One way to make affordable laptops is to use cheap current-gen parts. Another way is to use older components that were expensive a few years ago, but which have come down in price since then.

The BMAX Y14 Pro is a laptop that takes a mix of both approaches. It’s a $500 laptop with modern features including a sleek thin and light design, USB Type-C ports, and quad speakers. But it’s powered by a 2015-era Intel Core M7-6Y75 processor.

That’s a 7-watt processor based on Intel’s 6th-gen Skylake architecture. It’s a 2-core, 4-thread chip with support for turbo speeds up to 3.1 GHz, but in terms of performance, it trails behind newer chips like the Core m3-8100Y, Core i3-10110Y, or Core i3-1115G4 processor in benchmarks.

Honestly, BMAX probably could have gotten better performance by opting for a Pentium Silver N6000 chip, a current-gen low-cost, low-power processor based on Intel Jasper Lake architecture.

And one other upside to using a newer chip? The computer would be compatible with Windows 11. Microsoft doesn’t officially support installing its new operating system on computers with 6th-gen Core processors, which means that the BMAX Y14 Pro will be stuck with Windows 10 unless you want to install Linux or risk an unofficial, unsupported Windows 11 update.

The good news is that Microsoft will continue to support Windows 10 through 2025. The bad news is that means this computer will no longer be fully supported after 2025.

Anyway, maybe 4 years of support is good enough for a relatively affordable compact notebook. So here are some other key specs for the BMAX Y14 Pro for folks that might be considering one:

  • 14.1 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS touchscreen display with 360 degree hinge
  • 8GB RAM
  • 256GB SSD (M.2 2280)
  • 37 Wh battery
  • WiFi 5
  • quad speakers
  • 2 x USB Type-C ports
  • microSD card reader
  • 3.5mm audio jack
  • AC power jack

The notebook weighs about 2.9 pounds and measures less than half an inch thick. It’s a passively cooled (fanless) laptop with a backlit keyboard, and slim bezels around the display, measuring just 4mm (0.16 inches) along the top and side edges.

The BMAX Y14 Pro is available from the BMAX AliExpress for $500.

via AndroidPC.es and NotebookCheck

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5 replies on “BMAX Y14 is a thin, light, and affordable laptop… with a 6-year-old processor”

  1. Reminds of Apple’s previous “M1 MacBook” model. So slow, it was mostly unusable.

    1. It actually reminds me more of the nexdock 360, but that’s because it’s probably using the same laptop shell just with different port holes cut into the sides.
      Thermal issues on this wouldn’t surprise me though.

    2. Say there, I don’t know what happened to the M1 Mac that you “used”, but mine is very fast, with battery life leaving Intel in the dust!

  2. Teclast, Chuwi, BMAX, KUU, kudos!
    Until there are laptops with no fans and full size arrow/cursor keys
    I will NOT buy laptop with fan and absurd arrow/cursor keys

    All parts are off-the-shelf except for two(2)
    -1- Full HD (1080p) panels – are from stocks, QualityAssurance reject and extra runs after major deals.
    -2- the Intel CPUs is a mystery. They are not used or re-soldered. How they continue to crank laptops/mini PCs with Apollo Lake and Gemini lake ?
    Their marketing seems towards export, so production is not thah big.

  3. Given the trend of Chinese manufacturers making new motherboards for outdated platforms from harvested parts, I’m wondering if this is the same thing – someone got a hold of some used 6Y75-based machines and harvested the CPUs to build a different laptop around.

    That’s the only way I can see it making sense to do this…

Comments are closed.