The upcoming Chuwi CoreBook looks like a premium laptop at first glance. It has a 13.2 inch, 2160 x 1440 pixel display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, a full metal body, and even Intel Iris graphics.

But this 3 pound laptop will sell for just $499 when it goes on sale July 21st, and folks who sign up for a coupon at the Chuwi Corebook promotional website will be able to get $100 off that price.

There’s a good reason for the relatively low price though — this laptop has a 4-year-old processor.

Chuwi CoreBook

Opting for a 10th-gen Intel Core processor or an AMD Ryzen “Renoir” chip would have driven the price up, while selecting a more affordable Intel Gemini Lake Refresh processor would have hurt performance.

So Chuwi instead packed this little laptop with an Intel Core i3-6157U Skylake processor… a 6th-gen Intel Core chip that was first released in 2016.

The good news is that this is a 28 watt, dual-core/quad-thread processor with Intel Iris Graphics 550, so at least it’s a pretty good 4-year-old chip. You’d probably get better CPU performance from an 8th-gen or newer processor. But this aging chip punches above its weight class in graphics performance.

That doesn’t exactly make this an ideal gaming laptop, but overall the specs don’t look bad at all for a laptop that can be purchased for $399 to $499. Just keep in mind that like many Chinese companies in recent years, Chuwi targets international customers… but doesn’t typically offer the same level of support services to those customers as you’d get from a more established PC maker like Apple, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, or Lenovo.

Here are all the specs Chuwi has announced so far for the CoreBook Pro laptop:

Display13.2 inch, 2160 x 1440 pixel IPS w/100% sRGB color gamut
CPUIntel Core i3-6157U
GPUIntel Iris 550
RAM8GB DDR4
Storage256GB SSD
Ports1 x USB Type-C
1 x USB 3.0 Type-A
1 x 3.5mm audio
1 x microSD card reader
1x DC charging port
Weight1.34 kg (2.95 pounds)

Chuwi notes that the laptop has slim bezels around the display for an 85-percent screen-to-body ratio, but there’s still room for a small webcam above the screen.

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10 replies on “Chuwi CoreBook Pro is a laptop with a 3:2 display and Intel Skylake CPU for less than $500”

  1. 🙁 Fsck, WHY OH WHY? Why do these have such nice keyboards and design than the “than established PC makers” who suck so much ?
    Why not atleast one copy the case/keyboard, price is not the issue here there is just none 🙁
    WIsh CHUWI/Teclast etc get as big as Lenovo or Xiaomi.

    p.s it’s noticeable that they use same part (cpus/displays) as macbooks/ ms surfaces from past generation.

  2. How come Chuwi makes more interesting laptops than established PC makers? How come established PC makers make less interesting laptops than Chuwi?

    1. Because the use cheap materials, like a battery that will die after 6 months and have no after-sale support. Also quality control is lacking so there are more defective units and shipping back to China even under warranty often cost half the price of the device…

      1. Huh? Design has nothing to do with build quality and service as @guiliver tried to explain above.

        1. Design and build quality are intertwined. Create a design where a wire gets crimped every time you open or close the laptop and you’ll have a bad build quality, no matter the materials you use. You can have a great design and a bad build; a bad design will often force a bad build. (Should say I know nothing specific about Chuwi.)

      2. Well, your comment is counter to the general tone of Chuwi laptop reviews I’ve read.

        And Chuwi certainly didn’t use cheap materials in the all-metal Apollo Lake-based LapBook 12.3 (with the same 2736 x 1824 display used in the MS Surface Pro) I purchased back in mid-2017 for ~$325. My system had zero defects out of the box – in fact, I was quite impressed with the design tolerances, ‘fit-and-finish’ manufacturing quality and packaging… it was on par with IBM ThinkPads I paid 5x more for years ago.
        Further, I’m happy to report the Chuwi LapBook 12.3 battery and system are still working perfectly 3 years later.

        It’s true Chuwi’s after-sales support is limited at best. I wouldn’t recommend them to buyers likely to require hand-holding or uncomfortable doing a bit of their own troubleshooting… but I don’t think that’s the market Chuwi is targeting.

        1. @Corporal Lint, I can’t reply directly to your comment.

          “Create a design where a wire gets crimped every time you open or close the laptop and you’ll have a bad build quality”

          Fair enough. Chuwi laptops having 3:2 screens across the range and at affordable price points while established PC makers can’t do the same, I don’t think that has anything to do with internal wiring.

    2. Because Chuwi competes in a different market that doesn’t demand as much marketing, support, warranty, and regulation adherence. The Chinese market also enjoys much less layers of distribution networks. I don’t know about Chuwi specifically, but many resellers in China are able to buy direct from manufacturers in many cases.

      All this means they can offer products with smaller profit margins.

Comments are closed.