Cube Thinker i35 is without a doubt so far the best piece of Chinese tech I’ve reviewed so far, a laptop with a fully laminated 13.5-inch Surface Book display. But it doesn’t stop there not only does it have that awesome display but the same touch digitizer and N-Trig stylus support, which means? Yup, you guessed it, Surface Pen support. It’s selling for $564.99 at the moment with coupon Cubethinker so it’s cheaper than the base Surface laptop with double the RAM, Type-C USB 3.1 (Can’t believe the Surface Laptop lacks this!) and a better screen even.
It’s a long video review (But covers a lot!) So here are some timecodes:
Timecodes:
01:04 – Design
03:58 – Screen
05:27 – Benchmarks
08:04 – Battery & Charge time
09:01 – Thermals
10:31 – Webcam sample
11:18 – Mi Notebook 12 Vs Thinker i35
13:03 – Adobe Photoshop CC & Premiere Pro
14:59 – Stylus tests
18:52 – Speaker test
19:18 – GTA V Gaming test (Playable)
20:36 – Thoughts with Pros and Cons
Cube’s build quality is top notch on the Thinker, very good. The eLan fingerprint reader unlock works great, the Core M3-7Y30 is fast and we have a 256GB SATA3 SSD, 8GB of DDR3 1866Mhz RAM. Wireless AC is also there. So great specs, just not quite perfect, one issue. It gets hot, only when pushed hard non-gaming about 82 degrees C. After gaming 92 degrees C but no thermal throttling. And the speakers just aren’t loud enough. if you intend to game or do Auto CAD or 3D work, I recommend my Cube Thinker thermal mod that fixes the issue.
But I’m really impressed and think it’s the best notebook out of China I’ve tested, better than the Mi Notebook 12? Owning both, I think it is, I find it hard to use my Mi Notebook Air 12 now, the screen just spoils me.
A brief write-up, pros and cons with rating will be added to the site soon.
Jubair Ahmed
Can anyone please help me. Will this laptop support displayport over USB C. I want to run it with a 4K monitor at 60hz. Thank you for your help.
Holy True
CONS: No backlit keyboard.
Billy
What happened to the M5 940MX version that was meant to come out? I have searched on both Cube’s site and elsewhere, and theres seems no information about that variant that you mentioned in an earlier article about the Cube Thinker.
I am heading to Hong Kong shortly and am looking to pick up a laptop / 2 in 1 to replace my somewhat now elderly acer with its 1st gen i3 processor and HD graphics. Gearbest said they can ship one of these to my hotel. But am interested in any other offerings with a 2k+ or better screen, touch/pen support, M3 or M5, 8gb min ram and 256 SSD.. not eMMC unless its cheap and there is a M2 slot. I want to use the machine for photoshop, illustrator, corel painter etc. as well as general day to day web, email etc. and casual gaming.. i.e. older games.
Looking to pay around the same price as what the thinker is available for, so £500. at the minute i can get this for £440 on gear best using a coupon code… the screen is very important, i know there is a glut of cheap 1080p models out there. but I’m just not interested even if they were half the price. any tips? and if anyone is a HK native, wheres the best places to contact before i go to see what they have in stock?
Kenny Bui
Hey Chris,
Just bought the Cube Thinker i35 2 weeks ago. Everything was going great until suddenly wifi decided not to work. It seems like is not detecting the network drivers and I see that you have downloads on your site called double drivers. I was wondering how do you install them on your computer?? Thanks.
Ruskiromka
This laptop was working great until windows 10 updated to version 1703 Creators Update ‘CU.’ Now I get jagged flickering with intermittent static and black screens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKlZP2F1Z68&t=18s
Rolling back to the previous version of Windows seems to have solved the problem, at least for now until windows force the update again.
Contacting gearbest for a refund.
Crystal Reinl
How do I get into BIOS? I need to reinstall OS.
majkel_94
“A brief write-up, pros and cons with rating will be added to the site soon.”
@Chris G
It’s been a month, could you fill the gaps of the review?
I wonder if the simple, cheap usb-c->hdmi adapters work, not the expensive hubs with usb.
The hub you’ve showed has a internal graphic card? Can you play on the external monitor?
Chris G
Sorry times an issue to do a full detailed written review but it’s in the video review. Hi, the type-c to HDMI’s work. The cheap one I have but only 4k30Hz max as mentioned in the review.
You can set it to be duplicate the display, extended or just the monitor like any other laptop. Hope that helps.
Nader
How’s the keyboard holding up?
I hear complaints of skipped keys and sometimes keys are entered twice.
One YT reviewer showed that some of the keys were even going inward! I really hope its just his laptop lol
Chris G
Must just be his as mine is fine. The keyboard is good, not as good as my Mi Notebooks (As mentioned in the review) But find it fine.
Joseph Gibson
I also have these issues, so seemingly it’s not uncommon that they will ship these with bad keyboards. The rest of this notebook is so good and unmatched that I will still be re-ordering though.
Gabriel
Hi Chris i’m between this one and the xiaomi air 13 wih the i5 6200u and 940mx graphic card… however i’m not a heavy gamer user, just league of legend and a tons os internet and office apps. I’m using the cube7 stylus for this but im a little bit tired of the small screen, i really like the portability to bring it anywhere. I’m almost sure that I will buy the xiaomi air but i’m still not sure, this seems to be a really good laptot, what should i do? do I have another similar option?? thanks
Chris G
It’s a great laptop the Mi Notebook. I’ve had mine since day one and don’t even regret buying it. But if you do want better gaming go for the 940MX GPU version, just not that it does get hot and the fans are loud a 100%
BHW
Not able to flip 360 degree does limited the use of the stylus, especially it is a very functional stylus.
If the i5 with Nvidia GPU version can flip 360 degree, this would be one of the most versitile lap top/tablet out in the market (not just China)
Chris G
Let’s hope they build a version like that! The Surface Laptop has stylus but the same thing ,the screen isn’t 360 degrees,
Nik
do you know when will come the cube i35 with the intel core i5? And can you say me that auto cad runs on the m3 7y30 model? thank you very much
Gijo
If you mean Autodesk Autocad for 2D, than it run on Intel Pentium 4 with 512MB RAM level PC, so I don’t see any reason why newest Intel m3 7Y30 with 8096MB RAM shouldn’t handle this kind of task. But if you use it for 3D rendering, than you should probably look for more than 2 core (4 threads) CPU. It is main purpose to use as little W for more performance on single tasks, for example internet browsing, playing youtube, Office programs which not require long lasting power, but has to be blitz fast (m3 7Y30 getting hot as it has passive cooling). Intel i5 is better, but all depends on your usage. I don’t think that Cube will make i5 on Thinker i35 bones, because i5 7200U TDP is 15W vs m3 7Y30 TDP 4,5W.
As Chris G showed in his test with 7Y30, temperature gets really hot (without heatsink mod), so it would get x2 times faster with i5 7200U.
Chris G
On the topic of the i5 7200U. Voyo Vbook V3 is now coming with i5 7200U and i7 6500U options. I just order the Kaby Lake i5 7200U model be interesting to see if they improved the overall design or it’s just the same old Vbook 3 with a fan and i5 7200U.
chris
I’m in China and cannot find their local online store–very strange. They don’t seem to be on Tmall. Aliexpress is for exporting, as are gearbest and others. I am guessing it would be cheaper if bought locally, but they are not easy to find online!
teojb
I was also looking for this on their taobao page to no avail but found it here: https://item.jd.com/4064001.html. Have not bought anything off this site before. Any idea if it’s ok to get it from there?
Chris G
Should be there, look for AllDocube
Otorabi
Hi.
A quick question. Now I am using Macbook air 2013 with use i4520U CPU.
Should I change to Cube Thinker? The performance of Cube Thinker is better or worst that macbook air?
Thank you
Pilef
They should have similar performance: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=1944&cmp%5B%5D=2864
Ken
Hm,
Acer Switch Alpha 12 with Core i3 is only $500 in Amazon… much, much better build quality…
zarg
Very different screen however.
scotty1968
I am going to get one ,sounds great,thanks for fan review Chris as always.scott
Stu
Hi Chris,
Sounds like an interesting alternative to Surface laptop. Noted that the Gearbest price is $671.19 which is higher than the $616 you quoted. Was there discount price associated with that price or was this in terms of different currency quote? I’m looking at US dollars on my end being in United States.
Chris G
It’s at the $616 price again. 25 units left https://goo.gl/9On06m
filn
hello. Did you manage to find out what is wrong with the wifi upload speeds?? Thanks!
Chris G
Haven’t had time but will try updating the drivers
Chris G
Hi Filn, tested again today and perfectly fine now. 280 mbps uploads so download. No issues!