Pipo Mini Laptop

[Firman Lamarre]

Whilethe traditional laptop brands seemed to have lost the appetite for true ultra-portables, a variety of Chinese companies have recognised an opportunity. GPD is one of the leaders here, producing a series of desirable portables, albeit mostly aimed at PC gamers and some costing over a grand.

You can of course connect a wired or wireless mouse, or like me, mostly end up using the touch screen which proved surprisingly effective for navigating a desktop OS on a small display even with your fingers and thumbs.

Bonus points to S-Tech for also saving me from opening up the unit. In one of their videos they actually discovered a USB-C port on the motherboard next to the HDMI, but without a hole to access it in the case. Turns out this can work for data, like connecting external drives, but not for charging, so perhaps it was hidden to prevent accidental damage. But if you have a dremmel, knock yourself out!

And finally for the same external SSD plugged in the back where it scored just over 460Mb/s for read and writes in the same test. So clearly the rear USB port is the one to use for drives and data transfer, leaving the slower side port for basic peripherals like wired mice or keyboards.

Sure I wish it had a full-size SD slot, but few laptops do anymore, and space is at a premium here. So for reading SD cards, I just use a basic old USB adapter, in the rear port of course for the best speeds.

Ok now for some more tests, starting with Geekbench 6 for a basic overall benchmark. The mini laptop under mains power scored 261 for single core and 560 for multi core, so let me know in the comments how that compares to your ultra-portables!

If you are reasonably close to an access point though, the browsing experience with the Kingnovy was perfectly adequate for most sites, and I found the touch screen worked well for scrolling or tapping. In fact I was struck by how close the experience felt to using a mini tablet, despite the screen not folding completely open like a convertible device.

As for control, I found I could tap through to most menus with my fingers and thumbs alone, but for more precise adjustments, like tweaking sliders, you will want to either connect a separate mouse as I have here, or buy yourself a stylus to use with the touchscreen.

The X7 is essentially a mini computer that utilises the same kind of hardware you'd expect to see on a tablet, an entry-level laptop or smartphone. This one doesn't have any baseband hardware, cameras, display or battery, which means that it should be significantly more affordable.

Instead, everything is neatly packed in what looks like a sleek aluminium enclosure that also doubles as a giant heat sink with plenty of vents on the sides and underneath. Other than Pipo's logo/labels, there's nothing; no Intel Inside, Windows 8.1 or Office 365 stickers.

It is backed by 2GB of DDR3 memory and 32GB of storage courtesy of the equally popular Samsung MBG4GC; the same part can be found in the Dell Venue 8 Pro and the Microsoft Surface 2. Note that Windows shows that 23.5GB of that storage is accessible with about 16.1GB free (that's after more than 90 updates to Windows).

You can supplement that by adding a microSD card and even more if you attach external hard disk drives to the four available USB ports (there are two front and two at the back, even if they are all USB 2.0 which is a real let-down).

Since this is a desktop PC, you can also expand remote storage by hooking up a NAS either via wires (through the 10/100Mbps Ethernet port) or wirelessly (thanks to 802.11n connectivity) helped by an external antenna.

Other ports/connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.0, a dual-purpose audio connector, an HDMI port and a power-in for the 24W external power supply unit. A single button is used to power on the computer and a red LED lights up when the machine is turned on.

As far as performance is concerned, the X7 should be more than adequate for the non-demanding, average user, the type of audience who would be content with that box which can make a TV "smart". It boots really fast and 13 tabs opened in Internet Explorer 11 consumed only about 40% of the device's processor resources (and 90% of system memory).

Don't expect to game seriously on the X7 though. The graphics performance is likely to be ridiculously low thanks to a combination of paltry video memory (32MB) and entry-level graphics (an Intel HD Graphics part clocked at 313MHz).

An interesting titbit: one of the tools we used, PC Wizard, reports that the X7 runs on a 32-bit version of Windows 8.1 v6.02.9200 Connected Home Edition, a moniker we haven't come across yet. Still, this one came with Bing (as expected) and Office 365 Personal, even if it is not mentioned anywhere.

D\u00e9sir\u00e9 has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Desire AthowSocial Links NavigationManaging Editor, TechRadar ProDsir has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.

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