Laptops don’t come any smaller than this, in fact this is the worlds smallest Windows 10 laptop. It’s powered by an Atom X7 Z8750, 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 128GB eMMC. The 1080p IPS screen is fully laminated and it has a full metal build. Port wise, we have a Micro HDMI port, Type-C that supports, charging, data and even video out which is great. This means those Type-C docks work fine. And a full sized USB 3.0 port.
The build quality both inside and out is very good. A massive step up from the plasticky GPD Win I looked at that, in the end, that was sent back to China due to keyboard issues. As you can imagine a small laptop like this clearly isn’t for everyone, typing on the keyboard isn’t great, it’s cramped and there’s no touchpad. Only a pointer like those IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad’s have. But one thing it does have going for it is portability, of course, no other Windows 10 laptops I know of can be placed in a pocket (Be it a large one) or weigh just 508 grams. This is why this laptop exists and why so many backed the crowd funding that kicked off this device. And it’s not cheap around $500 USD.
First impressions:
- The Windows 10 key is printed inside the box, maybe for Ubuntu builds so later people can install Windows 10 if they want?
- The build is really good, huge improvement from the GPD Win
- The RAM is clocked to only 1066Mhz and cannot be increased to the maximum supported 1600Mhz as the bios is locked out and only with basic options.
- RAM is in dual channel at least so that’s something positive
- The wireless chipset is a Broadcom AC one, the Wifi range seems very poor due to the metal build and antenna location. This is looking like the biggest complaint so far.
- No MicroSD card slot or Webcam, I feel GPD should have added them or at least a 720p front webcam
- The keyboard is going to take some time to get used to, so far I struggle to write a sentence without major typos. The spacebar key is the hardest to get adjusted to.
- There is a tiny copper heat pipe, fins and cooling fan in the Z8750. So far no thermal throttling. But I will have to try some games on it and see if it will heat up enough to throttle or the fan does the job.
- Fan noise is barely noticeable.
- The internals and layout look very decent.
- The screen and keyboard have no flex, it’s rigid and strong. Including the screen hinge.
So far I’m impressed with the build quality, but my biggest concern is wireless range and performance. I’ll be testing this soon and to see if it will throttle at all which the GPD Win did, eventually.