Chinese company Chuwi has proven itself in recent years by focusing on lightweight and affordable laptops. The likes of the GemiBook, LarkBook, and UBook X are not household names, but the high-end specs and competitive pricing make them a valuable alternative to devices from well-known manufacturers such as Microsoft, Dell, and Lenovo.
Performance is rarely a standout feature on Chuwi hardware, although the new CoreBook Xe indicates it may be about to change. This is because it comes with an Iris Xe Max GPU, making it the least expensive device to run Intel’s new discrete graphics in the process. Existing devices like Acer Swift 3x, Asus VivoBook Flip 14 and The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1 is much more expensive.
Although Iris Xe Max is unlikely to turn thin and light laptops into powerful gaming centers, there is a reason to be excited about the arrival of CoreBook Xe. Intel still claims it can provide a “upgrade” for games, although this is likely more for casual games than for games that require AAA fees. It should also give a boost to content creation tasks such as live broadcasting and photo / video editing. Like Intel first Designed for laptops, a discrete graphics card should also help break Nvidia and AMD’s duopoly in GPU space.
However, despite being designed for use with 11th generation Intel Tiger Lake processors, Chuwi has decided to pair it with the company’s 10th generation. I5-10210U chipset. Daily performance should be fine on a CoreBook X, but it feels like a weird move.
However, other key specs are encouraging. The device comes with a 15.6-inch Full HD + LCD (1920 x 1080), along with 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and 256 GB SSD. The latter is also expandable up to 1 TB – c ‘something you don’t want’ we see on many laptops in 2021.
Official images indicate that the CoreBook Xe will come with a full-sized keyboard (including number pad) as well as a healthy selection of ports, although it is unclear exactly what the latter will include. We also don’t know the webcam, the battery capacity, or the charging speeds.
CoreBook Xe will go on sale worldwide in April through Chuwi’s website for $ 699. This translates to around £ 500, although prices in the UK are unlikely to be a direct transfer. However, the encouraging specs suggest it might make an impression on our massively competitive roundup of the best laptops you can buy.
