Is this $450 laptop from an unknown brand too good to be true?

is a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.

Finding a good laptop under $500 was hard enough before RAMageddon. They nearly always had cheap hardware and underpowered, often outdated chips. That’s what made the MacBook Neo so disruptive: It offered great build quality and good-enough performance starting at $599. Windows laptops couldn’t touch it. Even though it’s gone up to $699, it’s still the laptop to beat.

So when little-known Chinese brand Chuwi announced a $450 Windows laptop with an aluminum build and a brand-new Intel Wildcat Lake processor, it sounded too good to be true.

It is.

3 Verge Score Chuwi UniBook $ 449 $ 449 The Good It’s $450

Tons of ports for a small laptop (though none are very fast)

Good battery life The Bad A bad screen and absolutely awful trackpad, speakers, and webcam

Metal chassis feels cheap, with lots of flex

Lackluster performance from the Intel chip and limited RAM

Concerns over long-term customer support $449 at Chuwi How we rate and review products

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