We’ve already checked CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 hardware in the first part of the review, before testing the AMD Ryzen 5 6600H laptop with Windows 11 Pro, and today I’ll report my experience using the CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop with Linux using Ubuntu 25.10 distribution.
The Ubuntu review will include system information, benchmarks, YouTube 4K and 8K video playback, feature testing, storage and WiFi 6 performance, and measurement of fan noise and power consumption/battery life.
Ubuntu 26.04 vs Ubuntu 25.10 installation
The initial plan was to install Ubuntu 26.04 (daily image) on the laptop in dual boot configuration with Windows 11 Pro. So I resized the Windows partition in Disk Management to leave a 125GB partition for Ubuntu.
I downloaded a daily Ubuntu 26.04 ISO (February 28, 2026), and created a startup disk on my Ubuntu 24.04 laptop using an 8GB USB flash drive. I plugged the USB flash drive into the CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop and entered the BIOS by pressing the F2 key in order to select the USB drive as the boot device. The good news is that Ubuntu Resolute Raccoon (Development branch) can run on the laptop, but nothing happens when clicking on the Install Ubuntu icon. I noticed that the ubiquity installer was not installed, so I tried to do that manually, but many errors appeared.
Testing Ubuntu 26.04 from a slow USB drive might not be ideal, so instead, I decided to switch to Ubuntu 25.10, and the installation went smoothly. The only little issue was that the laptop would still boot directly into Windows, and I was not shown the Grub menu. I just went to the AMI Aptio Setup again and changed the Boot priority in the BIOS.
Ubuntu 25.10 System Information
Going to the Settings->About window in Ubuntu 25.10 confirms we have a “CHUWI Innovation and Technology_SHenzhen_co.,Ltd CoreBook Air Plus” model powered by a 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 6600H processor paired with 16GB of RAM and a 512.1 GB drive.
The System Details window shows Ubuntu 25.10 64-bit with GNOME 49, Wayland windowing system, and Linux 6.17 kernel.
Let’s run the inxi command line utility to get a few more details:
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:~$ sudo inxi -Fc0 System: Host: CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX Kernel: 6.17.0-14-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 Console: pty pts/1 Distro: Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka) Machine: Type: Laptop System: CHUWI Innovation And (ShenZhen) product: CoreBook Air Plus v: Version 1.0 serial: SCoBAPYZ2H260103831 Mobo: Standard model: Standard v: Version 1.0 serial: ARN25C556114Z1280 UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: 13.00 date: 01/05/2026 Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 60 Wh (100%) condition: 60/60 Wh (100%) CPU: Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 6600H with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 3 MiB Speed (MHz): avg: 1100 min/max: 413/4566 cores: 1: 1100 2: 1100 3: 1100 4: 1100 5: 1100 6: 1100 7: 1100 8: 1100 9: 1100 10: 1100 11: 1100 12: 1100 Graphics: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Rembrandt [Radeon 680M] driver: amdgpu v: kernel Device-2: Luxvisions Innotech Integrated Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB Display: unspecified server: Xwayland v: 24.1.6 driver: gpu: amdgpu tty: 80x24 resolution: 1920x1200 API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: radeonsi,swrast platforms: gbm,surfaceless,device API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: mesa v: 25.2.8-0ubuntu0.25.10.1 note: console (EGL sourced) renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi rembrandt LLVM 20.1.8 DRM 3.64 6.17.0-14-generic), llvmpipe (LLVM 20.1.8 256 bits) Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr Audio: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Radeon High Definition Audio [Rembrandt/Strix] driver: snd_hda_intel Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel API: ALSA v: k6.17.0-14-generic status: kernel-api Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8852BE PCIe 802.11ax Wireless Network driver: rtw89_8852be IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: 0c:cd:b4:5a:0a:06 Bluetooth: Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio driver: btusb type: USB Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 state: up address: 0C:CD:B4:5A:0A:07 bt-v: 5.2 Drives: Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 10.36 GiB (2.2%) ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: G932E 512G size: 476.94 GiB Partition: ID-1: / size: 122.48 GiB used: 10.29 GiB (8.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p5 ID-2: /boot/efi size: 96 MiB used: 68 MiB (70.9%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 4 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swap.img Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 50.9 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 48.0 C Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A Info: Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 13.87 GiB used: 1.72 GiB (12.4%) Processes: 358 Uptime: 5m Init: systemd Shell: Sudo inxi: 3.3.39 |
The utility detects a 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 6600H CPU clocked up to 4,566 MHz with 16 GB of RAM, a 122.48 GB rootfs partition on a 512 GB G932E NVMe SSD, a 1920×1200 integrated display, HDMI output, a Luxvisions Innotech USB webcam, a Realtek RTL8852BE wireless module with WiFi and Bluetooth, two audio devices, and a 60Wh battery. It looks good so far. The idle temperature range is reported to be 50.9°C.
CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 Ubuntu 25.10 benchmarks
Let’s start the benchmarks with sbc-bench.sh script:
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:~$ sudo ./sbc-bench.sh -r Starting to examine hardware/software for review purposes... sbc-bench v0.9.72 Installing needed tools: apt-get -f -qq -y install gcc make build-essential powercap-utils curl git links mmc-utils smartmontools stress-ng, p7zip 16.02, tinymembench, ramlat, mhz, cpufetch, cpuminer. Done. Checking cpufreq OPP. Done. Executing tinymembench. Done. Executing RAM latency tester. Done. Executing OpenSSL benchmark. Done. Executing 7-zip benchmark. Done. Throttling test: heating up the device, 5 more minutes to wait. Done. Checking cpufreq OPP again. Done (10 minutes elapsed). Results validation: * Measured clockspeed not lower than advertised max CPU clockspeed * No swapping * Background activity (%system) OK # CHUWI Innovation And Technology(ShenZhen)co.,Ltd CoreBook Air Plus Version 1.0 / Ryzen 5 6600H Tested with sbc-bench v0.9.72 on Sat, 28 Feb 2026 14:24:03 +0700. ### General information: Information courtesy of cpufetch: Name: AMD Ryzen 5 6600H with Radeon Graphics Microarchitecture: Zen 3+ Technology: 6nm Max Frequency: 4.566 GHz Cores: 6 cores (12 threads) AVX: AVX,AVX2 FMA: FMA3 L1i Size: 32KB (192KB Total) L1d Size: 32KB (192KB Total) L2 Size: 512KB (3MB Total) L3 Size: 16MB Ryzen 5 6600H, Kernel: x86_64, Userland: amd64 CPU sysfs topology (clusters, cpufreq members, clockspeeds) cpufreq min max CPU cluster policy speed speed core type 0 0 0 413 4566 - 1 0 1 413 4566 - 2 0 2 413 4566 - 3 0 3 413 4566 - 4 0 4 413 4566 - 5 0 5 413 4566 - 6 0 6 413 4566 - 7 0 7 413 4566 - 8 0 8 413 4566 - 9 0 9 413 4566 - 10 0 10 413 4566 - 11 0 11 413 4566 - 14204 KB available RAM ### Policies (performance vs. idle consumption): Status of performance related policies found below /sys: /sys/module/pcie_aspm/parameters/policy: default [performance] powersave powersupersave ### Clockspeeds (idle vs. heated up): Before at 53.2°C: cpu0: OPP: 4566, Measured: 4347 (-4.8%) After at 85.8°C: cpu0: OPP: 4566, Measured: 4301 (-5.8%) ### Performance baseline * memcpy: 18093.5 MB/s, memchr: 27825.2 MB/s, memset: 15704.0 MB/s * 16M latency: 40.50 24.96 31.81 25.03 31.69 33.93 42.27 49.37 * 128M latency: 118.7 112.4 115.8 111.7 116.1 114.0 125.4 128.4 * 7-zip MIPS (3 consecutive runs): 41082, 40579, 40827 (40830 avg), single-threaded: 5047 * `aes-256-cbc 995985.98k 1142648.49k 1177224.11k 1188379.65k 1191578.28k 1191346.18k` * `aes-256-cbc 1007779.05k 1140251.86k 1174887.42k 1186227.88k 1189295.45k 1188981.42k` ### PCIe and storage devices: * Realtek RTL8852BE PCIe 802.11ax Wireless Network: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, driver in use: rtw89_8852be, * AMD Rembrandt [Radeon 680M]: Speed 16GT/s, Width x16, driver in use: amdgpu, ASPM Disabled * AMD Rembrandt USB4 XHCI controller #3: Speed 16GT/s, Width x16, driver in use: xhci_hcd, ASPM Disabled * AMD Rembrandt USB4 XHCI controller #4: Speed 16GT/s, Width x16, driver in use: xhci_hcd, ASPM Disabled * AMD Rembrandt USB4 XHCI controller #8: Speed 16GT/s, Width x16, driver in use: xhci_hcd, ASPM Disabled * AMD Rembrandt USB4 XHCI controller #5: Speed 16GT/s, Width x16, driver in use: xhci_hcd, ASPM Disabled * AMD Rembrandt USB4 XHCI controller #6: Speed 16GT/s, Width x16, driver in use: xhci_hcd, ASPM Disabled * 476.9GB "G932E 512G" SSD as /dev/nvme0: Speed 8GT/s, Width x4, 0% worn out, drive temp: 43°C, ASPM Disabled ### Challenging filesystems: The following partitions are NTFS: nvme0n1p3,nvme0n1p4 -> https://tinyurl.com/mv7wvzct ### Swap configuration: * /swap.img on /dev/nvme0n1p5: 4.0G (0K used) ### Software versions: * Ubuntu 25.10 (questing) * Compiler: /usr/bin/gcc (Ubuntu 15.2.0-4ubuntu4) 15.2.0 / x86_64-linux-gnu * OpenSSL 3.5.3, built on 16 Sep 2025 (Library: OpenSSL 3.5.3 16 Sep 2025) ### Kernel info: * `/proc/cmdline: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.17.0-14-generic root=UUID=4f910ed1-0ce2-4410-be7e-9a9f99e6fd9b ro quiet splash crashkernel=2G-4G:320M,4G-32G:512M,32G-64G:1024M,64G-128G:2048M,128G-:4096M vt.handoff=7` * Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow: Mitigation; Safe RET * Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl * Vulnerability Spectre v1: Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization * Vulnerability Tsa: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers * Vulnerability Vmscape: Mitigation; IBPB before exit to userspace * Kernel 6.17.0-14-generic / CONFIG_HZ=1000 Waiting for the device to cool down...................................... 47.0°C |
No throttling was explicitly reported by the utility, but the temperature reached up to 95.0°C (THM LIMIT CORE in ryzenadj, see below), and the CPU frequency dropped during cpuminer:
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System health while running cpuminer: Time CPU load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq Temp 14:19:00: 3529MHz 9.21 16% 1% 14% 0% 0% 0% 95.0°C 14:19:42: 3451MHz 10.57 100% 0% 99% 0% 0% 0% 95.0°C 14:20:23: 3442MHz 11.37 100% 0% 99% 0% 0% 0% 95.0°C 14:21:04: 3227MHz 11.68 100% 0% 99% 0% 0% 0% 87.2°C 14:21:46: 3226MHz 11.84 100% 0% 99% 0% 0% 0% 86.1°C 14:22:27: 3225MHz 11.92 100% 0% 99% 0% 0% 0% 86.0°C 14:23:08: 3226MHz 12.00 100% 0% 99% 0% 0% 0% 85.9°C 14:23:50: 3237MHz 12.00 100% 0% 99% 0% 0% 0% 85.8°C |
Having said that, the 7-zip benchmark results between runs indicated throttling did not occur (or only mininal throttling) during that test. The full log can be found in /var/log/sbc-bench.sh.
We can check the PL1 and PL2 power limits with ryzenadj, after disabling secure boot in the BIOS.:
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:~/RyzenAdj/build$ sudo ./ryzenadj -i no compatible ryzen_smu kernel module found, fallback to /dev/mem CPU Family: Rembrandt SMU BIOS Interface Version: 19 Version: v0.18.0 PM Table Version: 450005 | Name | Value | Parameter | |---------------------|-----------|--------------------| | STAPM LIMIT | 28.000 | stapm-limit | | STAPM VALUE | 2.777 | | | PPT LIMIT FAST | 40.000 | fast-limit | | PPT VALUE FAST | 3.478 | | | PPT LIMIT SLOW | 35.000 | slow-limit | | PPT VALUE SLOW | 1.626 | | | StapmTimeConst | nan | stapm-time | | SlowPPTTimeConst | nan | slow-time | | PPT LIMIT APU | 35.001 | apu-slow-limit | | PPT VALUE APU | 0.000 | | | TDC LIMIT VDD | 50.000 | vrm-current | | TDC VALUE VDD | 1.346 | | | TDC LIMIT SOC | 13.000 | vrmsoc-current | | TDC VALUE SOC | 0.471 | | | EDC LIMIT VDD | 105.000 | vrmmax-current | | EDC VALUE VDD | 17.300 | | | EDC LIMIT SOC | 17.000 | vrmsocmax-current | | EDC VALUE SOC | 0.021 | | | THM LIMIT CORE | 95.000 | tctl-temp | | THM VALUE CORE | 46.755 | | | STT LIMIT APU | 0.000 | apu-skin-temp | | STT VALUE APU | 0.000 | | | STT LIMIT dGPU | 0.000 | dgpu-skin-temp | | STT VALUE dGPU | 0.000 | | | CCLK Boost SETPOINT | nan | power-saving / | | CCLK BUSY VALUE | nan | max-performance | |
The power limits reported by the utility are as follows:
- Sustained Power Limit (STAPM LIMIT) – 28 Watts
- Actual Power Limit (PPT LIMIT FAST) – 40 Watts
- Average Power Limit (PPT LIMIT SLOW) – 35 Watts
For reference, the PL1 and PL2 power limits were set to 35W (PBP) and 45W (MTP) in Windows 11.
Geekbench 6.6.0 can help us evaluate the single-core and multi-core performance on the AMD Ryzen 5 6600H CPU in the CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop.
The single-core score is 1,917 points, and the multi-core score is 7,802 points.
Let’s start GPU testing with Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 for 3D graphics performance evaluation. The laptop could render the scene at an average of 16 FPS and yield a score of 402 points at the display’s 1920×1200 resolution (rather than the usual 1920×1080 resolution we use with mini PCs). It feels on the low side, but we’ll check that in the benchmark comparison table further below.
We tested YouTube 4K and 8K video streaming in Firefox.
A 4K 30 FPS (VP9) video played smoothly for over 6 minutes with only 18 frames dropped out of 11,737.
A 2-minute 8K 30 FPS AV1 video also played fine with no frames dropped at all.
A 4K 60 FPS AV1 video was perfectly watchable for 5 minutes with a few more dropped frames (370 out of 18,836).
I didn’t test 8K 60FPS on the same AV1 video for long, so it was a disaster from the start, basically a slide show… It’s the same experience as in Windows, and it may not matter that much since the laptop does not offer 8K-capable video outputs.
One issue was that the audio didn’t work at all, at least not through the internal speakers. Those are detected and not muted in pavucontrol and alsamixer, but I couldn’t hear anything.
The Conexant SM6180 audio codec is apparently problematic in Linux. I tried to play around with Jack retasking, but I couldn’t find a combination that worked.
The good news is that I could get audio through speakers connected to the 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI TV, and Bluetooth earbuds. So audio is working except for the internal speakers. I also took the opportunity to test the webcam and microphone with guvcview, and both the video and audio could be recorded into an MKV video.
Let’s now run Speedometer 2.0 in Firefox to evaluate web browsing performance. The CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop managed 253 runs per minute.
Doing the same test in Google Chrome yielded 370 runs per minute.
Comparison of CoreBook Air Plus 16 Ubuntu benchmark results against mid-range mini PCs
Since we haven’t reviewed any laptops recently, I’ll compare the Ubuntu 25.10 benchmark results for the CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop with three mid-range mini PCs: the Beelink EQi13 Pro (Intel Core i5-13500H), GEEKOM A5 (AMD Ryzen 7 5800H), and GEEKOM A6 (AMD Ryzen 7 6800H). All three were tested with Ubuntu 24.04 rather than Ubuntu 25.10.
Here’s a quick comparison of the key specifications for the four devices.
| CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 | Beelink EQi13 Pro | GEEKOM A5 | GEEKOM A6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SoC | AMD Ryzen 5 6600H | Intel Core i5-13500H | AMD Ryzen 7 5800H | AMD Ryzen 7 6800H |
| CPU | 6 cores, 12 thread, up to 4.5GHz | 12 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.70 GHz | 8-core/16-thread @ up to 4.4 GHz (Turbo) | 8 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.7 GHz |
| GPU | AMD Radeon 660M Graphics | 80 EU Intel Iris Xe Graphics | AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics | AMD Radeon 680M Graphics |
| Memory | 16GB LPDDR5-6400 | 32GB DDR4-3200 | 32GB DDR4-3200 | 32GB DDR5-5600 |
| Storage | 512GB NVMe SSD | 1TB NVMe SSD | 512GB NVMe SSD | 1TB NVMe SSD |
| Default OS | Windows 11 Pro | Windows 11 Pro | Windows 11 Pro | Windows 11 Pro |
| Price (February 21, 2026 ) | $629 (CHUWI store) | $579 (Amazon) | $529 (Amazon) | $566.10 (Amazon) |
Benchmark results in Ubuntu.
| CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 | Beelink EQi13 Pro | GEEKOM A5 | GEEKOM A6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sbc-bench.sh | ||||
| - memcpy | 18,093.5 MB/s | 19,332.7 MB/s | 18,717 MB/s | 19,761.4 MB/s |
| - memset | 15,704.0 MB/s | 21,189.4 MB/s | 43,837 MB/s | 18,944.4 MB/s |
| - 7-zip (average) | 40,830 | 49,150 | 53,610 | 58,990 |
| - 7-zip (top result) | 41,082 | 49,237 | 54,850 | 59,599 |
| - OpenSSL AES-256 16K | 1,191,346.18k | 1,663,926.27k | 1,202,869.59k | 1,271,949.99k |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 1,917 | 2,545 | 2,002 | 2,111 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 7,802 | 9,625 | 9,347 | 10,573 |
| Unigine Heaven score | 402 | 920 | 890 | 1,698 |
| Speedometer 2.0 (Firefox) | 253 | 329 | 218 | 262 |
Some of the results are the same as in Windows, notably lower multi-core performance of the hexa-core processor compared to octa-core or 12-core processors, as one would expect, and the relatively low memory bandwidth of the LPDDR5 chips used in the laptop. What’s more surprising is the low score in Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0, since the CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop was competitive in that respect against mini PCs in Windows 11 Pro, and reached 41.7 FPS in the same benchmark.
SSD and USB performance
Time to test the 512 GB SSD in the laptop using iozone3:
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:~$ iozone -e -I -a -s 1000M -r 4k -r 16k -r 512k -r 1024k -r 16384k -i 0 -i 1 -i 2 kB reclen write rewrite read reread read write read rewrite read fwrite frewrite fread freread 1024000 4 173124 200427 271706 284883 76921 191357 1024000 16 570436 709709 643351 732792 260586 633056 1024000 512 2418973 2535795 2146871 2109400 1948164 2418042 1024000 1024 2320559 2674362 2481888 2486722 1894282 2673866 1024000 16384 3034011 3045982 3189309 3201209 3112497 3037030 |
That would be 3,189 MB/s sequential reads and 3,034 MB/s sequential writes, which compares to 3400.14 MB/s sequential read speed and 3170.72 MB/s sequential write speed using CrystalDiskMark on Windows 11. Close enough.
We also tested the USB 3.2 ports using the lsusb utility and the iozone3 storage benchmark to measure the transfer speed with ORICO M234C3-U4 M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure. We didn’t test the USB 2.0 Type-C port since we don’t have a compatible USB 2.0/3.0 storage device.
For reference, here are the results of the USB 3.2 Type-C port (left side, closer to the user):
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:/media/sda3$ lsusb -t | grep uas |__ Port 001: Dev 002, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=uas, 10000M cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:/media/sda3$ sudo iozone -e -I -a -s 1000M -r 16384k -i 0 -i 1 random random bkwd record stride kB reclen write rewrite read reread read write read rewrite read fwrite frewrite fread freread 1024000 16384 933440 941255 901235 905986 |
and the USB 3.2 Type-A port (right):
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:/media/sda3$ lsusb -t | grep uas |__ Port 002: Dev 002, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=uas, 5000M cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:/media/sda3$ sudo iozone -e -I -a -s 1000M -r 16384k -i 0 -i 1 random random bkwd record stride kB reclen write rewrite read reread read write read rewrite read fwrite frewrite fread freread 1024000 16384 368260 369127 355964 353915 |
Here’s a summary of the results for the USB ports:
- Left side
- USB-C #1 – USB 3.2 – 10 Gbps – Read speed: 901 MB/s; write speed: 933 MB/s; Charging OK; DisplayPort OK
- USB-C #2 – USB 3.2 – 10 Gbps – Read speed: 938 MB/s; write speed: 942 MB/s; Charging OK; DisplayPort OK
- Right side
- USB-C #1 – USB 2.0 – 480 Mbps – Speed not tested; data only port, no charging
- USB-A #1 – USB 3.2 – 5.0 Gbps – Read speed: 355 MB/s; write speed: 368 MB/s
Roughly the same as in Windows, and the 5 Gbps port delivers relatively lower performance than the expected 400 MB/s. The 10 Gbps USB ports are also slightly slower than expected, but nothing dramatic.
WiFi 6 and Bluetooth
We tested 5GHz WiFi 6 performance using iperf3, a Xiaomi Mi Router AX6000 router, and AAEON’s UP Xtreme i11 Edge mini PC (2.5GbE) on the other end.
- Upload
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:~$ iperf3 -t 60 -c 192.168.31.12 -i 10 Connecting to host 192.168.31.12, port 5201 [ 5] local 192.168.31.240 port 46106 connected to 192.168.31.12 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr Cwnd [ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 1.04 GBytes 889 Mbits/sec 1 4.04 MBytes [ 5] 10.01-20.01 sec 1015 MBytes 851 Mbits/sec 1 4.04 MBytes [ 5] 20.01-30.00 sec 1022 MBytes 858 Mbits/sec 0 4.04 MBytes [ 5] 30.00-40.01 sec 996 MBytes 835 Mbits/sec 1 4.04 MBytes [ 5] 40.01-50.01 sec 982 MBytes 823 Mbits/sec 0 4.04 MBytes [ 5] 50.01-60.01 sec 999 MBytes 838 Mbits/sec 0 4.04 MBytes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr [ 5] 0.00-60.01 sec 5.93 GBytes 849 Mbits/sec 3 sender [ 5] 0.00-60.16 sec 5.93 GBytes 847 Mbits/sec receiver |
- Download
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cnxsoft@CoreBook-Air-Plus-CNX:~$ iperf3 -t 60 -c 192.168.31.12 -i 10 -R Connecting to host 192.168.31.12, port 5201 Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.31.12 is sending [ 5] local 192.168.31.240 port 60948 connected to 192.168.31.12 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate [ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 1.07 GBytes 916 Mbits/sec [ 5] 10.01-20.01 sec 1.05 GBytes 903 Mbits/sec [ 5] 20.01-30.01 sec 1.05 GBytes 903 Mbits/sec [ 5] 30.01-40.01 sec 1.05 GBytes 902 Mbits/sec [ 5] 40.01-50.01 sec 1.08 GBytes 926 Mbits/sec [ 5] 50.01-60.01 sec 1.07 GBytes 917 Mbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr [ 5] 0.00-60.03 sec 6.37 GBytes 911 Mbits/sec 40 sender [ 5] 0.00-60.01 sec 6.37 GBytes 911 Mbits/sec receiver |
911 Mbps downloads and 849 Mbps uploaded is quite good, and even a little better than on Windows (885 Mbps / 835 Mbps)
Bluetooth also worked better than in Windows. Besides being able to use Bluetooth earbuds (Redmi Buds Play 6), I could also transfer a photo from my Android smartphone to the laptop without issue, something that would not work on Windows, as the connection would continuously drop after pairing.
Stress test and thermal performance on Ubuntu
I ran a stress test on the 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 6600H CPU while monitoring the CPU temperature and frequency using tools such as Psensor and the sbc-bench.sh script.
The AMD Ryzen 5 6600H CPU quickly reaches 95°C and stays there for a few minutes (about 5 minutes) before the CPU temperature drops to around 91°C and the CPU frequency to 3270 MHz (from around 3400 MHz). So there’s some thermal throttling, at least in a room at about 28°C, but it’s not too bad.
Fan noise
The laptop’s fan is hardly noticeable when idle or performing light tasks, but it becomes fairly loud, albeit not in a massively annoying way, when running heavy loads such as CineBench R23. My air conditioner is usually noisier than the fan of the laptop. After turning the air conditioner off, I measured the noise with a sound level meter placed close to the screen and on top of the keyboard, approximately 5 cm from the fan ventilation holes:
- Idle – 40.9 – 41.7 dBa or 45.1-45.8 dBa (when the fan turns a little faster at times) – If the weather is hot, the same will be active more often…
- Stress test (stress -c 12) – 54.7 – 55.6 dBA (the fan can be heard a few meters from the laptop)
The sound level meter measures 37-38 dBA in the room when everything is quiet.
CoreBook Air Plus 16 battery life and power consumption
I tested battery life after charging the laptop fully to 99%, setting the brightness to maximum, and disabling automatic suspend and dim screen.
The workload was a mix of YouTube video playback (2 hours), web browsing, and idle time. It took a little over 4 hours to discharge from 99% to 8%, surprisingly a little longer than on Windows, but since the same range (3h30+).
Once the battery was fully recharged, I measured the power consumption with a wall power meter as follows:
- Power off – 0.4 Watts
- Sleep – 0.5 Watts
- Idle
- Max brightness – 7.5 – 7.6 Watts
- Min brightness – 3.3 -3.4 Watts
- Video playback – 14.5 – 22.5 Watts (4Kp60 YouTube video in Firefox, mostly of the time at about 15W)
- Stress test (stress -c 12)
- First few seconds – 56.8 – 56.9 Watts
- Longer runs – 43.3 – 50.4 Watts (closer to 48-49W for the first five minutes, and then around 44W. See stress test above).
YouTube video playback and the stress tests were done with the brightness set to maximum. The longer battery life can be explained by the lower power consumption under Linux.
Conclusion
The CHUWI CoreBook Air Plus 16 works fairly well as a Linux laptop when running on Ubuntu 25.10. The main issue is that the built-in speakers do not work, although they are detected along with the Conexant SL6180 audio codec. It probably just requires a driver fix.
Other than that, the performance is mostly as expected for a mid-range laptop based on an AMD Ryzen 5 6600H processor, although the memory bandwidth is rather low, and a hexa-core CPU is quite slower than octa-core processors in multi-threaded benchmarks, as we’ve seen in Windows. One small disappointment is the underwhelming performance in Unigine Heaven 4.0 3D graphics benchmarks, which should not matter for most people.
All other features perform as expected, including the USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C ports with charging, DisplayPort Alt mode, and 10 Gbps data rate, HDMI output, the webcam, the microphone, and YouTube 4K video playback in Firefox. Both WiFi 6 (~900 Mbps) and Bluetooth worked great. Small complaints are the same as in Windows: under a typical workload, the relatively low performance of the 5 Gbps USB Type-A port (about 385 MB/s), and a privacy switch for the camera that feels cheap. The battery life is a little over 4 hours, thanks to the lower idle power consumption under Linux.
I’d like to thank CHUWI for sending the CoreBook Air Plus 16 laptop for review. It can be purchased for $547.23 on the Chuwi website after applying the coupon code CNXAirPlus for a 13% discount. CHUWI also manages Amazon and AliExpress stores, but the new CoreBook Air family is not listed at the time of the review.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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