General Analysis

Honestly, I like the Chuwi SurBook 2-in-1 hybrid. Sure, it lacks the punch of a more typical laptop, but makes up for it by being rather versatile since it can operate as both a laptop or tablet depending on the user's needs. Add to that some amazing battery life and you have a great system for those always on the run. The price isn't half bad either considering what you get. The tablet portion of the SurBook is $397.99, while the keyboard is $55.99 and the HiPen stylus is $26.79. All combined, it comes to $480.77, which should likely be lower when bundles become available. It doesn't hurt that unit feels durable with the aluminum shell having a premium feel.

The quad-core Atom-based Celeron N3450 inside the SurBook is fast enough for web browsing and day-to-day work loads. However, it's a bit limited by the 6 W TDP, which is the same as with the dual core N3350. A relaxed TDP would have likely resulted in better performance results. Still, performance is up in part due to the extra cores, and noise is down because it is being passively cooled. Instead of using the more typical 4 GB memory loadout, Chuwi is offering 6 GB of memory in dual channel, while storage is handled by 128 GB of eMMC flash. While nowhere near the performance of an SSD, it is still lightyears ahead of a typical hard drive. That said, there are no upgrades for end users to implement here. What you see is what you get, which is quite a bit considering the price.

In regards to the display, Chuwi settled on a Samsung IGZO IPS capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 2736 x 1824. Viewing angles are exceptional with no tone shifting or banding. It's bright with vibrant colors and generally easy on the eyes compared to the typical TN panels I have seen thus far. The built-in cameras, however, are pretty abysmal, and I feel would have been better off being omitted all together. They will work alright for Skype, for instance, but the image quality feels like it's straight out of 2006. Other than that, the overall build quality is exceptional with everything feeling sturdy and no flaws to speak of. WiFi also worked fine as there were no drops or other WiFi-related issues in my testing, and it easily hit my max download and upload speeds on the 5 GHz band.

My only gripe after using the laptop daily for the last month is the HiPen stylus. While it does work for a few certain tasks, trying it out in the likes of Adobe Photoshop proved to be a royal pain. It was essentially unusable as the actions on screen lagged behind my movements by more than half a second. However, these issues did not exist when using a proper mouse. In my opinion, the Chuwi SurBook is a fantastic tablet on its own and works great as a laptop with the dockable keyboard for those who are on the go. However, the HiPen stylus, while of good build quality, just doesn't seem to work as well as I would like. As a consumer, I would pass on the stylus and save the $26 or so to grab a proper wireless mouse instead.

The Chuwi SurBook proved to be a delightful surprise otherwise. While it won't be doing any serious gaming, it did quite well in everything else. Video playback and office work was fine, and it generally performed adequately in all my other day-to-day tasks, so I have no qualms about recommending it. As far as 2-in-1 PC tablets go, the SurBook is definitely a fun little option. Just keep in mind that since it is powered by the USB Type C port, extra screens, etc., will either require you to use the battery or various adapters to make things work. As such, I would really like to see Chuwi add a bit more connectivity, such as HDMI 2.0 or MiniDP and a couple more USB ports.

As far as battery life goes, it managed to last longer than any other unit tested. Then again, I was expecting that considering it pulled just 25 watts from the wall under load. Even so, the results may not look downright amazing; however, further tweaks to the power plan, brightness settings, etc., will further improve battery life. The Valley Benchmark test at 30/60 FPS obviously didn't matter since the GPU is so weak it could not handle 30 FPS, let alone 60, with our standard settings. In typical workloads, like media playback, web browsing, and office work, it did much better. Without tweaks, you can expect the SurBook to last 4-5 hours for typical usage scenarios.

To put it bluntly, the product left enough of a lasting positive impression that my significant other has decided she will make it her daily driver. If it is good enough for her, it is good enough for me to recommend for those wanting a versatile system on a budget.