Gone are the days when we have to accept the fact that a decent laptop costs more than $800. Now you can buy one under $600 that features a processor powerful enough for multi-tasking under different scenarios, and there are some options even under $400. ALLDOCUBE is a brand that you cannot ignore if you are looking for such a full-sized laptop for a super affordable price. 
Today we are going to delve deeper into its latest affordable laptop, the GT Book. The new laptop makes for a powerful office companion, whether it’s for home or travel purposes – even with just an Intel Celeron N5100 processor inside.
The ALLDOCUBE series has long been a popular option for those who want a feature-packed laptop at a certain budget price point. The GT Book continues with the same philosophy. Like most laptops priced under $400, the GT Book is powered by Intel’s Celeron processor. The Celeron N5100 processor inside is the latest quad-core SoC of the Intel Jasper Lake series, which is mainly used in cheap notebook computers. The clock speed of the Four Tremont CPU cores is between 1.1 and 2.8GHz (Single-core Burst), and hyper-threading is not provided. Intel claims that the single-threaded performance of the single core can be increased by an average of 30%.
In addition to the quad-core CPU module, the SoC also integrates a 24 EU Intel UHD GPU clocked up to 800MHz. Surprisingly, the GT Book features 12GB LPDDR4X memory (dual-channel 2933MHz), which is rare at such an affordable price point. And it’s equipped with a replaceable 256GB SSD storage at the bottom.
ALLDOCUBE GT Book Review: Design & Display
The GT Book is available in only one screen size – 14.1-inch, which comes with 1080P resolution. The screen on the laptop is an IPS panel with 72% NTSC color coverage, which is far more vivid than its competitors at its price point. In addition, the narrow bezel of the display looks great and just reminded me of the latest, expensive competitors.
The dual box speakers can deliver stereo sounds, but it is exactly what you’d expect at this price point.
For basic office and entertainment uses, the display looked quite adequate. All of the laptop’s ports are located on the two edges. You can find a DC charging port, a full-functioning USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm audio jack on the left side. On the other side, there is a USB 3.0 Type-A port and an unusual microSD card slot, with which you can have extended storage up to 128GB.
As usual, ALLDOCUBE does a good job on the affordable model’s keyboard. Although the GT Book’s backlit keys might not be on par with those expensive models, they delivered a delightful typing experience in my limited time using them. And if you travel a lot, I don’t really think that most of you will have issue with these practical keys.
And the pleasant experience of operation continues to its large touchpad, which I really enjoyed while typing and browsing on the laptop. It’s really hard to believe that this keyboard and touchpad comes in a laptop that costs under $400. But a small complaint here is that the keyboard can easily get fingerprints and grease.
Another interesting detail of the GT Book’s design is the front camera, which is integrated into the hinge. Compared to other laptops that feature the camera at the top of the display, the GT Book smartly saves this space for the screen and makes the display look more stunning than its predecessors.
The 14’’ GT Book (1.7mm max. thickness) weighs 1.2kg, which is acceptable for travel considering it has a metal body. Overall, the appearance of the laptop delivers an impressive build quality in a compact metal form factor.
ALLDOCUBE GT Book Review: Benchmark Tests
An important feature of budget laptops is efficiency. In this respect, the GT Book’s performance met our expectations in different benchmark tests. The laptop offers 4 power modes to meet different working scenarios. Users can switch between battery saver, better battery, better performance and best performance according to their requirement.
The following performance tests were only conducted in the best performance mode, while the endurance test was done in the better battery mode.
Let’s look at the Celeron N5100 processor first. The single burning test is more about showing the stability of the CPU performance. After the 30-minute Stress FPU test in AIDA64 benchmark, the N5100 can run up to 2.2GHz on all cores in the first 15mins without obvious throttling; power consumption stayed at around 6W, and the core temperature was maintained below 80℃. From the stress test results, it appears that the N5100 has a pretty good stability of performance output with a relatively good cooling effect under high loads. Due to the passive cooling design, the running noise was almost unperceivable.
On the memory side, 12GB LPDDR4X-2933MHz dual-channel memory was fully adequate for daily office work. In actual experience, its sufficient capacity and improved multi-tasking performance. In AIDA64 Cache & Memory Benchmark, the tested memory Read speed is 16906MB/s; Write speed is 29435MB/s; Copy speed is 27159MB/s; and the delay is 70.1 ns.
We also tested the SSD storage performance. The result shows that the laptop is adequate for common office use. And if you are not satisfied with the SSD, the laptop allows you to easily replace it by yourself.
In terms of performance, the total score of PCMARK 10 was 2561, including 6100 for essentials, 3768 for productivity and 1984 for digital content creation. From the sub-item score, the GT Book has a good performance for office work, while in digital creation, it’s not as efficient compared to basic and office use. And if you’d like to play heavy games on your laptop, the GT Book is not a good option. However, we still ran CSGO fps benchmark under 720p resolution on the GT Book. The average running framerate is around 43fps.
ALLDOCUBE GT Book Review: Battery Life
As for the battery, thanks to the efficient N5100 processor, its endurance performance is much better than what we expected. It features a 5000mAh battery with 36W PD charging efficiency. After the endurance test of everyday tasks, under Better Battery mode, the GT Book could support a good endurance for up to 5-hour of continuous use.
From portability to ease of use, ALLDOCUBE GT Book still brings fair efficiency and good stability, bringing consumers an attractive option of business, office, and basic entertainment in the budget price range. Not to mention that the thin metal body with good build quality makes it stand out from the rest of the sub-$400 price range.
But you should also look at its drawback. For some of you, the insufficient ports could cause you a little inconvenience.
That said, the GT Book can be a reliable option for consumers who are looking for a basic laptop in 2021. You can buy this laptop on the Alldocube official website if you like this product.
