In the world of PCs, the brand Colorful may not be as popular as other big-name brands, such as ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI. However, they do offer a wide variety of affordable gaming PC parts. These include motherboards, SSDs, but they’re more often associated with affordable graphics cards.
But did you know, Colorful doesn’t just make PC components exclusively. Instead, they’ve expanded by offering laptops. While the brand gaming laptops are more popular, the one we recently received is a more budget-friendly model suited for everyday needs – the Rimbook L1.
With an affordable price tag, is the Colorful Rimbook L1 something users should consider for everyday needs?
Design and Construction
In terms of the design, there’s not a lot going on with the Colorful Rimbook L1. It’s a very minimalist-looking laptop. After all, this isn’t one that’s meant for gaming. That means there’s also no RGB lighting either.
The deck lid is clean, featuring the chrome-finish Colorful logo smack dab in the middle. The lid itself is made out of hard plastic. It is quite scratch-resistant, and more importantly, smudge-resistant.
The rest of the body appears to be made out of plastic too. It doesn’t have the most premium feel compared to other laptops, but it is a budget-friendly laptop after all. At the same time, the clean look helps it look more professional.
Similar to the deck lid, the base is also made out of the same material. It’s not the smoothest feeling to the touch, but again, very smudge-resistant. I like how I didn’t have to wipe the laptop often just to keep it looking clean.
As for the size, it’s quite big, especially since it features a 15.6-inch display. But despite that, it’s relatively portable. It only weighs 1.78kg, making it quite light for a laptop of its size. However, it’s not exactly thin, still measuring 17.9mm when closed.
The good news is that you do have a lot of ports at your disposal. The Rimbook L1 features 3 USB-A ports, 2 USB-C ports, and a 3.5mm audio port. There’s no SD or microSD slot, but considering you have multiple USB ports, it is easy to bring a dongle should you need to.
What’s great about the Rimbook L1 is that the display can be opened up to 180 degrees. This allows you to use it in various forms, or whatever you feel comfortable. The hinge feels solid, and you can even open it with just one hand.
To get work done, the Rimbook L1 comes with a full-size keyboard. They’re properly spaced out, and the design of the keyboard somewhat reminds me of the ones found in older ASUS laptops. The main difference? They’re not backlit.
The keys feel nice, and I didn’t make a lot of typing mistakes using it. However, they’re not exactly the most comfortable keyboard to use for extended periods of time. There’s not a lot of travel, and your fingers can get tired after a while.
As for the trackpad, it’s offset to the left to make it a bit more ergonomic. Palm rejection is decent, but what I’m more concerned about is the material used on the trackpad. It feels rough, and doesn’t feel great when you’re gliding your finger over it.
It sometimes feels like my finger is getting stuck when I’m using it. With that, I ended up using a wireless mouse most of the time instead. As expected, there are no special features on the trackpad either.
Display and Multimedia
Moving on to the display, the Colorful Rimbook L1 uses a 15.6-inch display featuring an IPS panel with a 1080P resolution. What’s interesting about it is the resolution. Unlike modern laptops with a 16:10 ratio, it still uses a 16:9 ratio. No high refresh rate either, capped at just 60FPS. Peak brightness is limited to 300 nits.
It’s a very basic display, and meant mainly for productivity purposes. While you can watch movies or videos on this laptop, the colors aren’t that great. It lacks the vibrant colors and deep blacks typically found on OLEDs and even higher-end IPS panels.
Since it’s limited to 60FPS, the animations aren’t as smooth either. If you’re someone used to 120Hz at least, you can easily tell the difference. With that, it’s not suited for playing games either.
For everyday use, though, it’s more than adequate. If you plan on just typing or working on Excel sheets, it gets the job done. The 300-nit peak brightness is also enough if you’re outside.
As for the speakers, there’s nothing to write home about. They’re not the loudest, and the soundstage isn’t the best. However, it’s more than enough if you just want to chill to music while working. Still, you can always just pair your favorite Bluetooth headphones or plug into the 3.5mm audio port.
Performance and Benchmarks
This being a business laptop, the Colorful Rimbook L1 does not come with a dedicated GPU. Instead, it only packs an Intel Core i5-12450H processor for everything. Our review unit comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. It also comes with Windows 11 Home standard, but no Co-Pilot here.
The 12th-gen Intel i5 processor is by no means slow, even compared to today’s standard. It can easily handle Chrome with multiple tabs open, Spotify, Discord, and other productivity apps like Photoshop simultaneously. With that, you can easily get work done on this laptop and do so at a nice, relaxing pace.
Some might find the SSD storage lacking, but if you don’t plan on playing a lot of games, it’s more than adequate. Even with our benchmarking apps and the Adobe editing software installed (Lightroom, Photoshop, and Premiere), it still had enough space for a game or two.
Then again, it can’t play games that well. I installed Genshin Impact on the Rimbook L1, and it can run the game. However, it doesn’t do so smoothly. Even at the lowest graphic settings, you get the occasional framerate drops, even when you’re just out exploring the world.
I could tell the laptop was struggling to run the game, given how noisy the fans became. Subsequently, it also became noticeably hot to the touch. With that alone, I didn’t bother trying to run other games on this laptop.
We also ran our usual benchmarks, and you can check out the scores below. They’re not that great, but still decent altogether.
Geekbench 6
CPU Single – 2161
CPU Multi – 6909
GPU OpenCL – 8047
GPU Vulkan – 9075
CrystalDiskMark
Read – 3464.27 MB/s
Write – 3321.68 MB/s
Battery
The battery of the Colorful Rimbook L1 isn’t as big as other similarly sized laptops. It’s only a 50Wh battery pack, but it surprisingly lasts longer than I expected. After using this to work for one hour, I only drained the battery from 100 percent to 80 percent.
For reference, I was connected to Wi-Fi, running Chrome, Discord, and Spotify all at the same time. The battery drains faster when using heavier apps like Lightroom or Photoshop.
With that, it’s best to bring the 65W charger around with you just in case. It’s not a big charger, and it won’t take up a lot of space in your bag.
Conclusion
Nothing really stands out about the Colorful Rimbook L1. It’s a decent business or productivity laptop, and it gets the job done. While you can play games on it, it won’t give you the best experience. The same can be said about the display, speakers, and even the battery life.
One thing that it does have going for it is the price. At the time we wrote this review, the Rimbook L1 with the same specifications as our unit retails for USD 399 (excluding tax) or roughly PHP 23,000.
For the price, it’s a decent laptop to get. It’s more than adequate if you just need one for school or work, and you want something with a screen larger than 14 inches. It won’t be able to play your triple A titles or whatnot, but the important thing is you can get work done.
But what do you think of the Colorful Rimbook L1? Would it be your “sulit” laptop buy or would you consider something else? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
What we liked:
Clean minimalist design
Lots of I/O ports
Affordable pricing
What we didn’t like:
Lackluster display
No dedicated GPU
0 Comments
Leave a Reply