I originally discovered the Chuwi Corebook X after watching this video from Linus Tech Tips.

I was intrigued about having an affordable 1440p laptop with a 3:2 screen ratio since I never had one before. However, I didn’t want to pay the $500 Chuwi was asking for at the time, so I took to eBay.

It turned out Chuwi had a store on eBay, so instead of getting the new hotness shown on LTT, I ordered the previous model for only $250. It came with the 2018 Intel Core I-5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 512 GB NVME SSD, and Iris XE graphics. It only took six days to be delivered from China. This was around Thanksgiving of 2023. I eventually installed another 8GB stick of RAM to bring it to 16GB.

When I first got it up and running, it was already signed in to Windows. That felt very Chinese spyware to me, so I wiped the drive and installed Windows myself. There were some drivers Windows wasn’t able to find, but I found an official Intel tool online which did the trick. I forget what it was called, so if you’re looking for a fix, I can’t help you.

Once everything was installed and updated, I fell in love with this laptop. It was all due to the screen. I even loved that the screen was glossy. It could have looked like the screen from a Virtual Boy and I still would have loved its 1440p, 3:2 goodness.

Do you want to know what this laptop was really good for? Retro console gaming emulation. I’m a big fan of the PlayStation 2 era of games. I think I bought more games for that system than any other, before or since. Since the PS2 was before the HD era, most of the games were in a 4:3 format. Playing 4:3 games on a hi-res 3:2 screen was one of the greatest feelings in the world, as it was so close to the original format. And because the screen was only 14″ the games still looked bright and crisp without having to do any upscaling.

I wanted to use this laptop all the time, so it became my daily driver for my day job. That was up until a couple of weeks ago.

I kept the laptop on a stand and had it connected to my monitor, so I didn’t use the trackpad that often. One day recently, I looked over at the laptop and noticed the trackpad was on the verge of popping out. I thought maybe constantly being on the stand at an angle caused the chassis to bend and pop out the trackpad.

Then I remembered what the leading cause of trackpad popping is, swollen batteries. Sure enough, I took off the bottom casing of the laptop and discovered a case of the spicy pillows.

For those who may not know, when a battery swells like this, it’s on its way to bursting. And when lithium-ion batteries burst, there’s a more than decent chance they’ll catch fire.

I was just going to order a replacement battery, but I thought better of it. It just would have been another cheap Chinese battery that probably would have swollen up again in another year. I didn’t want a fire hazard in the house. After stripping the laptop of its RAM and SSD, I took it to a local electronics recycler to have them dispose of the battery properly.

Another reason I didn’t just replace the battery is that this was the first time I’ve ever had a swollen battery in a laptop. In my collection, my oldest laptop is from 2007. While it’s not the fastest laptop today, it was from a reputable brand, and I’ve never had a problem with the battery. I have other laptops ranging from 2012 to today, and while I’ve had batteries fail, I’ve never had one expand like this.

To summarize, while they made a great and affordable product, it’s not worth buying Chuwi products, in my opinion. Not to mention they’re a Chinese company, so if Tariff Don and Apartheid Clyde have their way, we won’t be buying Chinese products for a while.