hi guys Chris here with the civil top air now this is a new brand for me and
this particular laptop is powered by the Celeron N3450 gigabytes of ram 128
gigabytes of SSD storage and it is very thin super light it weighs just over a
kilo so a very portable machine but it has a definite deal-breaker for a lot of
people and that is it only has on the side here a USB 3.1 type C port and then
a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack on the right of it so if you want source side
port then this clearly is in the model for you but what it does have is
fingerprint security super portable a full metal build and a 1080p 12.5 inch
screen so let's have a look at it now in greater detail this one I picked up from
Gearbest now I also believe that this is also the under Xiaoma 21 which is very
similar model but that one has full sized USB port on it so the notebook
here comes in only gold unfortunately I would have preferred a silver version we
have a user manual that is in English and yes they have included and adapters
we're going to need this of course because this is all full-size USB 3 HDMI
and then the type C for charging because this has only one type C port on it type
C to type-c cable and the charger here 2 prong I think it's - yeah two prong us
store that just flicks out and it is rated to 12 volts 2 amps so the main
attraction of this notebook is its weight and they claim it weighs just
over 1.4 and it is one point zero eight kilos which is really light okay so very
light very thin and an all-metal design and not a lot here to show you port wise
this is the breaker for many it doesn't even have a
microSD card slot on it which I feel is a bit of a design error so just the type
C port on here and a status LED on the left side on the back we do point some
plastic here this is for the wireless AC antenna reception and Bluetooth and on
the right side they have at least included a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack
that supports microphones now that you can see if it can be opened up with just
one hand not quite and that's as far as the lid will go back because the top of
it the bottom so those would say is actually touching right here so why go
back any further because the feet aren't high enough just to give you idea how
super synthesis you can see their side on but yet it is really really thin I'm
going to measure it comes in at seven point seven millimeters there now with
the lid this is the thickest part around here I think it's around 12 millimeters
so very thin so it's got a pre applied protector on the palm wrist which is
made all out of metal the keyboard pressing down hard here seems to be
quite firm key feel good good travel to them so get this removed and they have
actually put some stickers on there that we don't often see on the Palmer s time
counselor I'm a fan of that and at the top there's also a screen
protector and along the front here we have two microphones either side of the
front-facing 2-megapixel webcam the screen looks glossy to me but I'm not
too sure until I pull off the screen protector here that's on there and yes
it is a glossy display actually it's not a glossy display I can see underneath
it's a matte display this is a screen protector and I just pulled off the top
layer right because there are a couple little specks of dust along here so you
can decide whether you want glossy or matte just by removing the protector
that's on the screen and inside the touch pad here we do have a fingerprint
reader there for fingerprint security so you can use Windows hello to unlock that
by just placing your scanned finger on top of it and it
should unlock straightaway time to power it on now the power button location is
in a bit of an awkward position and it's not any more resistant than the other
button so it could accidentally be tapped
now there's a way around us of course that in Windows settings you can set the
power button to actually do nothing so powered up really quick it came up with
administrator account that someone has already created which isn't a good sign
so normal would probably go back and do a full factory reset just to be safe but
I think it's just because someone's gone and set it up and check for fault
possibly gear bears that have done this so first look at the screen I've got at
100% brightness at the moment and the viewing angles and everything seem okay
I'll show you those in just a second but that is the brightness at zero percent
which is very dim which is going to make it ideal for using late at night with
absolutely no lights on twenty-five percent fifty seventy-five and then back
on to 100 D which seems to be brighter now so you can see that it has decent
viewing angles definitely an IPS panel doesn't shift out either like those team
panels do to me it looks just like the same screen that I've seen on the show
me me notebook err the 12.5 inch version so just a couple of things here to point
out in the device manager the SSD 128 gigabytes no idea what brand it is first
I thought it was going to come with an emmc 128 gigabyte one but it's good to
see the views in SSD our benchmark that later on in the review and we do have
the same Intel dual band wireless AC the three 165 chipset that I've seen in many
other devices very common and it does perform quite well now there is a
problem here with the eland fingerprint reader that's for the added security
that's built into the touchpad here of course for some reason it looks like
this is not going to be working at the moment doesn't have the drivers
installed properly there so I'm going to have to try and solution that and fix
that find a solution I should say but you should never have to do this when
you get a new device have a problem straight away so I'm not good to see
this so just testing out the keyboard here it actually seems fairly decent
a lot better than the vo v book version three that I've just recently looked at
we had the boys keyboard and the world this one feels really good there's like
no flex on that refirm decent feedback from the individual tees they're good
travel now there's some good news about the touchpad it is detected in Windows
settings as a precision touchpad so what this means is we're able to disable
those gestures but got full control over it the accuracy of it and the speed
seems good so the finer movements and quite accurate we do have incorporated
left and right mouse buttons in there so it's not just only gestures it's not one
of those horrible trade plans like that but overall so far so good we're able to
close things down no problems I do feel that it said touch pad that I'm going to
be able to use without having to resort to plugging in a mouse which is great
because remember this only has one port on it so we don't want to be losing one
of those ports or having to using the depth of should I say on the type C port
just to use a mouse okay so I've just struck a rather major issue here with
the CD key they've used it says here that Windows is activated using your
organization's activation service and telling me I need
to change the product key which is crazy this is a brand new laptops or wine
earth do I have to supply it or buy my own key here this is really bad that
should not be happening at all
so while I can't see where the speakers are their internal ones is no speaker
girl whatsoever on the bottom of it you can hear from that that they've got a
bit of volume to them they sound alright there is a tiny hint of bass some meds
and a bit of treble there so the speakers aren't the worst I've heard on
these laptops out of China have a one terabyte hard drive here and my type C
adaptors so I'm going to check and see if it's going to be out of power that's
Drive take we hit the confirmation beep there from Windows and yes that is
working which is great to see that it can power external hard drives now that
included a depth only gives us one full size USB 3 port but you can of course
use other ones for example let's have it one that I've got there has three USB 3
ports there so one on this side full SD card reader one USB port there and then
another and of course in the type C and therefore charging and full size HDMI
now I did check this out I went over to my 4k monitor plugged it in it worked
but I'm only getting 30 Hertz that's all it does that's all the Apollo Lake can
do so 4k 30 Hertz maximum output and yes data and charging at the same time
everything was working so it is possible to use this just like a 1 port dock you
can have it all connected up to a monitor have your keyboard connected
your printer and other things and to simply go along plug it in it will
charge and can't you up to everything and for those of you who want to see if
it's going to run Linux this is then expand djaro
r17 and everything is working so far that I can see so things like brightness
that's find the audio is working but what isn't working
apart from all of that is the touchpad so touch pad driver problems there
you'll have to hunt around and find a solution for that Wireless is working I
don't know whether it will install on to the hard drive
I haven't got to that point yet ok so not exactly off to a good start here
with the civil top here the fact that I need to supply my arm or Windows 10 Pro
key to upgrade it or a Windows 10 home key I feel
is inacceptable why should this be happening when this is a brand-new
laptop so there used a forged key or some other key and really it's just not
on the other thing is there's a problem with the drivers for the eland
fingerprint reader there I need to find out and hunt around hopefully Windows
Update will have those drivers to fix that but besides that and the obvious
con that we don't have full-size ports on here or a micro SD card reader they
were going to have to use that adapter they've given us in the box at least
which means that's another hassle to always like that around besides that
it's really like really thin as you've seen super portable now the keyboard
does feel quite good to type on happy with that and the book one of the
overall is really quite good decent 12.5 inch screen the touchpad supports
gestures and we've got full control over because it is detected as a precision
touchpad with the correct drivers on there everything so if you don't like
the swipe up and down minimize you can go and disable that you've got full
control there and it feels accurate and fast so that is really good so at this
point it's really hard to recommend this because it's expensive
now the under shoulder 21 could be better than this because you got the
full size ports and this basic build and as mentioned I think it could be the
same ODM so the same guys that are making this and of course it's just
being rebadged under onder's name or civil tops name so if I do decide that
this makes the cut for the final review I will of course go of things like
battery life benchmarks gaming performance and check out just how fast
at 128 gigabyte SSD is thanks a lot for making it this far in the review and
watching it and if you did like the view please thumbs up and if you do have any
questions let me know in the comments bye for now
you