CHUWI CoreBox 4th Intel Core i5 DDR5 Mini PC Review
The CHUWI CoreBox 4th Intel i5 Windows 11 Mini PC, is what I would describe as a crossover between a desktop and a NUC. With a dimension of 8 inches wide, 6 1/4 inches long, and 3 inches tall, it’s a little bigger than a NUC but too small to be called a full-size desktop PC.
Its mainboard is an integrated SBC with 16 GB of LPDDR5 onboard RAM and Intel Iris xe graphics, it provides one M.2 NVME 2280 slot and two SATA expandable storage connectors.
It offers Wi-Fi 6 technology and Bluetooth 5.2. Its CPU is the Intel core i5 1235U deca-core processor (10 Cores) with a base clock speed of 1.3 GHz, and a boost clock speed of 4.0 – 4.4 GHz. Its Intel UHD graphics processor delivers Vulkan support up to 1.1 GHz.
CHUWI CoreBox 4th Specs
- Product Name – CoreBox 4th
- Finish – black + space gray
- Construction Material – Al-Mg Alloy & Polycarbonate
- Processor – Intel® Core™ i3-1215U
- Graphics – Intel UHD Graphics, Up to 1.1GHz
- Video Output – 4K@60Hz
- Storage – 512G SSD （PCIe）
- Memory – 16GB LPDDR5
- Charging – 19V/4.74A
- Dimension – 173*158*73(H)mm
- Weight – About 865g
- Expandability – M.2 2280 SSD 1TB
- Wireless – WIFI6 (802.11ax)
- Bluetooth – Bluetooth 5.1
- Operating System – WIN11
- In the Box – 19V/4.74A, 65W DC Power Adapter,
- PSE, CE, UL, FCC certified
CHUWI CoreBox 4th I/O Ports
- USB-A 3.0*4
- 3.5mm Microphone Jack*1
- 3.5mm Headphone Jack*1
- HDMI 2.0*1
- Gigabit Ethernet*1
- Display Port*1
- DC Port*1
Performance Tasks
With its CPU base clock speed at 1.3 GHz one would expect its performance would be slow in its basic operations. However, this is not the case as it quickly accelerates depending on the task being performed so there is no throttling or latency. With difficult tasks such as video editing, with programs such as Camtasia it performs smoothly editing 4K videos under 10 minutes long. Obviously the longer the video the more difficult it becomes to maintain is more timeline.
Playing 4K HDR HLG videos is not an issue for this Mini PC with default media players and even external media players such as the VLC it produces HDR HLG display quality. For digital surround sound audio it can output all surround sound digital formats such as Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital plus, Dolby surround from Dolby vision videos, Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD Master audio, and DTS-X.
It’s gaming performance is really good even though its GPU does not feature Ray Tracing. However it plays best when you set games to 1080p resolution. For Retroarch gaming and PS2 emulation gaming this Mini PC is more than ample the power needed to run these emulators producing seamless emulation gaming.
Benchmarks
- PCMark 10 – 4,975
- Antutu – 587,620
- Geekbench 6 – Single-Core 1,513 | Multi-core 7,229
- 3DMark – Time Spy 1465
- RAM Copy – 15,005 MB/s
- M.2 Speed – 2,538 MB/s read | 2,567 MB/s write
- Wi-Fi Speed (based on 154 Mbps) – 5GHz band MAX | 2.4GHz band MAX
CHUWI CoreBox 4th Pros and Cons
Final Thoughts
The CHUWI CoreBox 4th does not disappoint when it comes to hardware performance, and a like that it has an expandable storage facility for more than one device. You can install multiple operating systems such as Ubuntu, FydeOS, and OpenFyde. However, it does not allow you to install Android x86 even with registering EFI keys.
Its I/O ports placement was not well-thought-out locating all reports behind the unit making it very difficult to manage when you have multiple devices connected. They should have placed at least two to the front. For a mini PC in this class and price range it should have had a USB type C display port.
