It’s not often we see Core M and 8GB of RAM mentioned, the Livefan S1 is a 13.3″ notebook with a Core M 5Y10, 8GB of DDR3 1600 Mhz RAM, 128GB to 512GB Sata3 SSD options, Intel Wireless-AC, user replaceable SSD and 2560 x 1440 anti-glare screen.
This is a detailed video review, but below you’ll find my review summary pros and cons.
Pros:
- Great screen, bright with good blacks and colors for a TFT panel. The best part it’s practical matte anti-glare coating makes it a joy to use in brightly lit environments.
- It’s thin and light (1.16 kilos)
- 8GB of RAM, the more the merrier! (Who’s going to say, no I wanted 4GB!)
- User replaceable SSD, just open the hatch, 1 screw, and install.
- Alloy lid, bottom and SSD bay
- Keyboard is good to type on, good key travel, spacious layout and nice feedback when typing.
- Good performance (Until you game
- Type-C supports charging and data
- All USB ports (Including the Type-C) can power external HDD’s
Cons:
Thermal throttling, it’s fine for the most part until you game or do something very intensive, then the CPU temps hit 90+ (I saw up to 93 degrees c) and it thermal throttles. Livefan’s heatsink solution for passively cooled Core M-5Y10 just isn’t sufficient. Sure you could mod it with some more copper, thermal pads. But that’s something that shouldn’t happen, it should not get this hot. Take a look at the Xiaomi Mi Notebook 12.5″‘s Core M3, it never goes past 63 degrees C as it has copper heat transfer pipes and a lot of copper in there.
Surface temps didn’t get to any levels I would be concerned about, but it does get quite hot to the touch, around 41 degrees. Again this is only really when gaming or pushing it really hard encoding a 1080p video or something.
- Last gen Core M and not the latest Core M3.
- Left and right viewing angles aren’t as good as IPS panels.
- Touchpad mouse buttons are too deep, they should be more shallow and therefor more confortable.
- Arrow keys on the keyboard don’t feel as good as the rest of the keys for some reason, build issue on my unit?
- No microSD slot or SD slot. Me being picky since I really like to have one using a camera quite a bit nowadays.
Verdict:
I’ve enjoyed my time with the Livefan S1, I do feel it would suit someone that wants something bigger than a tablet with a typing experance thanks to the larger keyboard. The screen and it’s weight make it a decent notebook for travel, sitting a cafe catching up on emails, light work, we browsing and even viewing video content.
The screen is the major win of this notebook, it’s super bright, very clear and a joy to work on without having to worry about screen glare hassling you. It can even be used in brightly lit places like outdoors where glossy screens are a nightmare for reflections.
Battery life if well managed could make it through a day, but it all depends on what you’re doing. Web, video, other light use like docs or emails about 7 hours. Multitasking around 5-6 hours, heavy multitasking 4 hours and gaming only about 3 hours. But I wouldn’t be gaming on this due to the above issue mentioned in cons.
The price is always changing, check it on Banggood where I also purchased this unit to review. I do feel it’s a little-overpriced concidering it has last years Core M, which is still a decent chip by the way.
LiveFan S1 Windows 10 drivers: https://techtablets.com/wpfb-file/livefan-s1-drivers-dump-zip/
Frank
Chris, do you have a driver dump for the Livefan S1?
I have installed ubuntu on it, everything is working fine. (Also sound, Ubuntu 16.04).
The only thing is that the touchpad is recognized as a generic PS/2 mouse, I want to check the exact brand and model of the touchpad to see if I can get a linux driver for it and also get the multitouch gestures working.
Can you tell me which touchpad is in the Livefan S1?
I forgot to make a driver dump or image of the windows 10 OS when it was still installed.
Your help is greatly appreciated,
Regards,
Frank
Chris G
Sorry here they are: https://techtablets.com/wpfb-file/livefan-s1-drivers-dump-zip/
Frank
Hey Chris,
Thanks for uploading the drivers!
I have one more question, can you tell me which TouchPad is in the livefan s1? It’s showing up as generic ps/2 device in my fresh windows 10 install.
I see the TouchPad driver is not in the zip you uploaded
valerima
Do you know link t a maternal site for drivers or bios update, please?
Chris G
Could not find it. But I created a rescue Acronis image and drivers dump.
Valery
Hi, Chris
Did you get a chance to look into heating issues in more detail? ( as in opening the laptop?)
Did you find the touchpad usable? Does it confuse two finger scroll for zooming in browser? ( my jumper ezbook2 does this, very annoying)
Chris G
That touchpad isn’t too bad, I didn’t have that issue with the zooming or the minimizing things all the time like the Chuwi Hi12 or Jumper EZbook 2. The heat issue can be slightly improved with some more copper on the heatsink, but the main thing I think is the power limits to push it up there in the end gaming. If you don’t game, it does get into the early 90’s it stays around 70-80 max.
Arturo
What percentage would you say Cube i9 m3-6y30 is fastest than this model?
Chris G
Good 10-15% faster the CPU, and GPU around 20%.
BBaker
It looks like they’re over charging for the 512GB SSD option so if you want that you should order it with no SSD and buy your SSD elsewhere, also given SSD’s are small, light, and cheap to ship. Their prices for the 128GB and 256GB SSD options look reasonable.
Chris G
Yes, the best option would be to supply your own SSD if you want larger than 256GB. I almost got it without the SSD, but then decided it was worth it to get the 128GB as it also included the OS and any drivers I might need. And it came with Windows 10 Pro and the license seems legit. However, sourcing drivers will not be an issue as it uses all Intel. Windows update can grab them all. Haven’t gotten around to trying out Linux on it, but everything should work with Intel 3165 Wireless AC.