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Chuwi Minibook X

tylercipriani.com

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Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#11

Post by imran-iq »

alexrp wrote: post #6

The Minibook X is obviously targeted at the netbook form factor in the traditional sense, i.e. small and cheap. If you're like me and appreciate the netbook/UMPC form factors (for travel purposes in my case) but also need better specs to actually get any work done -- and you're willing to fork out a bit more to get that -- I would recommend looking at GPD's Pocket and MicroPC series. I own both a Pocket 4 and MicroPC…

Hey I also have the pocket 4, the screen rotation issue should be fixed soon (slash already fixed): https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41036

Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#12

Post by jauntywundrkind »

drum55 wrote: post #4

I miss my Sony Vaio P series which fitted in a similar sort of niche, the cellphone radio made it just by far the best laptop I've ever used. Modern laptops don't seem to have provision for a LTE/5G radio which always confuses me a bit, in this form factor it would be ideal. I'm surprised nobody has cloned this actually, with phone screens being the right aspect ratio it seems obvious. https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/201…

I got Vaio P many years after the fact and it was so neat. Alas, the PowerVR gpu Intel included on many of the chips there is quite quite problematic for anything but basic use. Although it just saw more work recently! https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-GMA500-Driver-In-2026

I think it was a year or two latter I got a Chuwi Lapbook 12.3, which was a great machine. Lovely 3:2 screen off the Surface Pro, again a pretty good Intel small-core set-up, decent ram, ok SSD, all so cheap. Great metal case. Lovely machine, at such a great price. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Chuwi-LapBook-12-3-Celeron-2K-...

Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#13

Post by AnonyMD »

Are the specifications listed in the article reliable? It's difficult to trust them, considering Chuwi has a history of misrepresenting CPU specifications.

Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#14

Post by nine_k »

drum55 wrote: post #4

I miss my Sony Vaio P series which fitted in a similar sort of niche, the cellphone radio made it just by far the best laptop I've ever used. Modern laptops don't seem to have provision for a LTE/5G radio which always confuses me a bit, in this form factor it would be ideal. I'm surprised nobody has cloned this actually, with phone screens being the right aspect ratio it seems obvious. https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/201…

Modern laptops either have an LTE modem integrated into the general wireless chip, or have a short m.2 slot for a modem card.

My T14 has even a dedicated slot for a SIM card.

Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#15

Post by drum55 »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #12
drum55 wrote: post #4

I miss my Sony Vaio P series which fitted in a similar sort of niche, the cellphone radio made it just by far the best laptop I've ever used. Modern laptops don't seem to have provision for a LTE/5G radio which always confuses me a bit, in this form factor it would be ideal. I'm surprised nobody has cloned this actually, with phone screens being the right aspect ratio it seems obvious. https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/201…

I got Vaio P many years after the fact and it was so neat. Alas, the PowerVR gpu Intel included on many of the chips there is quite quite problematic for anything but basic use. Although it just saw more work recently! https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-GMA500-Driver-In-2026 I think it was a year or two latter I got a Chuwi Lapbook 12.3, which was a great machine. Lovely 3:2 screen off the Surface Pro, again a prett…

I somehow managed to get it working in 2016 with a lot of hackery, I'd still have it as a usable device if the weird little pouch cells it had didn't die, repacking those batteries seemed like enough of a fire hazard I just didn't bother.

Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#18

Post by drum55 »

nine_k wrote: post #14
drum55 wrote: post #4

I miss my Sony Vaio P series which fitted in a similar sort of niche, the cellphone radio made it just by far the best laptop I've ever used. Modern laptops don't seem to have provision for a LTE/5G radio which always confuses me a bit, in this form factor it would be ideal. I'm surprised nobody has cloned this actually, with phone screens being the right aspect ratio it seems obvious. https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/201…

Modern laptops either have an LTE modem integrated into the general wireless chip, or have a short m.2 slot for a modem card. My T14 has even a dedicated slot for a SIM card.

I had a thinkpad at one point that had a slot, but because it wasn't optioned for it you had to patch the BIOS or it wouldn't boot with anything in the slot, it seemed so hostile as to be worthless.

Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#19

Post by hug »

barbs wrote: post #8
hug wrote: post #3

I have this laptop, and it is amongst the best laptops I have ever owned, despite being awful in many ways. It has almost completely replaced my use of my M4 Macbook Pro, simply because I always have it with me. That, and it can run Linux. I don't share the complaints of the OP about the keyboard or the screen, though. The keyboard is fine, I can hit about 110WPM on it, slower than my regular pace, but enough that th…

Did you also have the screen rotation issue? Curious to know what's causing that.

Yes, I did, and the reason is super straightforward: It's a hardware portrait panel, mounted sideways.

Getting from zero to a fully working OS was a mild journey, but I'd do it again.

Re: Chuwi Minibook X

#20

Post by jauntywundrkind »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #2

I love small laptops but this thing would really benefit from a better processor. It's about 4x slower than the Snapdragon 8 elite, a 2 year old smartphone chip. 16GB ram is cool though.

It'd be so lovely if these phones & systems could run Linux. Man. Such a pity.

PostmarketOS has a small handful of Snapdragon 870, 865 tablets (~5 year old, Cortex-A77). But it feels like it's by hook & by crook. Meanwhile it feels like bootloaders are just getting more and more locked down, making it less interesting whether mainline Linux support developers or not.

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