A truly light laptop is up to 1.0 kg inclusive, and not what you like to attract to such a term. And there are such laptops, but usually they are either super-expensive models, or inexpensive, but slow/quickly discharged. Ninkear (we don't know due to which factory and platform) managed to make a 1.0 kg laptop, which is fast (even games pull), and works for a long time, and is not particularly expensive, and even the screen is fine. My task is to tell you what they saved on in return and whether it is possible to live with it. Well, and compare with competitors.
It only seems that "200 grams here, 200 there" or "yes, even if there are 300 grams extra – it feels weaker in a backpack even than a 0.5 liter bottle of soda!". So it is, but this is in theory. And in practice, laptops with 0.8 – 1.0 kg are the weight level of the category "you carry and don't really notice that there is a laptop in the backpack at all", but 1.3 or, especially, 1.4 – 1.5 kg is already a situation when from time to time you will come up with excuses for yourself "yes, there is no special need to carry a laptop with you this time, let her lie at home, we will go with a smartphone and that's enough". we know for sure, because we often travel on business with laptops both on non-rubber and on business trips.
You've probably heard of all sorts of LG Grams, top-of-the-line ultralight Asus ZenBook, Huawei MateBook X Pro and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, but... Have you seen their prices?
But this Chinese company from the "new brands" offer ultra-light laptops cheaper - over there, all sorts of Finixes, Tecno has also joined. And these are only those that are well-known. And here on the test... Ninkear, yes. Many people are still not aware of this brand, because outside of the reviewers and "computers" who buy on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, Ozon, this Chinese brand is not super-promoted enough.
But it seems that this Ninkear has the characteristics in order, even suspiciously in order, in terms of price. we would say that in terms of the combination of "display brightness + CPU power + battery size + to 1.0 kg" below the price now seems to be... Not?
Accordingly, a suspicion creeps in that "something is wrong with him, probably?", which should be checked. Looking ahead, we can say - surprisingly, in general, everything is in order, you can take it. But this does not mean that you get the same laptop for 46-50 thousand rubles as Asus/MSI/Lenovo for 150 thousand. Basically, reviewers talk about this even in the reviews of the Ninkear S14 very vaguely and in passing, so in my review I will talk about what they saved on, whether it is critical, what it threatens and what alternatives there are, in more detail.
S14 Product Specifications
S14 Design and Ports
There are things here that you will probably like too; There are those that we really like, and there are those of the level of "well, okay, that'll do, at this price it was expected."
From what people like
- The lid can be opened 180 degrees. That is, to the level of "a laptop is one flat board". You don't need to reveal it to the limit, but disclosure beyond the standard accepted limits in cheap laptops is a plus. If you are a student (or a hard worker) and you are driving in a car, sit with your legs half-bent and you need to correct something on the way from your laptop.
- There is a full-size USB Type-A (one, but there is) and a full-size HDMI. In laptops of ordinary sizes, this is the norm, in ultralight laptops there are cases when "here are three Type-Cs for you - spin as you want!" (many people who bought this item were spinning in the case of the Huawei MateBook X at one time, by the way). For one flash drive with a full-size connector, or a printer of some kind - that's it. And mice can be connected via Bluetooth, flash drives are already double-sided with USB-C - USB-A on different sides. But HDMI needs a full-size one, one full-size USB is also needed, and here it is.
- There are four USB ports in total (three USB-C + one USB-A). And three of them are fast (USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 on the left edge, full-size USB-A on the right is 3.0, which is also enough even for external SSDs). Only one USB-C on the right is slow – 2.0.
- Moreover, if you fork out for USB hubs, then through both USB-Cs on the left you can switch monitors via DisplayPort 1.4. In total, including HDMI, three monitors can be attached to this mini-laptop (!). Not really necessary, but it's surprising that this is generally there.
- Fingerprint scanner in the touchpad... well, normal. It works better than, say, even in expensive laptops of 2018-2020 (in the old Huawei Matebook or in the Asus Vivobook of the Ryzen 5000 era, the scanners were frankly so-so and did not work the first time). But it's not luxury either, there are scanners that are faster or trigger at startup (here you need to put your finger on the scanner only after loading the Windows welcome screen).
- Cooling is brought out by a long perforation on the bottom, and on the back panel between the display. The processor is not hot, this is enough for the laptop - nothing blows into your hand, the bottom of the laptop will not "fry" your knees.
- Super-easy to disassemble for upgrade. Even the usual Phillips screws! And not the Torx these bastards that get soaked after a few disassembly/reassemblies even in expensive laptops.
- The "MacBook test" (open the lid with one hand so the laptop doesn't bounce) passes – the lid hinges aren't too tight or too loose, just right.
- Webcam with a shutter. You can open it, you can close it and know for sure that even if you accidentally connect to a video call with the camera turned on, no one from your colleagues will see you in family underpants.
From what the brand do
- The lid is metal, the rest of the body is plastic. The metal seems to be normal, the plastic does not "breathe" and does not bend, but this is just cheap plastic, like in some cheap Lenovo IdeaPad or the new plastic model Honor MagicBook X16, for example, But light.
From the fact that so-so
The webcam is so-so in quality. Well, read more dissatisfaction in the next paragraph - about the keyboard.
Keyboard and touchpad
The touchpad works fine, like any other laptop up to several hundred dollars. And certainly better than those of low-end gaming laptops, for example.
But the keyboard, although it looks like some... we don't know, HP Pavilion? But it's just cheap to the touch. No, its base does not bend, the keys work, the backlight works and is more normal in intensity, just... Well, have you ever typed on a cheap computer keyboard? These are a little "loose" soft keys with not very clear actuation and the feeling that, well, they saved on it clearly.
You can work, you will be able to type fluently (the keys are of normal size and in their places), it's just that when typing quickly, you constantly notice that the presses are "cheap" and you constantly imagine that "such a flimsy keyboard will not last long". Although we used a similar keyboard in the old Dell Inspiron in 2013 - we lived a long time. But in the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3" of the 2017 model, it fell apart, crunched and "stuck" all the time. You can't guess in advance.
But it is a fact that in the same Infinix Inbook Air Pro+, Huawei honors and even in some Tecno keyboards are nicer.
Display
The "inclusions" of the impression are as follows: if you did not have time to gluttonous with OLED displays, you will be satisfied. The brightness is normal (not really cool, but 320 nits is above the average 300 nits "in the hospital"), the screen is matte, you (and everything else is behind you) are never reflected in it under any circumstances. And the color reproduction is almost perfect - the colors are correct, not oversaturated, the faces in the videos are without parasitic yellowish or bluish shades, a sight to behold!
The disadvantages are 60 Hz (yes, it can be more cheerful, although 60 Hz is enough for work and games on "some" graphics). Well, the viewing angles and contrast are not "glacial", of course. Normal non-annoying well-tuned inexpensive IPS display, even the viewing angles are not bad. we recently bought the Chinese version of the HONOR MagicBook X16 2024 for Ryzen 5 (an elderly relative for "tanks") - there are viewing angles, despite IPS, very small - you have to adjust the tilt of the lid so that the image does not become darker. There is no such thing here. In general, it's okay in general, although after OLED laptops it will seem that it's "poor". But objectively, all the indicators are in order.
Performance and autonomy
Among AMD's Ryzen 7000 series laptop processors, there are "real Ryzen 7000" and "renamed old processors under the name Ryzen 7000." "Real" Ryzen 7000 (Zen 4 architecture) have indexes ending in 40 and 45 (for example, Ryzen 5 7540U, Ryzen 5 8640HS, etc.).
In our Ninkear S14, the CPU index ends in 35, which means what? That's right, that the processor of this generation is Zen 3+, that is, a renamed old model. In this case, it's the Ryzen 5 6600HS. And the Ryzen 5 6600HS is already the Ryzen 5 5600H studied inside and out in budget laptops, only in a configuration with more powerful integrated Radeon 660M graphics instead of the completely "vegetable" and worthless RX Vega 7, like the original 5600H.
And damn, we are not a particular fan of the Zen 3/Zen 3+ generation processors today - after all, these are processors of 2020/2021, five years have passed since then, the efficiency of the cores of the Intel 12/13/14 generation (not to mention the Ultra, although there is also a lot of renamed junk) and the "real" Ryzen 7540U/7640HS/8640HS is higher.
But, in such a 1.0 kg laptop, this processor is just what the doctor ordered:
- Super-cold and level-headed. Even if you play games, the temperature is kept at 68 degrees.
- In fact, you can play games on the Radeon 660M, just think! On a super-light laptop! Usually, in 1.0 laptops, processors are allocated 15 watts of TDP (because the laptop is ultra-light, the battery is small, the body is ultra-thin - if you let the processor heat up more, it will throttle and "turn around"), but here the processor oils up to 35 watts (6 cores + built-in) and feels great. Because the Ryzen 5 Zen 4 (5000) have not been super-hot before, and with a transfer to 6 nm are generally the best fit for compact laptops.
- At the same time, the power consumption is quite moderate, even in games the laptop (1.0 kg, do not forget) lasts 1 hour 42 minutes, and in video and office work from 7 to 9 hours at a brightness under 80% of the maximum it works without difficulty.
- The integrated graphics of the Radeon 660M is, in fact, an analogue of the laptop NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, only not voracious and under the cover of the processor, and not separately soldered and separately cooled/eaten. I'm not going to talk about "quite gameable!" now, but in Civilization 7, Counter-Strike 2, Doom Eternal, GTA 5 you can play in 1920x1080 at 60 frames per second. Somewhere on low, somewhere on average, but you can.
And this is "a small step for all mankind", but in "anorexic laptops" almost no one else offers such gaming performance! Except in expensive models on the Core Ultra.
Although... there is also the Tecno Megabook T14FA Air, which looks like a clone of this Ninkear in terms of characteristics (but the details are a little different – the display matrix is different, but there are no reviews of the AMD modification for it – there are only the Intel version of the guys from Mobile-Review, and in the case of Tecno, the AMD version can easily be different in terms of display, Wi-Fi, and (it will definitely be different) in terms of RAM, and SSD ... So only theoretical conclusions can be drawn about it, according to the table of characteristics.
Thin laptops based on Intel 12/13 generations (Core i5-1334U, Core i7-1355U, on the one hand, are more modern. On the other hand, they are slower, because they clamp 10 cores within 15 watts and the point of such an implementation is like a dog with 8 legs: it will not be able to "run" faster. from av1 to H.264, etc.) It speeds up the process a lot, unlike AMD. But this is the only advantage.
And the "old Ryzens" like 7535HS with a "semi-gaming built-in" 660M in compact laptops are just a thrill. we didn't think we would say this, but yes, we they fit this scenario perfectly. And it is more pleasant to work on such processors than on "a lot of cores" Intels, in which each of these cores works SLOWLY due to the processor suffocated to 15 watts. we are not even talking about games at all, the Infinix Inbook Air Pro+ "slowed down" to the level of a slideshow in all games, except for Counter-Strike 1.6 and Civilization 4, perhaps.
The RAM in the Ninkear S14 is not bad - yes, it's not super-boosted DDR5, but even for games it is enough (this is not DDR4-3200, here, although it is written LPDDR5-3200, there are not two channels, like DDR4, but four, due to which the integrated graphics work MUCH faster).
But the SSD is cheap. Bufferless cheap PCIe 3.0 on QLC memory, even though the processor supports 4.0 as well. Before, we would have said "but it doesn't matter, then replace the SSD with something decent like MSI Spatium M480 Pro, Adata Legend 960 or at least Netac NV7000t", but now... With such prices, you don't need to do this.
In short, SSD will do. It is like the complete tires on the Lada Vesta, Hyundai Solaris and Kia Rio, there are tires with which these cars, even with their budget characteristics, will take turns better and brake better, but whether it is worth putting expensive tires on budget cars is an open question. So with laptops up to 50 thousand, the question is similar.
Wi-Fi is also cheap. It's a shame that the Wi-Fi 6 module, but also the antennas are cheap and there are few of them (there should be a LOT of antennas in the display case/frame for a fast Wi-Fi connection), so here, even in line of sight from the coolest router, the laptop squeezes out "up to 600/600 Mbps of the theoretical maximum download/upload speed", which in practice translates into 430 Mbps for downloading and 250 Mbps for uploading maximum.
On the other hand, this will be enough for most people - many with Internet tariffs outside cities with a population of over one million will not even understand why a Muscovite is showing off in the article and saying that "it could have been faster."
Competitors
Conclusions
A very good laptop, we thought it would all be much worse. Yes, a "backlash" soft indistinct keyboard, a creepy webcam in quality, a plastic base of the case, cheap sound. But it works quickly (even in games it can do something!), it works for a long time, all the connectors are in place, the screen is very high-quality in color reproduction and good in brightness, the cover can be adjusted in any way to your heart's content.
Very lightweight, replacing the SSD or upgrading the thermal paste is easy (this is not the case everywhere in thin 1.0 kg laptops). Quiet in operation, does not overheat.
The brand, of course, does not yet have a special long-term reputation, spare parts in case of a breakdown also knows where to look, but from the marketing visibility and presence of center service present around it sure that this brand is going to become a next strategic and global partner in the industry of Mini PC and laptop.