Chuwi announces new budget LapBook 12.3 with high-res display

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
published

Budget laptop and tablet maker Chuwi has taken the wraps off of the latest entry in its lineup, the LapBook 12.3. If you're on the lookout for a laptop with some moderate specs, particularly in the screen resolution and RAM departments, at what is likely to be a decent price, then the LapBook 12.3 looks like an interesting option.

The one area in which Chuwi has really stepped things up on this model in comparison to its other LapBooks is with its screen resolution. The 12.3-inch display in this model comes with a 2736x1824 resolution, which happens to match the Surface Pro 4. Chuwi is also throwing in 6GB of RAM. Here's a look at the specs Chuwi has revealed so far:

  • Model: Chuwi LapBook 12.3
  • CPU: Intel Apollo lake N3450 processor
  • Screen: 12.3 inch retina screen
  • Resolution: 2736 * 1824
  • Storage: 6G RAM+64G ROM
  • Dual band WiFi: 2.4G/5G

Like some of Chuwi's other products, the limited 64GB of storage is where the LapBook is likely to fall short for many. Chuwi says the LapBook 12.3 will arrive at the end of April. Pricing is a mystery at the moment, but this latest LapBook is likely to be priced well within Chuwi's usual budget range of around $300. And if you're curious to learn more about Chuwi's LapBook range, be sure to check out our recent review of the LapBook 14.1.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

9 Comments
  • Nice! I've been dying to get my hands on a cheap 11-12" laptop, but there's nothing out there that isn't either a piece of crap with an 768p TN screen, 2GB of RAM, and dual-core Braswell Celeron that's literally too slow to do anything, or a $1000 Ultrabook... which all seem to have 13" screens. I've been waiting for years for someone to make something between the Asus E200HA and the XPS 13, and finally there's an option!
  • The "ROM" on this will likely be eMMC though which always slow it down a lot.
  • If this device is like the Lapbook 14.1, then you can add an M.2 SSD.
  • Though obviously not as fast as a SATA SSD, eMMC storage these days is literally 10 times faster (at random read/write) than the spinning hard drives we were all using a few years ago, and which are still pretty common in consumer laptops and desktops. eMMC is totally fine on a cheap laptop. Nothing I would do on a laptop is particularly taxing to the storage anyway. If I needed to copy a bunch of large files to/from an external drive, the external drive would probably be the bottleneck.
  • Check out the Xiaomi Air 12. Has a Core M3, 4GB RAM, 12.5 inch beautiful 1080p display, backlight keys, USB C charging, HDMI out, 128GB SSD, and much more for around $500.   It is the best laptop I have ever owned. Xiaomi has some really nice stuff.
  • I like it, but I haven't seen it for less than $600, and that's way outside the range of what I'm looking for. I already have a Surface Pro 4 with the same M3 and 4GB, but I want something way cheaper, with better battery life. Basically, I just want the $200 E200HA that's at least a year old updated with Apollo Lake CPU and an IPS screen, for the same price as last year's model. Acceptable performance, 10+ hours of battery life, $200.
  • Looks nice ill wait to see the price.
  • Looks interesting.
  • Umm, ROM doesn't make sense here, does it?