Chuwi LarkBox

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• CHUWI LarkBox $189.99
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Chuwi LarkBox is a tiny mini PC running Celeron N4100

The Chuwi Larkbox is a tiny PC announced by the brand in mid-April. It is now expected for a “commercialization” scheduled for this month of May. The machine will not be available immediately since the manufacturer has taken the bad habit of first going through the “equity financing” box.

With 6.1 cm side and 4.3 cm high, the Larkbox is an ultra-compact MiniPC which offers however a very interesting equipment. The brand has relied on the very capable Celeron N4100 processor that it comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. This trio is very sufficient for many daily tasks. This will make the Larkbox suitable for classic family uses: surfing, word processing, spreadsheet and multimedia… With the very small size of the object, the possibility to hide it anywhere will allow to create a computer station at low cost.

Chuwi is going to go through Indiegogo to launch its product… which is never a good solution for the consumer. Between the risks, the delays and the high probability of paying the same price as a buyer who will order it after it is released in the shop, the game is not worth the candle.

The brand advertises a 25% discount on the price of the machine by registering on its promotional web page. This discount would bring the machine down to $149, which would be a pretty good price for this kind of solution… And I guess that will be its in-store price once the campaign is over.

I don’t really see how the brand could justify the price of its MiniPC at $199 when its excellent solution which is the Herobox, better equipped with 8Gb of RAM, 180Gb of eMMC and two expansion possibilities with an M.2 SATA 3.0 2280 and a 2.5″ bay is available at 192€ in fanless version in store. The Larkbox is certainly more compact but this price seems to me hard to hold once marketed.

At 149$, the Chuwi Larkbox thus equipped would be a very complete machine despite its lack of scalability. It could be used for many workstations ranging from classic solutions to micro server functions, digital display or control of machine tools such as 3D printers or laser engravers.

One question that I’m still curious about is: Considering the format of the machine, wouldn’t it be better for Chuwi to offer this kind of solution in “motherboard” format as well? An identical Chuwi Larkbox but without the case so that users can easily integrate it into their projects? Considering the size of this solution, we could have a board really easy to integrate in various projects.

It should even be quite easy to contain the 6 watts of TDP of the processor with a totally passive heatsink. Personally, I think a well staged “motherboard” version could be a huge success. The market is a “niche” with hardly any competitors, while the demand is clearly visible as soon as a solution accessible to the general public appears. As we have seen with the Atomic Pi solutions for example.

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