XPlus Piccolo Series 81x Review

Is bigger always better? Most of the time, I would probably say yes. But honestly, I think it depends. For example, would you rather bring an 18-inch laptop or an 8-inch laptop on your daily commute around town?

The 18-incher sounds like a good idea, especially if it comes with all the latest CPU, GPU, and other features. But let’s be honest, the 8-inch laptop will be a lot more practical.

That’s where the XPlus Piccolo Series 81x comes in. It’s a cute and affordable 8-inch laptop, and it is arguably the most practical laptop we’ve ever tried. Given its small size, it is a bit lacking in some aspects.

Still, if you’re curious about this cute laptop, I suggest you stick around.

Design and Construction

Starting up, we have the design. The Piccolo 81x is tiny. So small, you can even hold it up with just one hand. For better reference, it’s smaller than a tablet, but bigger than a phone. Unfortunately, it won’t fit in your pockets, and trust me, I have tried. However, it will fit in a sling bag.

While it might be compact, it is quite thick, measuring 17.9mm. It’s relatively lightweight too, weighing only 658 grams. Mind you, that’s considering the laptop is made out of a combination of metal and plastic.

The combination of the two makes the Piccolo 81x feel premium and sturdy. The minimalist design further enhances these traits. On the plastic lid, there’s just a large XPlus logo at the center. The logo is a bit too big for my liking, but what do you guys think?

Most of the thickness of this laptop comes from the metal base. It’s definitely on the thicker side compared to other larger laptops. Then again, they needed to find a way to cram all that inside, right?

On a laptop this small, you’d expect it to have one or two ports the most. Fortunately, that’s not the case. You get two USB-A ports, one 3.0 and a 2.0, a USB-C port which acts as the charging port, a mini HDMI port, a 3.5mm audio port, and even a microSD slot.

While you can’t use the USB-C port when charging, at least you still have two USB-A ports at your disposal.

Open up the Piccolo 81x, and you can set it up in various ways. Use it like a laptop, use it like a tablet, or set it up like a tent for watching movies. The screen can open 360 degrees, making it easy to use in whatever position is most comfortable.

While the flexible screen is convenient to use, I can’t say the same for the keyboard. It is tiny, and the layout is different. The letter A doubles as the Caps Lock key, and the Tab button is located at the top. We’ve been using this for a while, and we still haven’t gotten the hang of it.

It’s hard to type if you try to go at your usual pace. But if you go slow, it is fairly accurate. With that, I didn’t do a lot of typing on this device. Instead, I mainly used it just to check emails and other things on the go.

As for the trackpad, well, there isn’t one. Instead, you have a square nub between the space bar, similar to the Lenovo ThinkPad. It’s not a rubber one, which does make it a bit more difficult to use.

Thankfully, you don’t need to use it often since the display is a touchscreen. Alternatively, just bring a mouse to make your life a lot easier.

Display and Multimedia

Speaking of the display, as mentioned earlier, the Piccolo 81x comes with an 8-inch screen. It uses an IPS panel with 1080P resolution, a 16:10 aspect ratio, and a 60Hz refresh rate similar to most laptops today. Not to mention it’s also a touchscreen, allowing users to use it like a tablet.

Despite the small size, the display looks great. The colors are a lot better than I expected, too. They’re relatively vivid, and the display is quite bright. The blacks aren’t that deep, but it’s acceptable for the display’s size. It’s not often you’ll find a 1080P resolution display on a laptop or even a Windows tablet of this size.

Given to the small screen, it’s not exactly the best for binge-watching videos. However, if you’re lying down on the sofa or in bed, then it does work better than a phone. Even with a 60Hz refresh rate, the animations are decently smooth too. If you want a higher refresh rate, well you’re better off buying something else.

Aside from the display, the dual 8W speakers on the Piccolo 81x are good too. They’re not the loudest, but you do get some depth. The sound stage is also decent when the laptop is directly in front of you.

There’s barely any bass, though, and when maxed out, there is a noticeable drop in quality. Still, they exceeded our initial expectations for the speakers.

Performance and Benchmarks

Considering the size of the Piccolo 81x, you shouldn’t expect this laptop to be powerful. Under the hood, it only packs an Intel N150 processor. No GPU here. All you have to rely on is Intel Graphics.

Our review unit comes with 12GB of DDR5 RAM and 512GB of SSD. If you find the storage lacking, it is possible to upgrade the M.2 slot at the bottom of the laptop.

With this setup, it was able to handle the usual productivity tasks like having multiple tabs of Chrome open together with Spotify and Discord. I also installed Lightroom and Photoshop, and they run smoothly. The export times weren’t the fastest, but that’s to be expected.

What I didn’t expect was for it to run games. For starters, there’s no GPU. From my previous experience with the Intel N150 chipset, it also wasn’t the best for running games either.

Still, I was surprised that the laptop could handle Genshin Impact. All the settings were at their lowest, with the exception of the FPS set to 60. Surprisingly, it runs fine with only the occasional frame rate drops in certain parts of the map.

It’s not the best experience since the graphics are set to the lowest, but at least it could run the game. Not to mention, you will need to bring a controller or a mouse since there is no trackpad either.

There is one big problem with this device, though: heat. It gets really hot. So hot, you can’t even put it on your lap anymore. While it doesn’t affect the performance of the laptop, it is very concerning.

As for the benchmarks, they are decent for the laptop, and you can check them out below.

Geekbench 6
CPU Single – 1205
CPU Multi – 2770
GPU Vulkan – 5019
GPU OpenCL – 4370

PCMark 10 – 2947 

CrystalDiskMark 
Read: 1769.46 MB/s
Write: 1554.57 MB/s

Battery

So the Piccolo 81x can play games and get work done. But the thing is, you may want to bring a power bank or a charger with you at all times.

The tiny laptop also comes with a tiny battery. It only packs a 3500mAh battery pack, which is even smaller than most smartphones today. With that, you can already expect the battery to drain rather fast, especially if you have multiple applications running.

From my experience, it drained almost 70% of the battery after just 1 hour of use. For reference, I had multiple tabs of Chrome open, Discord turned on, and listening to Spotify. It drained even faster when I was playing Genshin Impact.

Honestly, that’s more than enough if you just need to get some quick work done. But if you plan on using it for longer periods, bring the 36W charger. Alternatively, you can just bring a power bank and charge it via USB-C.

Conclusion

Overall, the XPlus Piccolo Series 81x is a great solution if you want to bring around a very compact laptop. With its size, you can easily fit it into almost everything.

You will have to get used to the odd keyboard layout and using the nub. Thankfully it is touchscreen, so that makes life easier too

It’s relatively capable as well beyond just getting work done. It can also play light games, but given the small screen it’s not the most enjoyable. Just don’t forget to bring a charger with you since the battery is tiny.

As for the price? It’s decent too. There’s no official local retailer yet, but on the XPlus webstore it is currently on sale at USD 389.99 or roughly PHP 22,291.

It’s not the most affordable, especially considering there are other cheaper laptops out there. But if you want something really compact, you can’t beat the XPlus Piccolo Series 81x.

Still, what do you think of this laptop? Would you consider it if you want to travel light? Or would you choose something else?

Regardless, share your thoughts in the comments below.

What we liked:
Nice 8” display
Decent performance
Very compact form factor

What we didn’t like:
Heating issues
Short battery life