It is a nice deal for $80. You can always swap out the SSD. It would be nice to use as a mobile instrument display in the lab. We use a few cheap (unfortunately clunky) C2D laptops and these seem to be a good replacement.
I got a Lenovo 100e Chromebook (MediaTek MT8173C) for under $80. It does everything it needs to do. The technology you get for the price is great, much better than the first netbooks, and if you factor in inflation, these $100-and-less computers are as cheap as dirt.
Yup. Buying tech for non-techhead family members and setting it up for them, I'm always amazed how good low-end stuff is now. Even if you adjust for apps bloating over the years, etc., I've definitely used worse.
Back on Black Friday of 2014, I purchased an Asus X205T for $100 as a Staples doorbuster. It certainly was not without its compromises, even then, but I'm still using it (as I write this, even) to play music on YouTube, which it manages about as well as my ancient desktop without also functioning as a space heater.
Damnit Ian stop making me want things I dont need. though I would like to see this with a Linux Distro to see if the perceived performance improves at al, something like Mint or elementaryOS.
secondly if you know someone with a hot air rework station and can get your hands on a larger eMMC chip or LPDDR4 RAM chip, that could be an interesting if not at all practical upgrade.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Been hearing this for about 500 years, still 0% market share.
They tried to pull that stuff multiple times with "year of Linux on the desktop". They tried with Ubuntu and people really fell for it.... Then I tried it myself and it was just Debian/Gnome, and was missing proper support for very basic things.
Oh well. I'm glad Valve finally started supporting WINE 20yrs after Steam was released. I'm sure that will turn everything around!
Linux sucks for drivers, software, maintenance / support, the GUI/UX, and games (til now). (There's actually a whole series on YouTube called Linux sucks, with a ton of stuff that I didn't even mention here.) The best thing about a Linux PC is that you can very easily dual-boot windows.
It's a shame because Linux is faster, more organized, more secure, more powerful in a lot of ways. It's just unusable outside of a specialized setting, or unless you are a nerd who happens to enjoy it. Too bad Richard Stallman ran the FSF into the ground. How sad!
In light of your comment, I'm going to dual boot the latest Ubuntu/whatever it is, try using it as a real desktop PC, and see how it goes. Wish me luck...
You might be surprised by how many systems are running Linux out there. I have multiple thousands of them fielded within the company I work for as development boxes, servers, and networking appliances. Make no mistake, we still employ a lot of Windows as well for end user facing roles and work-a-day office chores, but enterprise services aside from Active Directory and Exchange are all Linux based.
have you even used modern Distros? more often than not things work out of the box the same as windwos, and in some cases , printers for example are easier to use.
How was the trackpad for things like palm rejection?
I had a very bad experience with a cheap Lenovo Miix Atom system a while back (22nm Atom + 2GB + 32GB for £115 or so) because the trackpad would accept any nearby hand hovering or anything as a valid action. So what was meant to be a little TV lap system became a paperweight.
This system looks far better!
AMD have a 6W Dali APU now, wonder if that will see a life in similar low-end systems in the future. I guess it will be hard to compete with what appears to be a chip sold for almost nothing.
Brands like UMIDIGI are a scam. I certainly wouldn't look at anything less than that, unless you need something disposable.
There are plenty of great used phones available for under $50 USD, like my LG G6 which I paid $30 for last year. This establishes a new baseline for smartphones.
I found that Hong Kong brands are much more reliable when it comes to consumer electronics compared to mainland China (except for Xiaomi, Huawei, and Oppo-Vivo-OnePlus-Realme). But TCL is one very good Chinese brand.
Thanks for taking the time with this review. For someone on the road with (very) basic computing needs that cannot be satisfied with a phone due to interface device limitations, an inexpensive laptop like this might be a good option over taking something of higher value onto an aircraft or into a hotel where damage and theft are considerations.
"The speakers are best left unsaid, which kind of makes that movie playback number somewhat meaningless."
I wouldn't call the movie play back meaningless. People tend to use ear buds or external speakers for movies. TBF I've never encountered a laptop with worthwhile speakers.
Its notable that the system lacks a 3.5mm audio jack which might make connecting external speakers a bit more of a concern if someone doesn't already own alternative hardware with either bluetooth or USB. It is a minor problem to be sure, but something worth noting in light of the poor audio quality.
It does have a 3.5mm audio jack. The photo Ian posted of the "right" side of the laptop with the USB C, Micro HDMI, and "power connector" is actually the front of the left side and the "power" port in his photo is a 3.5mm audio jack. The actual barrel connector for power is on the right hand side and is the only connector on the right side of the laptop. If you look closely at the marketing photo at the top of the article you can see the lone power connector at the back of the right-hand side. You can also clearly see the USB C, Micro HDMI, and audio jacks on the same side as the USB A and micro SD slots on the main PCB in a few of the teardown photos.
According to all material available online, you're 100% correct. Their marketing says it has direct speaker / headphone connection, also MS webshop mentions 3.5mm audio jack. And it all aligns with the hole on the left side of the laptop, next to the micro-HDMI slot.
I wonder if Ian got confused with the sides when writing the text and didn't double-check the physical slots.
Yup, that's my fault. I took all the pictures and benchmarks a few weeks ago, only wrote the review recently and got a bit muddled up. I've tested the 3.5mm jack with some good headphones, and the audio quality is a lot better than the speakers. I've updated the review and the conclusion accordingly.
That's what I'd be curious about as well. This could be a good option for the kids if school gets shut down along with low quality cheap bluetooth headphones.
On their websites, they show pictures to what clearly is all the ports on one side including a headphone jack, the other side only has the power adapter. There is also some marketing blurb above those images that says 'headphones or speakers (directly or wirelessly)'.
And you can click the 'Download Specs" button further up that lists 'Audio Port' as one of their interfaces. You might want to inform them of their mistake if indeed there is no headphone jack as your review mentioned as it would be misleading customers.
Would like to add for your 1st picture in 'Under the Hood' the right side seems to be the power adapter and the left side seems to be all the ports with headphone jack which is the same as their product page. correct me if im wrong.
Yup, that's my fault. I took all the pictures and benchmarks a few weeks ago, only wrote the review recently and got a bit muddled up. I've tested the 3.5mm jack today with some good headphones, and the audio quality is a lot better than the speakers. I've updated the review and the conclusion accordingly.
Why would there be? Nefarious as the Chinese govt are, they're not going to bother putting spying devices in a small no-name budget manufacturer in hopes that it will somehow end up in a high value target
>If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called "load stations," agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.
These minor disruptions in the parcel shipping business rank among the "most productive operations" conducted by the NSA hackers, one top secret document relates in enthusiastic terms. This method, the presentation continues, allows TAO to obtain access to networks "around the world."
Yeah it really boggles the mind. The Celeron CPU price alone is $107 in 1000 bulk quantities. Surely they'd get it cheaper for larger orders, but how much cheaper so they could sell a complete system for $100?
I'm struggling to see where I'd want something like this over a low end ipad. For really basic computing needs they are fine and really snappy. I've seen them on sales around $200 from time to time, which by the time you add storage to this, you are getting close. Its just really hard to recommend ultra low end hardware. I guess it might make an okay dumb terminal for things you just need an interface. Like my 3d printer, etc.
I have the Acer Swift One with very similar specifications, be it with a 128 GB SSD instead of the 32 GB eMMC on the Coda. And compared to my Latitude E7450 (i5-5200u with 8 GB of RAM) the Acer perform rather well. Yes, it's sluggish when trying to do many things at once, and the CPU tend to hit 100 percent all the time. But for its intended use, i.e. reading documents, browsing the internet and playing video and music it actually works surprisingly well.
You might not want it, but others might for the reasons Retycint showed. An Apple tablet for around 300USD and up is something different than a Windows Laptop for around 200USD and down or thereabouts.
I have often thought of this - they are two different architectures - CISC vs RISC, now for generic bench marks, Risc has advantages but more complex stuff CISC has it.
But I also believe that 64 bit has made developers lazy, it simpler to add more memory than to fight down memory leaks.
What would be really interesting to see one of these laptops on Windows XP's likely more powerful than the CPU's in those days.
About the Celeron N3350 vs. an RK3399, here are some numbers (using a Celeron J3455 instead of N3350, both with the same core, with a slightly lower turbo in the J3455) on single-threaded integer benchmarks:
Links did not work - but these sound like generic benchmarks - For ARM to severely impressed me something like AutoCad or SolidWorks need to be run - and not APP version and not run on some server and just showing on device.
So where can one buy this for $100 in the US? I would get one for that price and put Linux on it. timecop1818 don't bother replying you have no idea what you are talking about.
I bought a Chuwi Lapbook 12.3 a little more than a year ago, after reading your review here: It seems to have a rather similar hardware setup, a little more RAM (6GB) and eMMC (64GB) and a higher resolution display at 3:2 ratio, which was the main incentive to buy it, apart from zero moving parts and totally silent operation.
I immediately added a 128GB of M.2 storage (40mm length), because the eMMC was both too small and too slow for comfort. I put a Ubuntu 18 on the eMMC instead, just to see if and how it would work, especially in terms of power management.
I was rather happy with the device, until I took it on a short flight to France. Unfortunately, I had suspended the device on Windows while the power supply was plugged in. Microsoft takes that as a cue to wake up the system periodically to do all sort of maintenance work. So it came alive somewhere during that flight and didn’t just go back to sleep, but tried to do something at full speed, while packed tight into a rucksack above my head. It heated the battery to the point of no return: It gassed and bloated, which became rather noticeable as I tried to use the notebook later on.
Unfortunately, that battery doesn’t have much of a label or seems a common design, so it cannot be bought as a spare part. Chuwi refused to send a replacement battery, which is very easy to swap out (only a couple of screws), but insisted to have me send the notebook somewhere in China for repairs. I’ve done that once or twice and typically ran into all sorts of trouble with customs and in any case a battery that is gassing is no longer safe to send by any means of transportation, except a strong box.
Even worse, the power connector seems to be that odd type, that nobody else uses, so even a power brick that I obtained, turned out to be useless, unless I was willing to cut and solder, using the original Chuwi power supply.
Finally, I learned that all these older Atoms are affected by the design flaw labelled APL46, which has the LPC bus physically war out after a couple of years of use. So using the Ubuntu would kill it because eMMC (and USB) is on the LPC, while M.2 seems relatively safe.
I wrote this comment on the device, which is still usable under external power, but generally I’ve replaced it with a Whisky Lake i7 based Lenovo S730, which has about the same physical size, but packs quite a bit more power, while typically staying almost as silent as the Chuwi.
The Chuwi never had a battery life to brag about, but without any, it’s not very attractive. I tried to push it onto my kids, but failed so far.
I'd want to warn you, that these cheap notebooks are basically toys: They are easy to break and that typically results in a total loss. Using an M.2 or SDcard storage is very much advisable, because you might have trouble harvesting any data from an internal eMMC storage chip.
Battery replacement is always going to be a hassle with these no-name devices. The technology is extremely simple (in terms of manufacturing, designing etc) but the real challenge is to find someone who even bothered to make batteries for these things AND sell them on aliexpress/ebay.
BTW: Since I am testing GeforceNow these days, I gave it a try, too.
Provided you go with cable Ethernet (via USB 3), this worked out pretty well: Really fluid graphics, unnoticeable lags (to me at least) on graphics or input, 1920x1080 on epic settings works with an Atom client device (the Steam link hardware after all is much smaller still).
Actually I find that GeforceNow will actually work better than Steam RemotePlay, at least on Wifi, which I find rather annoying. Will upgrade to Wifi-6 AX on the access point later today to see if I can finally forego the cable.
For quite some time I've been trying to drop jaws running the likes of ARK Surivival Evolved at HD and full details on silent and puny laptops via Steam Remote Play, but far too many (including my kids) fail to appreciate what's going on behind the scenes ("so what?").
They *do* like the convenience, however, of being able to play using those laptops around the dining table, while the GPU power comes from the gaming towers in their room.
I've been unable to find this available for sale in the US anywhere, even ebay. Where the heck do I find this to buy? Their website (https://codacomputers.com/where-to-buy/) says MS Store and ebuyer. The MS Store only seems to sell it in the UK, and ebuyer with the search doesn't seem to find them for sale there anywhere.
I bought something similar but in a tablet form factor a few years ago with atom z3735f that is a 4 core chip, 2gb of RAM and I can tell you, for 70$ this was and still is a very good tablet. I suspect it is quite a bit faster than this device and the thermals are amazing.
I am still using an old Bay Trail Atom laptop and the web surfing experience is slower in a noticable, but marginal manner. It lacks the GPU to handle YouTube at 720p60 and up without hiccups and slowdown, but this is a budget laptpo from 2013. I would imagine that Apollo Lake's significantly faster GPU would fix that problem. For other everyday, non-gaming tasks though, even oa crappy dual core ay Trail is adequate from a CPU perspective.
If you can short circuit 6 capacitor pads nearby the M.2 socket, you'll get a working PCIe 3.0x2 for NVMe ssds. I've got some Apollo lake dev boards from Chinese e-waste sellers last year, and all of them have these cap pads reserved. Optane memory M10 and 970EVO tested, both works well.
"the biggest takeaway from it all was how long things took to load and to appear. Once it was in memory, it was perfectly fine, but that initial delay is going to slow everything down."
Keep up the good work on these types of articles. I don’t know if Ian is trying to develop a Internet persona like Linus tech tips, but seeing him in a pose on every article is certainly a change I am not sure I relish. Anandtech used to be more of a scientific/analytic approach to new hardware and developments...
Anand also had his face in articles. He became recognizable through that and the work he did. A simple google search for anand site:anandtech.com shows a number of pictures I had never seen before
I don't see how it would cause harm. The contents of the articles remain relevant and useful for their targets. Photos that include a human subject can also help with scale and sizing of various components or systems.
I'm curious about: 1. Did you see any evidence of bloatware/OEM processes that might be monitoring the user's input? 2. Would you consider trying some flavor of ubuntu on it and see if there's any unsupported hardware?
Wish I could find the Zest actually available somewhere (even better if it was still that magical $80 sale). Would be nice to replace my ancient iPad2 or Shield Tablet with a proper computer that can run an adblocker for late-night insomnia browsing.
I have the Acer Swift One with a N4000, 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB of SSD and a 13.3" 1080p IPS screen. The weight is 1,3 kg. So in all aspect very similar to the Coda. And I'm a bit split in regard to a computer such as this. But in most ways it's great, especially so considering the price.
BUT I can't shake the feeling these computers are not particularly well balanced. Most components are great but in the end let down by the slow CPU. They are also roughly the same weight and size as a normal laptop such as the XPS 13.
We have all different needs but if I could make a few changes I would make sure it could charge using USB C, I would shrink the screen to 12 inches and make sure to at least use a quad core Atom. This would create a great travel companion without adding a lot to the total BoM.
I bought one of these fo my daughters homework, it is perfectly adequate if you put the work in, so use a lightweight browser that blocks trackers etc like Brave, use one drive for cloud, lighter than google drive, office 365 is totally fine on this, you can also uncap the power limit from 9w to 15w in the BIOS, doesn't really make it much less efficient but can help peak loads on sites like youtube.
It will stream from nearly all popular sites with no problem once done, I think it is an absolute bargain, I disabled the emmc and installed everything on a wd green ssd and disabled unnecessary services,
"Basing on our test some SSD the speed is 450MB/S read and write." This is poorly worded. "Based on our testing of some SSD, the speed is 450MBs read and write."
"The single metal heatsink is for practically every chip in the system, with zero fan for this design." "no" not "zero": "The single metal heatsink is for practically every chip in the system, with no fan for this design."
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
99 Comments
Back to Article
haukionkannel - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Not bad. $200 version with bigger storage could be great!YB1064 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
It is a nice deal for $80. You can always swap out the SSD. It would be nice to use as a mobile instrument display in the lab. We use a few cheap (unfortunately clunky) C2D laptops and these seem to be a good replacement.nandnandnand - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I got a Lenovo 100e Chromebook (MediaTek MT8173C) for under $80. It does everything it needs to do. The technology you get for the price is great, much better than the first netbooks, and if you factor in inflation, these $100-and-less computers are as cheap as dirt.twotwotwo - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Yup. Buying tech for non-techhead family members and setting it up for them, I'm always amazed how good low-end stuff is now. Even if you adjust for apps bloating over the years, etc., I've definitely used worse.Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Back on Black Friday of 2014, I purchased an Asus X205T for $100 as a Staples doorbuster. It certainly was not without its compromises, even then, but I'm still using it (as I write this, even) to play music on YouTube, which it manages about as well as my ancient desktop without also functioning as a space heater.eek2121 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I am more curious as to how storage would perform with a 960 evo.MenhirMike - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
The 960 is NVMe, and it looks like the M.2 slot only supports SATA, so the 860 is pretty much as good as it gets.Padan_Fain - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Walmart has a Ryzen 3 system with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD (both upgradeable) with an MSRP of $300 that they put on sale for $200 at times.Mobile-Dom - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Damnit Ian stop making me want things I dont need. though I would like to see this with a Linux Distro to see if the perceived performance improves at al, something like Mint or elementaryOS.secondly if you know someone with a hot air rework station and can get your hands on a larger eMMC chip or LPDDR4 RAM chip, that could be an interesting if not at all practical upgrade.
timecop1818 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Why the fuck would you install lunix on modern hardware? So you can't use half the shit properly?yankeeDDL - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Mmmmm. Because it works better than Windows in some cases and it is free (as in freedom)?sonny73n - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
timecop is a troll. Don’t feed him.flyingpants265 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Been hearing this for about 500 years, still 0% market share.They tried to pull that stuff multiple times with "year of Linux on the desktop". They tried with Ubuntu and people really fell for it.... Then I tried it myself and it was just Debian/Gnome, and was missing proper support for very basic things.
Oh well. I'm glad Valve finally started supporting WINE 20yrs after Steam was released. I'm sure that will turn everything around!
Linux sucks for drivers, software, maintenance / support, the GUI/UX, and games (til now). (There's actually a whole series on YouTube called Linux sucks, with a ton of stuff that I didn't even mention here.) The best thing about a Linux PC is that you can very easily dual-boot windows.
It's a shame because Linux is faster, more organized, more secure, more powerful in a lot of ways. It's just unusable outside of a specialized setting, or unless you are a nerd who happens to enjoy it. Too bad Richard Stallman ran the FSF into the ground. How sad!
In light of your comment, I'm going to dual boot the latest Ubuntu/whatever it is, try using it as a real desktop PC, and see how it goes. Wish me luck...
PeachNCream - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
You do not appear to have any relevant experience with modern Linux distros.flyingpants265 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
That's right. Almost nobody does, because it's not actually useful.PeachNCream - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
You might be surprised by how many systems are running Linux out there. I have multiple thousands of them fielded within the company I work for as development boxes, servers, and networking appliances. Make no mistake, we still employ a lot of Windows as well for end user facing roles and work-a-day office chores, but enterprise services aside from Active Directory and Exchange are all Linux based.artk2219 - Thursday, March 12, 2020 - link
You're completely wrong about Linux being not being useful, but your comment made me laugh, so have a cookie.Mobile-Dom - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
have you even used modern Distros? more often than not things work out of the box the same as windwos, and in some cases , printers for example are easier to use.arry - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
For something "similar" from a linux point of view tryhttps://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&...
psychobriggsy - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
How was the trackpad for things like palm rejection?I had a very bad experience with a cheap Lenovo Miix Atom system a while back (22nm Atom + 2GB + 32GB for £115 or so) because the trackpad would accept any nearby hand hovering or anything as a valid action. So what was meant to be a little TV lap system became a paperweight.
This system looks far better!
AMD have a 6W Dali APU now, wonder if that will see a life in similar low-end systems in the future. I guess it will be hard to compete with what appears to be a chip sold for almost nothing.
pugster - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
I am not that crazy about old tech Raven Ridge APU's. I am hoping that they have low power APU's based on Ryzen.elzafir - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
Like Picasso or Dali?StormyParis - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I've tried long and hard to buy cheap Chinese stuff, but found anything below Xiaomi isn't worth it.Typically, it works kind of fine, which a few qqulitative issues: crappy sound, so-so screen, and very often very crappy wifi.
Over time, they quickly develop fatal issues: battery degrading rapidly, broken-becuase-flimsy connectors.
I've stopped buying really cheap stuff. Xiaomi is where it's at for me.
flyingpants265 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Brands like UMIDIGI are a scam. I certainly wouldn't look at anything less than that, unless you need something disposable.There are plenty of great used phones available for under $50 USD, like my LG G6 which I paid $30 for last year. This establishes a new baseline for smartphones.
khanikun - Monday, March 30, 2020 - link
LG is S.Korean, not Chinese. They aren't willing to make super junk, in fear of ruining their brand image.elzafir - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
I found that Hong Kong brands are much more reliable when it comes to consumer electronics compared to mainland China (except for Xiaomi, Huawei, and Oppo-Vivo-OnePlus-Realme). But TCL is one very good Chinese brand.PeachNCream - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Thanks for taking the time with this review. For someone on the road with (very) basic computing needs that cannot be satisfied with a phone due to interface device limitations, an inexpensive laptop like this might be a good option over taking something of higher value onto an aircraft or into a hotel where damage and theft are considerations.Manch - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
"The speakers are best left unsaid, which kind of makes that movie playback number somewhat meaningless."I wouldn't call the movie play back meaningless. People tend to use ear buds or external speakers for movies. TBF I've never encountered a laptop with worthwhile speakers.
PeachNCream - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Its notable that the system lacks a 3.5mm audio jack which might make connecting external speakers a bit more of a concern if someone doesn't already own alternative hardware with either bluetooth or USB. It is a minor problem to be sure, but something worth noting in light of the poor audio quality.WithoutWeakness - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
It does have a 3.5mm audio jack. The photo Ian posted of the "right" side of the laptop with the USB C, Micro HDMI, and "power connector" is actually the front of the left side and the "power" port in his photo is a 3.5mm audio jack. The actual barrel connector for power is on the right hand side and is the only connector on the right side of the laptop. If you look closely at the marketing photo at the top of the article you can see the lone power connector at the back of the right-hand side. You can also clearly see the USB C, Micro HDMI, and audio jacks on the same side as the USB A and micro SD slots on the main PCB in a few of the teardown photos.serjrps - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
According to all material available online, you're 100% correct. Their marketing says it has direct speaker / headphone connection, also MS webshop mentions 3.5mm audio jack. And it all aligns with the hole on the left side of the laptop, next to the micro-HDMI slot.I wonder if Ian got confused with the sides when writing the text and didn't double-check the physical slots.
Ian Cutress - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Yup, that's my fault. I took all the pictures and benchmarks a few weeks ago, only wrote the review recently and got a bit muddled up. I've tested the 3.5mm jack with some good headphones, and the audio quality is a lot better than the speakers. I've updated the review and the conclusion accordingly.Manch - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Ian, can we perhaps get a quick rundown test with BT speakers / buds attached? Would it affect the batt life enough to matter?Hardware Geek - Thursday, March 12, 2020 - link
That's what I'd be curious about as well. This could be a good option for the kids if school gets shut down along with low quality cheap bluetooth headphones.Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
True, but there's no 3.5mm jack...Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
It has USB-C though, so I guess you could use a dongle? Kind of funny for such a value-oriented computerManch - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
As WithoutWeakness said, It does.https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/coda-spirit-coda...
Stuka87 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I am actually quite surprised at how good it is for the price. Even at the MSRP price it isn't bad, considering it has Windows 10.eriri-el - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Ian, I looked up their website for the Coda Spirit and some things don't match up.https://codacomputers.com/spirit-13-3-laptop-fhd-i...
On their websites, they show pictures to what clearly is all the ports on one side including a headphone jack, the other side only has the power adapter. There is also some marketing blurb above those images that says 'headphones or speakers (directly or wirelessly)'.
And you can click the 'Download Specs" button further up that lists 'Audio Port' as one of their interfaces. You might want to inform them of their mistake if indeed there is no headphone jack as your review mentioned as it would be misleading customers.
eriri-el - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Would like to add for your 1st picture in 'Under the Hood' the right side seems to be the power adapter and the left side seems to be all the ports with headphone jack which is the same as their product page. correct me if im wrong.Ian Cutress - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Yup, that's my fault. I took all the pictures and benchmarks a few weeks ago, only wrote the review recently and got a bit muddled up. I've tested the 3.5mm jack today with some good headphones, and the audio quality is a lot better than the speakers. I've updated the review and the conclusion accordingly.jcc5169 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Do you do any testing to insure that since this is a Chinese device that there are no mechanics for data collection by PRC hidden in the hardware?Retycint - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Why would there be? Nefarious as the Chinese govt are, they're not going to bother putting spying devices in a small no-name budget manufacturer in hopes that it will somehow end up in a high value targetnandnandnand - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
What about the Israeli data collection CPU, or the chip implanted by NSA?jcc5169 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
NSA doesn't need to implant a chip, they look at everything on the Internetnandnandnand - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
All options are on the table if you are a target:https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/12/mor...
>If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called "load stations," agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.
These minor disruptions in the parcel shipping business rank among the "most productive operations" conducted by the NSA hackers, one top secret document relates in enthusiastic terms. This method, the presentation continues, allows TAO to obtain access to networks "around the world."
deathBOB - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Nice YouTube face Ian.Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
CPU: $100OS: $100
Computer: $100
$100 = $100 + $100 + x
The rest of the computer = x
the rest of the computer must be worth -$100. Case closed, boys
Really though, I wonder how the battery would last long term considering price and quality.
nandnandnand - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Windows is worth $0 these days, possibly -$100.elzafir - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
Yeah it really boggles the mind. The Celeron CPU price alone is $107 in 1000 bulk quantities. Surely they'd get it cheaper for larger orders, but how much cheaper so they could sell a complete system for $100?HStewart - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
One thing that I don't understand why did qualcomm aim at this market - it would be more successful.Retycint - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Its chips are far too expensive, I suspect. The lower end chips are probably not good enough to even run WindowsHStewart - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Yes... maybe a Chrome laptop would be better suited for the processor - not windows.Microsoft has created there own variant - they probably hoping they can become like Apple and lock people in to there own technology.
lotbass - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Where do we order from the US?Midwayman - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I'm struggling to see where I'd want something like this over a low end ipad. For really basic computing needs they are fine and really snappy. I've seen them on sales around $200 from time to time, which by the time you add storage to this, you are getting close. Its just really hard to recommend ultra low end hardware. I guess it might make an okay dumb terminal for things you just need an interface. Like my 3d printer, etc.Retycint - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Windows vs iOS, physical keyboard, 13" screen etc, and also $130-200 cheaperCalista - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
I have the Acer Swift One with very similar specifications, be it with a 128 GB SSD instead of the 32 GB eMMC on the Coda. And compared to my Latitude E7450 (i5-5200u with 8 GB of RAM) the Acer perform rather well. Yes, it's sluggish when trying to do many things at once, and the CPU tend to hit 100 percent all the time. But for its intended use, i.e. reading documents, browsing the internet and playing video and music it actually works surprisingly well.Death666Angel - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
You might not want it, but others might for the reasons Retycint showed. An Apple tablet for around 300USD and up is something different than a Windows Laptop for around 200USD and down or thereabouts.t.s - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
It will be very intersting if anandtech can compare this CPU or the rest of those CPU (celeron 3995 etc) with ARM, like RK3399.HStewart - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I have often thought of this - they are two different architectures - CISC vs RISC, now for generic bench marks, Risc has advantages but more complex stuff CISC has it.But I also believe that 64 bit has made developers lazy, it simpler to add more memory than to fight down memory leaks.
What would be really interesting to see one of these laptops on Windows XP's likely more powerful than the CPU's in those days.
AntonErtl - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
About the Celeron N3350 vs. an RK3399, here are some numbers (using a Celeron J3455 instead of N3350, both with the same core, with a slightly lower turbo in the J3455) on single-threaded integer benchmarks:On our LaTeX Benchmarks <https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/franz/latex-benc... times in seconds:
0.712s Celeron J3455 (Goldmont) 2300MHz, ASRock J3455-ITX, Ubuntu16.10
1.300s Rockpro64 (1800MHz Cortex A72 in a RK3399) Debian 9 (Stretch)
On the small Gforth Benchmarks <http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gforth.git/tree/B... (also times in seconds):
sieve bubble matrix fib fft
0.192 0.224 0.104 0.284 0.152 Celeron J3455 (Goldmont) 2300MHz
0.204 0.232 0.108 0.212 0.100 20190124; RockPro64 (1800MHz Cortex-A72, RK3399)
HStewart - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Links did not work - but these sound like generic benchmarks - For ARM to severely impressed me something like AutoCad or SolidWorks need to be run - and not APP version and not run on some server and just showing on device.TEAMSWITCHER - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Ads on this site are becoming obnoxious... What happened?nandnandnand - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
You turned your adblocker off.lwatcdr - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
So where can one buy this for $100 in the US?I would get one for that price and put Linux on it. timecop1818 don't bother replying you have no idea what you are talking about.
abufrejoval - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I bought a Chuwi Lapbook 12.3 a little more than a year ago, after reading your review here: It seems to have a rather similar hardware setup, a little more RAM (6GB) and eMMC (64GB) and a higher resolution display at 3:2 ratio, which was the main incentive to buy it, apart from zero moving parts and totally silent operation.I immediately added a 128GB of M.2 storage (40mm length), because the eMMC was both too small and too slow for comfort. I put a Ubuntu 18 on the eMMC instead, just to see if and how it would work, especially in terms of power management.
I was rather happy with the device, until I took it on a short flight to France. Unfortunately, I had suspended the device on Windows while the power supply was plugged in. Microsoft takes that as a cue to wake up the system periodically to do all sort of maintenance work. So it came alive somewhere during that flight and didn’t just go back to sleep, but tried to do something at full speed, while packed tight into a rucksack above my head. It heated the battery to the point of no return: It gassed and bloated, which became rather noticeable as I tried to use the notebook later on.
Unfortunately, that battery doesn’t have much of a label or seems a common design, so it cannot be bought as a spare part. Chuwi refused to send a replacement battery, which is very easy to swap out (only a couple of screws), but insisted to have me send the notebook somewhere in China for repairs. I’ve done that once or twice and typically ran into all sorts of trouble with customs and in any case a battery that is gassing is no longer safe to send by any means of transportation, except a strong box.
Even worse, the power connector seems to be that odd type, that nobody else uses, so even a power brick that I obtained, turned out to be useless, unless I was willing to cut and solder, using the original Chuwi power supply.
Finally, I learned that all these older Atoms are affected by the design flaw labelled APL46, which has the LPC bus physically war out after a couple of years of use. So using the Ubuntu would kill it because eMMC (and USB) is on the LPC, while M.2 seems relatively safe.
I wrote this comment on the device, which is still usable under external power, but generally I’ve replaced it with a Whisky Lake i7 based Lenovo S730, which has about the same physical size, but packs quite a bit more power, while typically staying almost as silent as the Chuwi.
The Chuwi never had a battery life to brag about, but without any, it’s not very attractive. I tried to push it onto my kids, but failed so far.
I'd want to warn you, that these cheap notebooks are basically toys: They are easy to break and that typically results in a total loss. Using an M.2 or SDcard storage is very much advisable, because you might have trouble harvesting any data from an internal eMMC storage chip.
quorm - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Thanks for taking the time to post this.Retycint - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Battery replacement is always going to be a hassle with these no-name devices. The technology is extremely simple (in terms of manufacturing, designing etc) but the real challenge is to find someone who even bothered to make batteries for these things AND sell them on aliexpress/ebay.abufrejoval - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
BTW: Since I am testing GeforceNow these days, I gave it a try, too.Provided you go with cable Ethernet (via USB 3), this worked out pretty well: Really fluid graphics, unnoticeable lags (to me at least) on graphics or input, 1920x1080 on epic settings works with an Atom client device (the Steam link hardware after all is much smaller still).
Actually I find that GeforceNow will actually work better than Steam RemotePlay, at least on Wifi, which I find rather annoying. Will upgrade to Wifi-6 AX on the access point later today to see if I can finally forego the cable.
For quite some time I've been trying to drop jaws running the likes of ARK Surivival Evolved at HD and full details on silent and puny laptops via Steam Remote Play, but far too many (including my kids) fail to appreciate what's going on behind the scenes ("so what?").
They *do* like the convenience, however, of being able to play using those laptops around the dining table, while the GPU power comes from the gaming towers in their room.
Alistair - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I don't see the point in buying a laptop with 2007 performance. Get the cheapest Ryzen 3000 laptop you can find in a month instead.peevee - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
Excellent article, thank you!Drizzt321 - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I've been unable to find this available for sale in the US anywhere, even ebay. Where the heck do I find this to buy? Their website (https://codacomputers.com/where-to-buy/) says MS Store and ebuyer. The MS Store only seems to sell it in the UK, and ebuyer with the search doesn't seem to find them for sale there anywhere.yeeeeman - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
I bought something similar but in a tablet form factor a few years ago with atom z3735f that is a 4 core chip, 2gb of RAM and I can tell you, for 70$ this was and still is a very good tablet. I suspect it is quite a bit faster than this device and the thermals are amazing.peevee - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
There is an error in the storage performance table:"Sandisk Ultra 256 GB A1-Class microUSB"
It is MicroSDXC, not microUSB.
The_Assimilator - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link
My own (sad) experiences with Windows 10 on ultraportables concurs that 32GB is not sufficient for storage.Samus - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Of course the wild card is you can get someone used on eBay for $100 that’s substantially superior to this thing.Albeit used.
The CPU just kills this thing. You’re going to have a smoother web surfing experience on a 5 year old iPhone.
PeachNCream - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
I am still using an old Bay Trail Atom laptop and the web surfing experience is slower in a noticable, but marginal manner. It lacks the GPU to handle YouTube at 720p60 and up without hiccups and slowdown, but this is a budget laptpo from 2013. I would imagine that Apollo Lake's significantly faster GPU would fix that problem. For other everyday, non-gaming tasks though, even oa crappy dual core ay Trail is adequate from a CPU perspective.GreenReaper - Thursday, March 12, 2020 - link
You can probably get a better video experience by using youtube-dl and then MPC-HC to play it.My custom config.txt for my netbook (put in C:\Users[username]\AppData\Roaming\youtube-dl):
--ffmpeg-location "C:\Program Files\ffmpeg-20190823-b29c7bc-win64-shared\bin" -f "137+bestaudio/298+bestaudio/136+bestaudio/135+bestaudio/134+bestaudio/DASH-VIDEO-1+bestaudio/best/bestvideo+bestaudio" --write-sub --convert-subs srt --embed-subs --fragment-retries infinite --retries infinite
FFmpeg wqas from ffmpeg-20190823-b29c7bc-win64-shared.zip in https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win64/shared/ - there are newer ones now, obviously.
Soybean0 - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
If you can short circuit 6 capacitor pads nearby the M.2 socket, you'll get a working PCIe 3.0x2 for NVMe ssds. I've got some Apollo lake dev boards from Chinese e-waste sellers last year, and all of them have these cap pads reserved. Optane memory M10 and 970EVO tested, both works well.Slash3 - Wednesday, March 11, 2020 - link
See, now *that's* interesting.elzafir - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
Is there an article or tutorial about this?3ogdy - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
5000mAh battery. Just like the Zenfone 6.voicequal - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
"the biggest takeaway from it all was how long things took to load and to appear. Once it was in memory, it was perfectly fine, but that initial delay is going to slow everything down."Time to disable Windows Defender again.
thespanky1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Keep up the good work on these types of articles. I don’t know if Ian is trying to develop a Internet persona like Linus tech tips, but seeing him in a pose on every article is certainly a change I am not sure I relish. Anandtech used to be more of a scientific/analytic approach to new hardware and developments...Ian Cutress - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Anand also had his face in articles. He became recognizable through that and the work he did. A simple google search for anand site:anandtech.com shows a number of pictures I had never seen beforePeachNCream - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
I don't see how it would cause harm. The contents of the articles remain relevant and useful for their targets. Photos that include a human subject can also help with scale and sizing of various components or systems.YaBaBom - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
I'm curious about: 1. Did you see any evidence of bloatware/OEM processes that might be monitoring the user's input? 2. Would you consider trying some flavor of ubuntu on it and see if there's any unsupported hardware?QChronoD - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Wish I could find the Zest actually available somewhere (even better if it was still that magical $80 sale). Would be nice to replace my ancient iPad2 or Shield Tablet with a proper computer that can run an adblocker for late-night insomnia browsing.Calista - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
I have the Acer Swift One with a N4000, 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB of SSD and a 13.3" 1080p IPS screen. The weight is 1,3 kg. So in all aspect very similar to the Coda. And I'm a bit split in regard to a computer such as this. But in most ways it's great, especially so considering the price.BUT I can't shake the feeling these computers are not particularly well balanced. Most components are great but in the end let down by the slow CPU. They are also roughly the same weight and size as a normal laptop such as the XPS 13.
We have all different needs but if I could make a few changes I would make sure it could charge using USB C, I would shrink the screen to 12 inches and make sure to at least use a quad core Atom. This would create a great travel companion without adding a lot to the total BoM.
adhsmith - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
I bought one of these fo my daughters homework, it is perfectly adequate if you put the work in, so use a lightweight browser that blocks trackers etc like Brave, use one drive for cloud, lighter than google drive, office 365 is totally fine on this, you can also uncap the power limit from 9w to 15w in the BIOS, doesn't really make it much less efficient but can help peak loads on sites like youtube.It will stream from nearly all popular sites with no problem once done, I think it is an absolute bargain, I disabled the emmc and installed everything on a wd green ssd and disabled unnecessary services,
adhsmith - Tuesday, March 10, 2020 - link
Oh and I forgot to mention you CAN charge from USB C port.29a - Wednesday, March 11, 2020 - link
You should check out Walmart's $250 Ryzen 3 laptop, it's getting lots of love from everyone who has reviewed it.elzafir - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
Anybody know the OEM for the Walmart laptop? We dont have Walmart in my country. Would be nice if can find similar model from a local brand.oRAirwolf - Wednesday, March 11, 2020 - link
So where can I buy this for $100? I can't it for sale anywhere in the US.dickeywang - Thursday, March 12, 2020 - link
a usable machine if you do most of your work in Linux.ballsystemlord - Thursday, March 12, 2020 - link
Spelling and grammar errors:"Basing on our test some SSD the speed is 450MB/S read and write."
This is poorly worded.
"Based on our testing of some SSD, the speed is 450MBs read and write."
"The single metal heatsink is for practically every chip in the system, with zero fan for this design."
"no" not "zero":
"The single metal heatsink is for practically every chip in the system, with no fan for this design."
zodiacsoulmate - Friday, March 20, 2020 - link
have a laptop with n3350, even with enabled 15W power limit, the thing is slow af...Tushar Sharma - Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - link
As of now, people buy smartphones over $100 and don't deem them good. I wonder how this laptop would be.Stone2020x - Wednesday, April 15, 2020 - link
Could you please message to me the buy link ? thanks