Mix also sent me a digital pen, which is an optional accessory that sells for $20.

One Netbook also offers a higher-priced One Mix 3S Yoga with a Core i7-8500Y processors and double the memory and storage. It’s expected to start shipping in July for folks willing to spend $1250 on a laptop that’s probably not going to be anyone’s primary computer.

I say that mostly because the appeal of mini laptops like the One Mix 3 Yoga is their portability, not necessarily their performance. While the 5 watt Intel Amber Lake dual-core processors that power these little laptops perform admirably given their power constraints, you’re probably not going to want to use them for heavy duty tasks like video editing or mining Bitcoin.

While I didn’t have any trouble web surfing, watching videos, or editing documents on the One Mix 3 Yoga, I haven’t had time to test performance extensively yet. I will note that it does get pretty warm to the touch if you’ve been using it for a while.

The little computer is not fanless, but if you’re want it to run silently, you can press Fn + Del to disable the fan (and make the computer even hotter.

While the One Mix 3 Yoga isn’t exactly a speed demon, it is a surprisingly usable device thanks to a few key features that set it apart from the company’s earlier models like the original One Mix Yoga and One Mix 2S Yoga.

While previous One Netbook models sported 1920 x 1200 pixel displays, the One Mix 3 Yoga takes advantage of its larger screen to go higher-res: it has a 2560 x 1600 pixel display (359 pixels per inch).

Out of the box, the One Mix 3 Yoga’s display scaling is set to 250 percent, but if you want to fit more content on the screen you can adjust the the scaling settings to fit more content on the screen at once. I was able to go as low as 175 percent or 200 percent before things started to look too small to see.

Aside from the larger screen and newer processor, the biggest change is the larger keyboard and new key layout.

The One Mix 3 Yoga has larger keys than its predecessors that make touch typing a little easier. There’s still not enough room for a touchpad, but the optical touch sensor has been moved so that it’s below the space bar rather than in the middle of it. And the fingerprint sensor has been moved so that it’s above the Backspace key.

There are still a few oddities — the Tab key is above the 2 and the apostrophe and colon keys are next to the space bar instead of next to the L. So it takes me a moment to find those keys when I’m looking for them, but I’ve only been using the laptop for a few hours at this point. I suspect I’ll get used to the new layout eventually.

For now, I find I can type at up to 80 words per minute, which is a little slower than I’d type on a full-sized laptop, but still pretty good for a device that’s this small.

Flip the screen back 360 degrees and the One Mix 3 Yoga makes a pretty decent Windows tablet. At 0.6 inches thick, it’s a bit chunky for a tablet, but weighing just 1.5 pounds, it’s pretty comfortable to hold with one hand while watching videos, playing games, or reading eBooks or news articles.

It is heavier than One Netbook’s 7 inch models, which weigh about 1.1 pounds. And it’s less likely to fit into your pocket — unless you’ve got pockets that can hold an 8″ x 5.1″ x 0.6″ gadget.

Update: It does fit in the front pocket of my jeans… as long as I don’t plan to sit down. or bend my legs too much. My back pocket, not so much.

The One Mix 3 Yoga comes with a compact 30W USB Type-C charger. The cable it comes is only about 3 feet long, so you may need to buy a longer cable if you don’t plan to keep the computer right next to a wall jack while charging. But just about any USB-C cable should work.

You can also charge the laptop from a USB-C power bank. Unsurprisingly I had no problems charging it by plugging in a 45W power bank that I use to charge my HP Spectre x360 laptop. But I was also able to charge it by running a USB cable from a 5V/2.1A power bank which doesn’t provide enough power to charge my HP laptop.

Next to the USB Type-C port, there’s a USB 3.0 Type-A port and a microSD card reader, making it easy to connect accessories and/or additional storage. And on the left side of the One Mix 3 Yoga, there’s a micro HDMI port and a headphone jack.

The last thing I tested today was Ubuntu 19.04 Linux — it boots, but you have to jump through a few hoops and not everything works perfectly.

First, you’ll want to prepare a bootable USB flash drive, then plug it in, turn on the computer, and hit the Del key during startup to enter the computer’s UEFI/BIOS settings. Note that the settings will appear in portrait orientation, so you may have to tilt your head sideways to read the menus.

Next you’ll want to change the boot priority so that you can boot from a USB flash drive. Exit and save settings and you should be greeted with the GRUB boot menu asking if you want to install Ubuntu (or whatever operating system you’re trying) or try without installing. Choose the latter option.

On first boot, the screen orientation was upside down. I was able to fix this by opening a terminal window and typing “xrandr -o left” without the quotation marks.

After that, I connected to the internet, fired up a web browser, and played some YouTube videos. Audio, video, keyboard shortcuts, and WiFi all seem to work. The touchscreen and digital pen do not seem to be supported out of the box. So if you’re planning on buying a mini laptop specifically to run Ubuntu on it, you may have some troubleshooting to do.

Update: Wondering what it looks like under the hood? There appears to be one open PCIe slot, but that’s about it when it comes to easy options for upgrades.

I also confirmed my suspicion that there’s only a single mono speaker, despite the fact that there appear to be two speaker grilles in the case.

I’ll have more details on battery life, performance, and overall value in the coming days. I’m also planning to peek under the hood and see what it would take to upgrade or replace the internals.

Stay tuned!

Update 2: Benchmarks!

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,545 other subscribers

35 replies on “First look: One Mix 3 Yoga mini laptop with 8.4 inch display, Intel Amber Lake”

  1. I have recently received mine and tried to set up windows 10. But when I turned it on there was already two accounts set up, including admin. I have no access to the accounts as it say contact administrator. What can I do?

    1. Reset to the factory default state. It will reformat C and re-install fresh Windows. It can be done by booting from the recovery partition which can be chosen from UEFI BIOS. Sorry, I don’t remember how it is called in BIOS, but there are only a few options to try. To enter UEFI BIOS, press and hold Del or Esc when you turn power on.

  2. Anyone noticed the fully working mic and a tiny eye inside the brezel of the screen? Or am i the chosen one with a *premium edition

    1. Yes, the mic is there! Though I failed to find its hole, it works very good. But the “eye”… Are you sure it is not an air bubble under the screen protector? There is no camera in the Device manager.

  3. I really like your coverage of the tiny laptop market.

    Keep up the good work, Brad! 🙂

  4. Can you add 4g lte? Maybe thru the extra slot?
    This is make or break!

    1. It has M.2 slot, but even if it is compatible with a 4G modem, what would you do with its antennas? The case is made from aluminium alloy.

  5. Anyone think that there will be much real world performance difference between the One Mix Yoga 3 and 3S Platinum version (with 8500Y cpu) ?

    Just curious…..

    1. Sadly I don’t have one around anymore so I can’t do a side-by-side comparison. But the keys are bigger and the layout makes more sense.

      I’m pleasantly surprised at how easily I can type on the One Mix 3 Yoga and my gut says it’s probably the best mini laptop keyboard I’ve tested in the past year or so (and that includes the OMY1 and OMY2, the GPD Pocket 2, and the Topjoy Falcon).

  6. Argh I really like this. I don’t even think I’d use it as a tablet very often, I just think that the keyboard looks about as good as it can be for a device this size. The only thing it’s missing that would make it an instabuy for me is a physical trackpoint on the homerow (Not quite convinced by the optical one).

    I’ll be waiting for the full review 🙂

  7. Could you check if the display uses PWM at less-than-100% brightness? I’m sensitive to it. The One Mix 2 probably did, judging from the flickering I’ve seen in videos. Thanks!

      1. Thanks. Not sure if this is the best or right way, but try this: put your phone camera in manual mode, put it up to the monitor, and keep increasing shutter speed (that is, make it faster) until you see rolling, very distinct lines or bands. If you never see these (even till the shutter gets so fast the image gets very dark), that probably means no PWM.

        I won’t get my hopes up too much! PWM is totally hit or miss sometimes even by the same manufacturer, often the higher end models do not use it (a good thing).

        1. My phone camera doesn’t have a manual mode, but in auto mode the banding is more noticeable if the screen is not at its highest or lowest brightness levels.

          1. Thanks for checking, that’s helpful. Likely it’s PWM, which I mostly expected anyway.

    1. Palm rejection – yes. I’m not really much of a pen user though, so I’m going to wait a little while before I say much about the performance/usability.

  8. If the 7″ screen UMPCs didn’t exist, I’d be excited for this. I would have preferred if they improved the performance, functionality, etc. in that form factor instead. I guess there’s the One Mix 1S but it doesn’t seem they tried to improve on it much.

    Anyway, I I’ll stick with my 2S for now. Hopefully, One Mix doesn’t let the 7″ form factor atrophy in the corner and focus more on the larger devices.

    1. Can’t really get improvements on those until Intel starts selling their new Ice Lake Y i3 processors to low tier Chinese companies like GPD and VOYO (One Netbook). Don’t think you can expect them until late 2020 at the earliest.

      1. There are other improvements that can be done like form factor, cooling, battery, keyboard, mouse placement, ports, storage, etc.

        1. Yeah, there are plenty of non-CPU things that could be improved especially for the One Mix 2s. The CPU isn’t everything for these UMPCs.

  9. When are any one of them come up with another 7” with 2 thunderbolt port and decent performer? I love my gpd pocket 1 and I love the new keyboard layout of gpd pocket 2. Waiting for pocket 3 🙂

  10. Brad, any chance you are getting the GPD Max to review? I would be very interested in knowing which keyboard is better. The keyboard in the Chuwi seems worse, but I look forward to your comparison, since you said you are getting it soon. It would be amazing if you could get the 3 of them… I love your blog and videos by the way 😉
    One last thing, could you test the performance with the fan switched off? Thanks!

      1. Brad, could you please provide size of key caps for the letter character keys. Would like to compare with my One Mix Yoga 2S so I can get an idea of how much easier it might be for typing. Thanks!

        Also, please note that another option when running linux to rotate display instead of using xrandr command is to select Displays in settings, then click on the Rotation setting and select Right.

        And for those considering installing linux on a laptop, once you do this it is persistent, ie, when you reboot, after you login, the desktop will be rotated correctly.

          1. Just checked size of the letter keys on my One Mix Yoga 2S and they are about same size as on the One Mix Yoga 3….very surprised that the 3’s keys are not larger. Must just have a tad bit more space between the keys and thus a bit nicer to type on.

          2. Big thanks! I’ve ordered Russian stickers 11×11 mm and now I’m confident they’ll fit just fine!

  11. Just judging from how it looks, I like that keyboard — the ,./ triple-key caused me the most issues on the GPD Pocket 1. (Too bad there’s no trackpoint though… and to my thinkpad-trained brain, fn/ctrl are swapped.) I’m still pretty interested in it, though!

Comments are closed.