Hardware specifications are generally trusted, if only because they’re hard to fake. But a recent batch of budget laptops from brands originating in China may have done just that, swapping in older, less-powerful AMD Ryzen CPUs and allegedly cheating customers. Chuwi and Ninkear have been the target of investigations showing Ryzen 7000 chips swapped for older 5000-series CPUs.
According to investigations by NotebookCheck following inconsistencies in review benchmarks, at least one Chuwi CoreBook X laptop is actually using an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor despite being advertised as featuring a Ryzen 5 7430U. These are fairly similar chips: both 6-core models designed for relatively efficient laptops, both using DDR4 memory and PCIe 3.0. But the 5500U is a Zen 2 design with a base clock of 2.1GHz, while the 7430U is a Zen 3 chip with a base clock of 2.3GHz. It’s not massively faster or better, but you can spot a difference if you’re looking (as it’s almost three years newer).
NotebookCheck’s investigation revealed that this wasn’t just a mislabelled spec list or a packaging switcheroo. In both the Windows drivers and the laptop’s BIOS, the CPU shows as a 7430U. But when the machine was disassembled and the cooling hardware removed to expose the chip itself, the manufacturing label revealed a 5500U part. That implies a deliberate deception on the part of the manufacturer to obfuscate the real hardware. The same mislabelled CPU—standing in for the same newer Ryzen 7000 model—was also spotted on at least one Chuwi Corebook Plus laptop.
An updated post indicates that more laptops with the same CPU switch might be affected, specifically the Ninkear A15 Pro. This doesn’t appear to be universal, as previous review units of that model appear to have genuine 7430U CPUs. But despite differences in branding, both laptops come from from Emdoor Digital/Shenzhen Emdoor Information Technology, a white box manufacturer from China. Also known as original design manufacturers (ODM), such companies create generic hardware that’s then sold to other companies and badged under different labels.
The laptops are not identical, having different screen sizes and chassis designs. But it would track that a manufacturer trying to pass off older, slower chips might pull a little software trickery to disguise them. Such tricks aren’t unheard of, but they’re generally seen on secondhand or other gray market hardware, sometimes in GPUs or SSDs. Chuwi and Ninkear are both budget brands, selling at prices well below similarly-equipped hardware from bigger names like Acer or Lenovo.
As far as I can tell, the CoreBook X and CoreBook Plus lines aren’t sold in the US on Chuwi’s official store, and Ninkear doesn’t sell to the US at all. Both companies’ products are available on reseller markets like Amazon.
NotebookCheck calls this “CPU fraud,” an accusation that PCWorld cannot independently confirm. I’m contacting Chuwi, Ninkear, and Emdoor Digital for comment and will update this story if I get replies.
