Chuwi may not be the most well-known name among PC makers, but the Chinese manufacturer has produced a few devices over the years, and some of them are quite interesting. Now, the company has launched a new Indiegogo campaign for yet another product, the MiniBook.
The Chuwi MiniBook is somewhat reminiscent of something like the GPD Pocket from a couple of years ago in that it"s a tiny laptop with an actual keyboard. It improves upon that concept in a couple of significant ways, though. For one thing, instead of using a seven-inch display, Chuwi ditched the 16:9 aspect ratio in favor of 16:10, and made it an eight-inch panel instead. It"s still Full HD+, so the resolution is 1920x1200.
Even more interesting is that the MiniBook isn"t a traditional clamshell form factor. It"s actually a convertible with a 360-degree hinge. This means it can double as an eight-inch tablet, a size that should be more practical than the 13- or 15-inch convertibles that are most common.
Aside from that, the MiniBook runs on an Intel Celeron N4100 or a Core m3-8100Y, as you"d probably expect from a device this small. The device isn"t fanless, though, and Chuwi promises great thermal performance. There"s also 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM (LPDDR4, if you opt for the Celeron processor), and 128GB of eMMC 5.1 storage.
Surprisingly, the MiniBook also offers some expandability. There"s an empty M.2 SSD slot if you need more storage, with support for NVME SSDs on the Core m3 model, or SATA on the Celeron model. There"s also as a microSD card slot, two USB Type-A ports (one with version 2.0 and one with 3.0), one Type-C, and a mini-HDMI output.
For the campaign period, you can get the Chuwi MiniBook starting at $429 for the Celeron model, while the Core m3 variant will run you at least $530. The base prices for each model will be $539 and $670, respectively. As of the time of writing, and within a single day of starting the campaign, Chuwi has smashed its funding goal, hitting 836% of its original target. You can still back it, though, if you want to get the MiniBook for a lower price.