Disk
The Air Plus has a Netac 512GB PCIe 3.0NVMe disk.
Here are the results with KDiskMark, an open source GUI tools that benchmarks the disk performance. It uses Flexible I/O Tester.
The benchmarks are in line for a Gen3x4 PCIe NVMe SSD, given that the maximum read/write speeds are approximately 3,500/3,000MB/s.
The laptop actually supports PCIe 4.0×4 so you can upgrade the disk for better performance. Given the high cost of NVMe, it’s understandable why Chuwi are using a PCIe 3.0 512GB disk. Most users won’t notice the difference.
I also tested the disk under Windows.
WiFi
I generally prefer network connections over ethernet rather than Wi-Fi. While the Air Plus doesn’t have ethernet you can always attach a USB to 1G or 2.5G Ethernet Adapter as this lets you transfer at much faster rates than Wi-Fi can offer.
But Wi-Fi does has some advantages over ethernet. There’s no wire clutter, and you can connect anywhere in your home. Almost all modern devices can connect to Wi-Fi from desktops to smartphones. And you can have many devices connected and streaming simultaneously.
To test typical day-to-day performance, I placed the Air Plus on a different floor to my router. That’s intended to mirror a fairly representative setup for home Wi-Fi systems where it’s not convenient to locate a PC fairly close to the router.
Here are performance statistics using the iperf utility. The local machine (IP 192.168.1.237) is connected to the router via wired ethernet.
At this location, the laptop performs as well as Zen 5 mini PCs I’ve tested in terms of network performance speeds.
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Chuwi CoreBook Air Plus | |
|---|---|
| Hardware Review | A concise look at the hardware |
| Specifications | Using the inxi tool to delve into the laptop's specifications |
| Benchmarks | I put the laptop through a series of benchmarks |