Review: Chuwi’s $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

评测：驰为 449 美元的 Unibook 笔记本电脑，一面“哈哈镜”里的 MacBook Neo

In another time, the MacBook Neo could have caused a substantial realignment of the lowish-end laptop business. Sure, it has shortcomings compared to the MacBook Air, but it could have at least encouraged PC makers to start shipping consistently decent keyboards, screens, and build quality in the Neo’s $599 price window.

在另一个时代，MacBook Neo 本可以引发低端笔记本电脑市场的重大重组。诚然，与 MacBook Air 相比它存在不足，但它至少可以鼓励 PC 制造商在 Neo 的 599 美元价位段提供始终如一的体面键盘、屏幕和制造质量。

The PC makers did start responding, thanks in part to Intel’s actually new non-Ultra Core Series 3 processors (codenamed Wildcat Lake). Intel has resisted its usual compunction to serve the budget market with aging, re-labeled silicon and has created a lower-end, lower-performance processor with the same building blocks (and the same manufacturing processes) as this year’s high-end, high-performance models.

PC 制造商确实开始做出回应，这在一定程度上要归功于英特尔真正全新的非 Ultra Core Series 3 处理器（代号 Wildcat Lake）。英特尔一改以往用老旧、贴牌芯片供应预算市场的习惯，采用与今年高端高性能型号相同的构建模块（以及相同的制造工艺），打造出了一款低端、低功耗的处理器。

The likes of Dell, Acer, Asus, and Lenovo began hopping on the Wildcat Lake train fairly quickly, announcing would-be Neo competitors. But it felt like most of them were having trouble matching the Neo’s barebones specs, let alone undercutting them. Dell’s XPS 13 started at $599, but only for students. It would be $699 for everyone else. Acer’s Swift Air 14 was announced at $699, too. Sure, sometimes these offered features the Neo didn’t have. But the point of the Neo is that it eschews frills and frippery in favor of nailing the basics.

戴尔、宏碁、华硕和联想等厂商很快就开始搭上 Wildcat Lake 的快车，宣布推出 Neo 的潜在竞争对手。但感觉大多数厂商在匹配 Neo 的基础规格方面都遇到了困难，更不用说在价格上击败它了。戴尔 XPS 13 起售价为 599 美元，但这仅针对学生，其他人则需 699 美元。宏碁 Swift Air 14 的发布价也是 699 美元。当然，这些产品有时会提供 Neo 所没有的功能，但 Neo 的核心在于它摒弃了花哨的装饰，专注于做好基础体验。

But even the MacBook Neo ended up being too good to be true. Apple raised its price by $100 three months after introducing it. Yes, if you want a laptop that feels good, looks good, and performs well here in The Year Of The Unforgettable Memory Crisis, it’s hard to find a good deal, even if you’re willing to settle for a middle-shelf processor, the bare minimum amount of RAM that a modern operating system and browser will reasonably run on, and a meager 256GB or inexcessive 512GB storage drive.

然而，即便是 MacBook Neo 最终也被证明“好得不真实”。苹果在推出三个月后将其价格上调了 100 美元。是的，在这个“令人难忘的内存危机之年”，如果你想要一台手感好、外观好、性能好的笔记本电脑，很难找到划算的交易，即使你愿意妥协于中端处理器、现代操作系统和浏览器勉强运行所需的最低内存，以及微薄的 256GB 或并不充裕的 512GB 存储空间。

There was one US-announced Wildcat Lake system that has managed to undercut the MacBook Air and the rest of the industry, though. Chinese PC company Chuwi has put together the Unibook, a Wildcat Lake computer with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage that it’s selling for an introductory price of $449 (its “normal” price is listed at $569, but it’s not clear whether or when the price might go back up.)

不过，有一款在美国发布的 Wildcat Lake 系统成功击败了 MacBook Air 和行业内其他产品。中国 PC 公司驰为（Chuwi）推出了 Unibook，这是一款搭载 Wildcat Lake 处理器、配备 8GB 内存和 256GB 存储空间的电脑，其首发价格为 449 美元（其“正常”价格标为 569 美元，但不清楚价格何时会回升）。

On paper, that looks pretty good. And in practice, the Unibook isn’t completely without its charms. But “you get what you pay for” applies here in multiple ways, and it’s difficult to imagine recommending this machine to anyone other than a computer geek looking for a weird project PC.

从纸面参数来看，这看起来相当不错。在实际使用中，Unibook 也并非毫无魅力。但“一分钱一分货”的道理在这里多方面适用，除了那些寻找奇特项目电脑的极客之外，很难想象会向其他人推荐这款机器。

The Unibook looks unassuming at first glance, somewhere in the neighborhood of an Asus Zenbook. It feels like a cop-out to describe something as “nondescript,” but this is a pretty down-the-middle clamshell PC design. To begin with the good, the Unibook far outstrips the port offerings of the MacBook Neo or the new XPS 13. It offers a pair of USB-C ports, a full-size HDMI port, two 5Gbps USB 3 ports, one USB 2.0 port, a micro-SD card slot, a headphone jack, and even an Ethernet port.

Unibook 第一眼看上去并不起眼，风格类似于华硕灵耀（Zenbook）。用“平平无奇”来形容它似乎有些敷衍，但这就是一个非常中规中矩的翻盖式 PC 设计。先说优点，Unibook 的接口配置远超 MacBook Neo 或新款 XPS 13。它提供了一对 USB-C 接口、一个全尺寸 HDMI 接口、两个 5Gbps USB 3 接口、一个 USB 2.0 接口、一个 microSD 卡槽、一个耳机插孔，甚至还有一个以太网接口。

I’ve never loved the little folding-out design for Ethernet ports that some laptops use to save a little space—if and when the little hinge breaks, it will start flopping around and looking bad—but so many laptops use thin-and-lightness as an excuse to ship a bare-minimum allotment of ports that it’s nice to see a budget-minded laptop ship with a ton of connectivity options.

我从来都不喜欢某些笔记本电脑为了节省空间而采用的折叠式以太网接口设计——一旦那个小铰链坏了，它就会变得松松垮垮，看起来很糟糕——但鉴于太多笔记本电脑以“轻薄”为借口只提供最基本的接口，看到一款主打预算的笔记本电脑提供如此丰富的连接选项，还是令人欣慰的。

The Unibook’s M.2 2280 drive is also pretty easy to replace. Remove the 11 Philips-head screws on the bottom of the laptop, and its bottom pries up with a bit of pressure. If you want a larger drive or just one from a better-known company, it’s easy to put one in (the built-in SSD is made by “HOGE,” a name that means about as much to most North Americans as “Chuwi”). The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module is also easily accessible; the battery is, too, if you can manage to find a replacement somehow.

Unibook 的 M.2 2280 硬盘也非常容易更换。拧下笔记本底部的 11 颗十字螺丝，稍微用力就能撬开底盖。如果你想要更大的硬盘，或者只是想换一个知名品牌的硬盘，更换起来很容易（内置 SSD 是由“HOGE”制造的，这个名字对大多数北美用户来说和“驰为”一样陌生）。Wi-Fi/蓝牙模块也很容易触及；如果你能设法找到替换电池，电池也同样可以更换。

Also in the “good” column is the laptop’s perfectly not-bad keyboard. The keys aren’t as firm or satisfying as those on the keyboards in the MacBook lineup or in Framework’s Laptop 12 or Laptop 13, but the typing feel is decent, and the backlight is nice and even. The computer is missing a fingerprint reader (there’s also no face-scanning camera, which means the Unibook has no biometric login option at all), but this is a corner that the MacBook Neo’s base model also cuts.

“优点”栏里还包括这款笔记本电脑表现尚可的键盘。按键虽然不如 MacBook 系列或 Framework Laptop 12/13 的键盘那样紧实或令人满意，但打字手感不错，背光也很均匀。这台电脑缺少指纹识别器（也没有人脸扫描摄像头，这意味着 Unibook 完全没有生物识别登录选项），但这正是 MacBook Neo 基础版也会缩减的地方。

Judged by the standards of the category, the Unibook’s screen isn’t awful. It’s a 13-inch IPS display panel with a decent 1920 x 1200 resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio, a step up from the 16:9 1080p displays you’ll still find in some ultra-budget systems. But it’s also not very nice by the MacBook Neo’s standards: only 300-ish nits of maximum brightness.

以该类别的标准来衡量，Unibook 的屏幕并不糟糕。它是一块 13 英寸的 IPS 显示面板，分辨率为 1920 x 1200，比例为 16:10，这比你在一些超低预算系统中仍能见到的 16:9 1080p 显示屏要好。但以 MacBook Neo 的标准来看，它也不算太好：最大亮度仅为 300 尼特左右。