Chuwi Hi12 Review

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Low-end tablets are improving each year in leaps and bounds. And now that the Samsung PLS panel used in the Surface Pro 3 is no longer exclusive or in fact needed by Microsoft, Chinese manufacturers now have the new larger 3:2 ratio screen to base their tablet builds around. Chuwi is the first the get their has on this panel and give us what that they think an Atom 12″ 3:2 tablet should be.

What’s in the Box:

  • Black 2 prong US Style 2.5A 5 volt USB charger
  • Micro USB cable
  • Chuwi Hi12 Tablet (Gold/White or Grey/Black)
  • Various warranty cards etc in a cardboard slip

Hardware & build quality:

In a first for Chuwi, they have opted for a full metal alloy body instead of the usual plastic or plastic and glass rear housing. As a result, the Hi12 feels more solid in hand and has a more premium look. The look reminds me of the Cube i7, which has a similar finish. The paint job is a matte grey, that looks to be very easy to scratch if not handled with care.

Being a 12-inch tablet, it’s large as expected, but I feel the bezels are just about right. Not too large top and bottom and larger on the sides so you can hold it without touching the screen. And weighs in at 839 grams or 1.18 pounds, enough to start to feel heavy if you decide to watch a long movie, this is where a stand or keyboard stand comes in handy. So it’s a shame the Hi12 doesn’t include a kickstand solution built into the tablet itself like the Cube i9. It should be a rule, if it’s over say 10.6 inches, it needs a kickstand!

The thickness is 0.38 inches or 9.48 mm, not bad when you consider the size of the screen and the internal 11,000mAh battery.

The front screen is glass and the surrounding panel is plastic which clips into the rear metal body. It’s secured in placed by 4 tiny Torx screws that hold the two halves in place firmly. Chuwi is the only Shenzhen manufacturer that does this and it not only improves aesthetics, strengthens the tablet rather than just relying on plastic clips to hold it all together.

Keyboard dock: (Optional)

Chuwi has released the keyboard dock now (6 weeks after the tablet launched) and I do have one ordered to review. It’s a transformer style dock with a full-sized keyboard and touchpad. What I’m not particularly fond of is the color choice for  the keys  White is prone to showing dirt.

It does however have two full sized USB 2.0 ports, both left and right, great for adding a USB mouse for example. This brings the total amount of USB ports to 4, well 5 if you include the microUSB port.

Screen and touch response:

A screen is what makes a tablet, and the Chuwi Hi12 has quite the screen for this class of tablet. The last generation Surface Pro 3 screen. A Samsung PLS SEC3542 ( Part # LTL120QL01-001) to be precise. You can read more about the screen in Display Mates full detailed test. These screens even sell for around the price of the whole tablet if you’re looking for a spare.

Chuwi Hi12 screen is it retina?

Chuwi Hi12 screen is it retina?

Since the panel isn’t fully laminated, it’s more susceptible to reflections and due to this the brightness suffers somewhat to the fully laminated version in the Surface Pro 3. And the gap between the glass and screen below it is a rather large 1-2mm which isn’t the greatest.

Touch response is excellent with no issues, I find the larger screen to be very responsive to touch, accurate and a enjoy to use. After disabling Intel Graphics power saving settings the maximum brightness is 302 cd/m2. While not a bad level of brightness it’s short of the 371 cd/m2 the Surface Pro 3 is capable of. Chuwi must have toned down the brightness in order to save on battery life. And far from the dull screens in the Teclast X80h and PiPo W4S that struggled to get over 200 cd/m2.

brightness

Storage:

My unit has a Hynix brand HCG8e 64GB eMMC in it, now I’m not sure if Chuwi will stick with this brand of eMMC but most manufacturers switch around and use various brands they have on stock. The speeds are great for an eMMC 4.5.1 spec drive and the 4k random reads and writes are good. Nothing like the slow BWIN and FORSEE brand drives Chuwi normally use in their 8-inch line of tablets that can only get around 2 MB/s random writes. Speeds always vary from eMMC to eMMC so it’s just down to pot luck if you get a faster one. But Hynix, Samsung and Toshiba brands always seem to perform 5 times better than the cheaper mentioned brands.

eMMC speeds

 

Drive speedsThe USB 3.0 port functions just like any USB 3.0 port should, it will power 1 or 2TB external hard drives without any issues and at full USB 3.0 speeds. Using my Sandisk Extreme USB 3 64GB pen drive, I was able to reach the write and read limits of this drive in the USB 3 port. The USB 2.0 port maxes out at 45mb/s read and write.

USB 3 and MicroSD speeds

And the MicroSD card slot as with all Cherry Trail tablets supports high-speed MicroSD cards. So you can take advantage of UHS-1 cards here and not be limited to just 23 MB/s like the last gen Bay Trail Atoms.

Ports & Connectivity:

What was started in the Chuwi Vi10, continuing in the Hi12 and I’m all for it. Two full sized USB ports, one USB 3.0 spec. And a micro USB port for charger (Can also be used for data) This is very practical and I wish all tablets had this, it’s one of the reasons Chuwi has been doing so well since it’s introduction.

20160215_174638

One the left-hand side is where all the action is in regards to ports. Luckily Chuwi thought it out and most USB plugs and USB flash drives should fit in the USB ports and let you charge at the same time. The micro HDMI port is firm and not loose like some and can output a maximum resolution of 4k @ 30hz. The Hi12 was able to drive my ASUS 2560 x 1440 display without any problems and at 60hz.

Hi12 ports

The usual RealTek 150mbps BGN card handles wireless and Bluetooth. But it’s a crying shame to still see only single band wireless cars still be used in 2016. It’s about time we had more dual band cards, so far only the Mi Pad 2 has dual band 2.4Ghz and the less crowded 5Ghz band.

I experienced no limited or dropped connections and was able to get the following speeds using speedtest.net. (Note my desktop gets 50 Mbps download and 25 Mbps upload)

The Realtek 150mbps Wireless N card was also able to keep up with streaming GTA V over my network as tested here from my tower PC. Using my Hi12 downstairs, I noticed a the performance was still good and the connection is as good as my Surface Pro 4. No problems with the Wifi what-so-ever here.

Windows & Performance:

The Hi12 performs great within Windows, folders open up quickly, moving around the menus is all quick and responsive. This is where the tablet doesn’t feel much like an Atom, but as soon as you start to multitask heavily you begin to feel the system slow somewhat. While the Ram is 4GB, it’s only running in a single channel configuration at 1600Mhz, unlike the Atom X5 Z8500 in the Teclast X98 Pro and X16 Pro that runs dual channel with higher memory bandwidth.

For light tasks like document editing, browsing the web, viewing pdfs and even some light gaming the Atom X5 Z8300 can handle that with ease. It can even stream 4k YouTube videos as long as you use a browser like Edge or Internet Explorer 11 that’s better optimized for such a task.

Multitasking:

These Atom’s might surprise you with this, I was able to have both Edge and Chrome open with various tabs. WordPress editing this review right here and the little 14nm Atom was still keeping up. You can push them quite hard, more than you would have thought possible.

However once multiple tabs, folders, and MS Paint was opened I did notice typing in Edge became somewhat slower than before. And alt-tabbing between apps became slower.

Heavy multitasking at 2560 x 1440 resolution via HDMI out.

Heavy multitasking at 2560 x 1440 resolution via HDMI out.

Window Benchmarks:

My first benchmark runs showed poor results when compared to other Atom X5 Z8300’s, I later discovered it was due to the GPU being limited within Intel’s graphics settings. Disabling the extending gaming power saving  mode, brought the results back on track. What that feature does is limit the GPU clocks in order to help save battery life, but at the cost of around 10-20% performance.

The Hi12 proved to be one of the faster X5 Z8300’s tested so far:

Geekbench 3 Chuwi Hi12

3dmark ice storm 1.2

3dmark11

PCmark7Cloudgate 1.1Gaming:

The Atom X5 Z8300 in the Hi12 isn’t knowing for it’s gaming performance. But with that said, you can still play many old titles are most store games with fluid frame rates. Aspalt 8 Airborne and Dungeon Hunter 5 for example were very playable even running at 2160 x 1440. Modern Combat 5 however was a 3-4 fps slide show of frustration.

On the lowest resolution and settings popular games like Counter Strike Global Offensive, Dota 2 and League of Legends were playable.

Battery life:

Edit: Battery times updated, after cycling the battery a few times. Battery life has improved on my Chuwi Hi12. With 50% bright and the intel power display power saving option enabled. I’m able to get over 8 hours of video, web and document use. This is one of best battery run times seen on a large Chinese Windows 10 tablet.

The Chuwi Hi12 comes with an 11,000 battery. HWinfo detected my battery to have 10,125 mAh which seems about right. (You never get 100% of the capacity, Windows reserves some, manufacturing process etc) During my time using the Hi12 I was able to get a reasonably good idea of battery life with the following scenarios:

  • Gaming 50% brightness around 4 hours.
  • Web browsing 50% brightness about 7:30 hours.
  • Mixed YouTube viewing with docs, multiple tabs open in Edge and multitasking. 50% brightness: 6-7 hours.
  • Videos/Movies with flight mode on 50% brightness over 9 hours. 25% brightness could see around 30 minutes more, almost breaking to 10-hour mark.

I’ll update this with more exact figures when I have more time on the battery only. The above tests were run with Intel’s battery saving features disabled too.

Your own times will depend on various factors, but overall I feel the battery life is great for a tablet with this sized screen. It would seem the 12″ PLS panel isn’t as heavy on the battery as I would have thought.

Heat and throttling:

Chuwi has done well with the thermals on the Hi12, in all my time testing and reviewing my unit, temperatures never went over 73 degrees and the tablet never felt hot. My guess is Chuwi has a large thermal pad between the SoC and the rear metal housing. This is acting as a huge heat sink transferring heat away from the Atom X5 Z8300 and dissipating it through the metal. I’ve seen Cube do the same with the i7 Core M tablets and it was very effective.

Gaming for a few hours saw the max temps reach 77 degrees. But I really, really wanted to push the thermals on this unit since it’s running much cooler than other Z8300’s. Running Furmark and Intel burn test while charging I was able to get up to 79 degrees after 21 minutes. Not bad, all other Cherry Trail Atom’s would have hit at least 85 degrees if not more with that test. And I don’t see Furmark and CPU burn as a realistic test at all, normally you would never max both the GPU and CPU at 100% under normal use.

Chuwi Hi12 temps

Charge time:

Approximate charge time from 7% to 100% with the tablet powered off was around 3 hours 50 minutes. Powered on and charging from 7% you’re looking at close to 5 to 6 hours to fully charge the Hi12 when it’s in use, this figure will vary if your doing something taxing like gaming or you have the screen at 100% brightness.

DC charging might have been a better solution here bypassing any USB power restrictions. At least, Chuwi did increase the output of the stock charger from 5 volts 2A to 5V 2.5A’s which will help with charging when the system is in use.

Audio quality:

The speakers are on the left and right sides of the tablet, as a result stereo separation is good and they output even a hint of bass. They are better than the Chuwi Hi10 and better than most Chinese tablets I have reviewed here. But they still lose out to the Mi Pad 2’s speakers. And not a patch on my Surface Pro 4’s front facing speakers. There is a slight hiss over the speakers if you put your ear to them just after audio is played. For example, the typing sound that’s played when using the onscreen keyboard, as soon as the sound is played I can hear a faint hiss over both speakers.

The 3.5 mm audio jack is a 4 pole unit, so it supports headsets with microphones. There is an ever so slight buzz over the port when there is no sound playing. This is an annoyance, luckily when sound is played you don’t hear it. So it only seems to be present between MP3 tracks or silent periods. My guess is the wireless or another component is interfering with the line. It’s a common issue I’ve heard on many tablets and even the more known brand ones. Even my Surface 3 had a slight hiss over the 3.5 mm jack.

Cameras:

Not much to write here, still one of the weakest points of most tablets. The 5MP auto focus camera of the Hi12 is average at best. It’s okay for a quick snap of some text as macros come out okay. But many photos just look washed out. The camera and the front facing 2-megapixel unit is actually quite good for Skype and one of the better ones on a Chinese tablet.

Chuwi Hi12 - 5MP rear camera

Chuwi Hi12 – 5MP rear camera

And the front camera doesn’t perform great in low light, so you’ll want to make sure you’re in a well-lit room. Here are some samples:

Conclusion:

The large 12 inch high-resolution Samsung PLS screen is a joy to use, browsing the web, looking at PDF’s, editing docs and other light tasks is what this tablet is good for. Even watching a movie on the 3:2 being so large is good even if you do have those 1 inch borders top and bottom. And the two USB ports, make this a practical tablet without having to carry around a microUSB to USB adapters like other tablets.

Where the tablet struggles, like other Atom X5 Z8300’s is gaming. Lower resolutions and settings must be run in order to get anything close to playable frame rates. And it’s a large heavy tablet, it’s not for everyone. Due to it’s size and weight it really needs a kick stand. Holding the Hi12 for 40 minutes watching a clip of Better Call Saul, was bearable. But my arms where defiantly feeling it. At least, with the keyboard dock you’ll be able to use the keyboard as a stand.

Chuwi has also promised a dual boot Windows 10 and Android model later in March. And talk of a slightly more expensive stylus version has all but disappeared. I’m sure Chuwi has more plans with this screen that’s now in their possession.

But what this screen is really screaming out for is stylus support and something more powerful like a Core M. Even so, as a low-end tablet with full sized USB ports and a premium screen make it an enjoyable tablet for media consumption and even docs and web work. The only let down is the audio could be better, but it’s defiantly not the worse I’ve heard and still better than many other tablets I’ve reviewed. And without the keyboard, it’s heavy to hold as just a tablet.

I can only hope to see more Shenzhen companies taking advantage of this lovely 3:2 ratio screen.

Buy this Product$36 off coupon: 0e0268

Good

  • Decent build qaulity
  • Full sized USB ports
  • USB ports can power external HDDs
  • Premium Samsung 2160 x 1440 PLS Screen
  • Good touch response and accuracy
  • Great thermals for a Cherry Trail Atom
  • Very good battery life (9 hours+ light use)

Bad

  • No keyboard on launch
  • Slight interference over the 3.5mm port
  • Heavy as a tablet with no kickstand
8.3

Great

Performance - 8
Build and Design - 8
Screen - 9
Audio - 7.5
Battery Life - 9

53 Comments

  1. Impressive with its ram speed!

  2. “And the MicroSD card slot as with all Cherry Trail tablets supports high-speed MicroSD cards. So you can take advantage of UHS-1 cards here and not be limited to just 23 MB/s like the last gen Bay Trail Atoms.”

    Chuwi Hi12 supports micro SD card up to 20 MB /s since it’s not supporting UHS-3 cards.

    I tried out at least 5 different cards of all kind of speed. The speed of Samsung pro plus 128 GB will not go above 20 MB / sec in both write and read speed.

    I’m sorry Im super late to this review but just worth to mention in case someone trying to buy superspeed micro SD card for this tablet – a bit waste if you planning to spend that much money and expect 70 MB/ sec speed.

    • No way, mine works over 20 MB/s and so did Chris’s in the review: http://techtablets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/USB-3-and-MicroSD-speeds.jpg Mind you mine is the first batch, maybe something changed in later batches? Moved to USB2 hub?

      • The second pic you showed was USB 3.0 port – and I’m not talking about USB 3.0

        The first pic on the otherhand, the write speed is interesting cause it’s very high (high to be Chuwi Hi12 micro SD slot).

        But the write speed you showed us is only 17 MB / sec and it’s not even USH-3 speed.

        So basically it’s still very low write speed for Micro SD.

        I would like to see some stats like 70 MB / sec for write speed. It will take forever to install for example League of Legends on that Micro SD speed you showed us there – just like what I got on my result also.

  3. Heja,

    I have the Chuwi Hi12 for a few days now and I had the touchscreen issue. Bios update + reset helped alot. However the driver for the INF file not and I don’t think it is fine yet.
    The screen does not respond every time if Im using my fingertip. Is this normal? How accurate is it if it works just fine?
    Im just so used to my smartphone where it detects even the slightest inputs. So Im not sure if the issue is the tablet or just me.
    Any advice would be nice. Thanks.

    • Wait, Im sorry for this post. Im going to use the forum instead.

    • Unlikely I know, but did you remove the second screen protector? Notice there were a few amazon reviews giving a 1 star for bubbles in the screen, and it is unusual to have 2 screen protectors…

  4. When you mention pen support, do you mean there is no way to write using say onenote by any pen because it lacks an active digitizer? I’d guess a pen works to write, just it can’t draw without it, provided it’s a capacitive display.

  5. Hi Chris, great review of a much promising tablet (was unaware of its existence until today!). Before I commit myself to this Chinese gem, would you give me some insight if this tablet could connect with an ethernet-micro usb dongle? I suppose you do not have such a dongle over there, but can it be surmised by browsing the connection options? At our place we use a 300 mb/s data connection (glassfiber) and often I connect my Samsung tablet with this dongle to the speedy internet, rather than going a sullen 50 mb/s over wifi.
    Please let me know if this feature of a wired connection with our router is available.
    Many thanks and keep up the good work!

    • Don’t see why it wouldn’t work. USB to ethernet will work in Windows. Android I’m not sure.

  6. be wary of buying from china. if your device is defective the shipping back to china is extremely expensive. it will cost 89 us dollars through usps to ship my tablet back to china. banggood refuses to cover the shipping. if you want to try out a china made tablet wait til it shows up on amazon prime. what a headache. I will never buy from china ever again. A hard learned lesson. I just gave away 240 dollars.

  7. update: be wary of buying from china if you’re in the us. if its defective getting a replacement will cost you anywhere from 65

  8. This is a warning to all. Do not buy chinese tablets they are pure junk. My HI12 touch screen stops responding to touch in certain areas after being on for about 10 minutes. If you want to try one out if you can get it from somewhere like amazon give it a try but the whole experience of ordering from china and waiting and then finding that my tablet is a doorstop has been just pure frustration. the savings were NOT worth it. Chinese and customer support are not two items that go together. Save yourself the frustration and go to a bm or a more conventional outlet like amazon and save yourself the frustration.

  9. Banggood start selling hipen…

  10. hi guys
    i received the keyboard +ballpoint captive pen for win10 chuwi hi12:
    the keyboard dock is not premium but it’s good enough not to complain.the ballpoint is precise but it’s not powerful for painting dot or something like that.

  11. Chris did you get your dual boot version? Android review?

  12. hi guys
    here is the dual boot images link for CHUWI HI12 :
    http://forum.chuwi.com/thread-1160-1-1.html

  13. hi guys
    banggood at last had shipped the keyboard dock.
    i order a ballpoint stylus let’s see how precise is that!

  14. Hey Chris, thanks for your great review. Made me take the plunge to buy it.

    Hopefully the gearbest actually ships it out…. The delays are starting to look ridiculous judging by several other posts.

  15. hi everyone
    mine does not have build quality problem like noise but there is a bit noise in headphone jack which i myself never got annoyed with though people judge the tablet becuase it is from China.
    i recommend it for those who use tablet for works like university works or jobs at office not for game.then those who wanna watch movies or clips could make them feel great because of the speakers and LCD.
    finally i wanna recommed it for those who if there is any problem,find it and solve it by themeselve of course i dont mean hardware problems

  16. Chris, advise that it is better to take chuwi hi12 or Cube i9

    • cube i9 of corse, it has the core m3, but the cube i9 costs 2 times more, so it isnt a good comparison

  17. Hey Chris,
    If i buy the hi12 latter, will i get Dual Boot Feature ???? Do you suggest any kind of Power Bank for those tablet ?

  18. Guess, there’s no other solution to thermal issue found other than increasing the tablet size. Bit of embarrassment, since 7-8 inchers are vanishing from the market and we are slowing going back to laptop sizes.

  19. Hi Chris, could you tell me please if its possible to charge using the USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports? Or only the micro usb?

  20. Hi Chris, can you upload cpu-z and gpu-z images for hi12 and x98 plus?
    I’ve heard that x98 air plus has gpu memory clock problem.
    Z8300’s memory clock supposed to be 800mhz for both cpu and gpu but with that problem, gpu only uses 533mhz.
    It seems that Teclast is trying to fix that problem but I don’t know it’s confirmed information.

  21. Hi Chris
    Can you please check actual charging current of 5V USB charger, if you have cheap USB device like this
    http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Arrival-USB-Charger-Doctor-Voltmeter-Ammeter-USB-Charging-Detector-Tools-/201371720074?hash=item2ee2b0998a:g:YDkAAOSwl8NVfrMy

    I am asking bcos I order this tablet (still didnt receive it)for my traveling period and charging time is important to me so if there is any chance for even more
    quicker charging time I will buy >2,5A charger.
    Many thanks

    • Hi, the stock charger is 2.5A and using my volt meter it charges at 2.3A. But the rear of the tablet states it will take 2.4 to 3A. So if you can get a 3A charger it might help you charge it a little quicker. It’s not exactly fast at charging especially when on and in use.

  22. Chris, Wonderful review. I wish to get this tablet H12 for drawing and painting with a stylus. Does this H12 support a surface 3 stylus?
    And reading the comments, I am confused as to whether the tablet supports a stylus at all?

    • Hi, it doesn’t support a stylus yet. Cube talked of a Stylus version, but they are now quite about it. We will just have to wait and see if they release an Vi12 Stylus or Hi12 Stylus version in a few months. I’m unsure if they will.

      • I had posted a question about stylus support in Gearbest Q&A and I received an answer that said the that the tablet supports an “active stylus”.
        Don’t know what that is, really.

  23. @chris: How do you think the Hi12 compares to Teclast X98 Plus?

  24. Hi, good review. Can it boot from USB? Can you access the BIOS? Thanks.

  25. Chris, I want to thank you for the review, but I also want to point out that you may want to rework a bit how you present the graphs in the article: here you’ve used them for luminance and storage speeds, but you may want to use others in the future.

    First of all, the blog reads from left to right. It makes sense, then, that the leftmost column that is shown is the one for the product you’re reviewing, which can be bolded for emphasis as a visual cue that it’s the model we’re talking about vs others. I think you’re aware of this, because in the luminance bar diagram the Chuwi is hidden by the watermark, and in the storage speed diagram you have to use a red circle to show us which is the Chuwi’s value.

    Furthermore, the EMMC storage comparison uses a line graph which is not necessarily the best choice. Line graphs are good for showing temporal evolutions of trends and figures, but in the case of your article you’re just comparing different models’ perfomances. If you didn’t want to use another bar diagram you could use a pictogram (which is admittedly harder), or you could simply leave the points of the line graph (maybe making them bigger) and remove the line.

    • Thanks for the tips, noted. It’s a graph generator plugin that’s quite limited in what it can do. I’ll see if I can make a few adjustments to improve it.

  26. Hi, is there any chance you would try to boot Ubuntu live usb pen on this pretty ?

  27. Great work on this review. I am now settled on getting this when I acquire the funds to purchase it. I may have to do my own review when I can get this. Love the site and keep up the great reviews!

  28. Gearbest is getting a hangover, probably, judging from how they are changing Chuwi hi12’s prices all the time.

    During this whole period
    – the DEEP GRAY version was priced at 249$
    – the GOLDEN version was priced at 299

    Yesterday
    – the DEEP GRAY was priced at 289$
    – the GOLDEN remained at 299$

    TODAY
    – the DEEP GRAY version is priced at 289$
    – the GOLDEN version is priced at 249$

    So if someone had assumed the Gray version did not support stylus, but the Golden did/would and ordered the latter, I doubt if he would get what he expected.

    It seems they saw a lot of requests for the GRAY version and little demand for the Golden and they just switched prices…CLASSY ACT Gearbest!

    • Thankfully Gearbest has corrected their pricing, but quite confusing having something priced at 299$ and then dropping the pricing at 250$.
      People thought it was the Stylus version but now on should doubt it

  29. Thanks for the review!
    I’m still on the wall between Hi10 and Hi12 mostly because of not being able to wait for the Hi12 keyboard to come out.
    I’m wondering if the Hi10 docking keyboard fits on the Hi12? If so, does it cover the screen well when it’s closed?

    Thanks!

    • Hi, I thought it would as I have the Hi10 dock and it looks like it would fit. But it just won’t slot in.

      • Hi similar question regarding Hi10 and Hi12, which one will you recommend if you exclude screen side preference. Also can you do Pipo W1S review, I can’t find decent Pipo W1S it would be great if you review it :).

  30. Could you test WiFi performance with ‘WiFi analyzer’? I have x98pro and the WiFi performance is quite low, hope that this goes better…

    • Wifi is good if you’re on the same floor. If I move downstairs (My house is concrete walls and reinforced metal concrete frame. The performance goes from 40 Mbps downloads to around 27 Mbs download downstairs far way from the router. The same happens with my Surface Pro 4 and outside further away from my Wireless router I get around 10mbps as I only have 1-2 bars of signal. This is normal for me as all my devices do this, Surface, Chuwi Vi8, My Galaxy Note 5 etc

      I have no complaints with the Wifi performance. My only complaint with the Hi12 is the Audio 3.5 mm jack static and hiss over the speakers.

  31. Thank you so much for doing this review. I am definetly keeping my pre-order.
    Question about micro-usb charging. During testing did you have an issues with the device draining faster than the charger could supply power? Any “Plugged in, Not Charging” messages and if so how often did this happen?

    • Hi, running 50% brightness it would still give me a charge. But if you game and run 100% brightness it will not be able to keep up and charge it. It’s a common issues on all USB charging tablets, even the Transformer Book series from ASUS has this issue.

      It will charge to 100% and stop charging. Then when it use stay there for a while and later it will start to charge again once it drops to 95%. Most tablets do this, but the X98 Pro and Plus didn’t seem to they could stay on 100% power and run like off A/C. Battery Bar Pro is a good way to test this.

      • My X98 Plus does not maintain 100% battery when plugged in, it behaves more or less like the first group you mention; haven’t specified at what percentage it will start charging again, but it surely stops charging and starts draining after reaching 100%

  32. Thanks for the review Chris!
    Once the keyboard comes out.. I’ll definitely choose between the hi10 or this tablet 🙂
    Keep it up!! :))

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