Dual Boot Review

[John]

No videos, I’m not that fancy.  But I know that it can be hard to get information on these tablets so I thought I would take a minute to share my experiences with the tablet especially given the diverse tablet collection I have interacted with in the past.  So really quick my experiences are framed as someone who has worked with the following (as an owner, and then most of them sold as I moved on)

Numerous iPads / HP X2 (bay trail model) / Dell Venue 11 7000 Pro / Toshiba Radius 17″ / Surface Pro 3 / Nexus 9 (Current) / HP Spectre 360 (current)

There have been other tablets mixed in and out over the years but what I’m getting at mainly is I constantly waffled because I always want what I did not have..  Get an iPad because I love 4:3, months ago buy, tired of iOS limitations, try to find an android tablet I can live with.  Also the Windows 8/10 tablets.  Love them but I am not a fan of 16×9 form factors because a lot of my general usage is not a good or rather ideal fit for this ratio.  I’ve tried various pairings,  i.e. a simple tablet for media consumption and a larger hybrid or 2n1 windows machines etc…  Long story short I’ve never been able to find that perfect pairing…  I really wanted it to the the Surface Pro 3 but heat issues and activity thermal management just made it undesirable.  It was overkill for my tablet use and not powerful enough to replace my laptop for more intensive stuff…  Before picking up the Chuwi though my current “tool box” was the Nexus 9 and the Spectre 13″ X360 2n1.  I love my specter but there are just times I want something smaller.  In that same token my Nexus 9 is riddled with issues (I really don’t know how HTC and Google botched a tablet so bad but I blame the nVidia sourced Denver processor).  While I love Android for light media use there are times I find it limiting especially when it comes to even just light multi-tasking (i.e. watch netflix while reading a pdf).

I almost bought an Onda 919 or whatever with the Core M but that was riddled with issues.  So I just stuck it out with my Nexus 9 despite its performance issues.  I initially saw the Hi12 in the windows ONLY version and my interest was piqued.  I loved my SP3 and had always wished they made a finless version (like the SP4 now offers) so it piqued my interest but I knew if I went with a windows only tablet I would be back to where I was when I had my dell venue pro, wishing I had an android tablet!  So I held out, I saw lots f people mentioned dual boot might come or possibly be added to the firmware but I figured better to wait!  Then one day I the announcement of the dual boot version.  I went in knowing it was not going to be SP3 performance, I knew I might have the risk of a quality issue.  I knew the built in wifi would be garbage.  But I also knew if I wanted a non 16×9 android and windows dual boot tablet my options list was incredibly short!

My purchase came from BangGood.  I initially tried GearBest and they lied.  The product was listed in stock and available to ship in 24hrs, it was not.  They asked me to wait a week to see if more would come in stock (note, they did not promise they would have it, simply said they MIGHT).  So I cancelled.  that entire time they never once took the product down from being in stock, so this just seems like normal for them unfortunately.  I initially avoided BangGood because I was adverse to them opening the box and sending it in their own packaging but after reading comments from other users and buyers it actually seemed like more of a positive.  In theory BangGood not only used better shipping materials but they were testing the tablets for obvious defects.  This way the likelihood of getting a unit with a genuine factory defect (loose screen, missing screws, whatever) seemed lower.  Not only did BangGood ship in less then 24 hours I got my tablet via upgraded POSTAL shipping (for free) in only 7 business days, I was shocked.  As plain as the Chuwi packing material is in the first place I also don’t feel like I missed much in that regard.  So now moving onto tablet discussions!

Again if you saw my list of prior tablets you can see I’ve used some high end stuff and some cheap stuff..  They all have a place in the market and so long as they are priced reasonably theres nothing wrong with being high end or low end.  The Chuwi makes a great first impression.  The solid metal back gives the tablet great structural rigidity, there is zero flex (take it from a nexus 9 owner, flex sucks) across the entire span of the tablet.  The front is a combination of glass and plastic bezels.  AT first the bezels on the side (in landscape) can seem overly large but if your going to hold this laptop for extended lengths the larger bezels actually go a long way in comfort.  Could they have shaved them down slightly?  sure.  Do I think it would have been a net gain on usability?  I’m not certain it would.  I almost immediately swapped out the plastic screen protector for an old SP3 glass protector I had left over and was much happier with the feel (glass always trumps plastic).  The screen is clearly drop dead gorgeous.  It’s a big win in almost every way.  The color gamut is amazing, the viewing angles are amazing, the resolution is amazing.  You can have a high res display with bad color and poor viewing angles, so don’t get hung up on JUST resolution.  This is a high quality panel and it still floors me you can get it in a tablet for a hair over $230 (US).  I’ve found it to be pretty responsive with the ONE exception being some minor issues with edge detection.  I’m going to guess this is partially due to the non-laminated nature of the digitizer and screen and once you get used to it the world doesn’t end but I have had my fair share of “missed” edge swipe to bring up task bars and menus.  I’m excited to check out pen functionality..

Cameras – It has them?  I don’t use tablet cameras, but hey they are here!

Sound – Good quality loud sound but the crackle is real.  If your actively watching or playing something it’s not an issue.  But if you pause your movie or just stop doing an activity that creates sound, when you finally have sound again there is going to be a small crackle of static.  It’s consistent enough for me to think it’s likely related to some kind of power management function and the crackle your hearing is the system “turning on” so to speak in really bad simple terms.  The Headphone jack was okay.  I’ve plugged the tablet into my home stereo and there is definitely some line noise going on but it’s not BAD, but if you have a quiet spot in a movie or between songs kind of thing and the audio is turned up you can certainly find the static.  I’ve had tablets where the headphone jack is basically unusable and thats not the level we are talking about.  More a matter of they probably just could have used a little more RF shielding.  Since I typically use Bluetooth headphones it wasn’t too big a deal for me.

Wireless – This like every single cheap tablet I’ve ever purchased appears to share radio resources.  While your not likely to notice it if your just browsing the web while using a bluetooth mouse if you are looking to or example, stream youtube while listening on Bluetooth headphones, and using a BT mouse and perhaps a keyboard you might find yourself getting stutters in your mouse input or audio and degraded wifi performance.  I never intended to use the built in wifi (under windows at least) and simply use a cheapo $10 wireless AC usb adapter.  It offloads all the wifi handling (radio and power) from the tablet chipset and lets the tablet focus solely on bluetooth.  With this setup I get my 5ghz AC speeds, have the tiniest of dongles sticking out the left side, and don’t have to compromise my BT setup.   Again, if I was seeing this on a 500 or 600 tablet I would be mad, on a $230 tablet, it just comes with the territory.

Productivity Apps – I love Xodo for PDF viewing.  It lets me sync up all my PDF’s via my google drive.  So if I’m studying on my Spectre and making annotations and decide I want to go lay down and read in bed, I can grab the Hi12, open Xodo and pickup right where I left off including annotations.  Page flipping is smooth (in Xodo at least) and only if I’m trying to swipe a bunch of pages in a row so I see any latency.  Xodo seems to work better on android then windows.  In either case the 3:2 ratio is perfect for my text books (MBA!) and the touch screen lets me mark them up as needed and the stylus might even improve this for me.  I personally find Chrome in android to work fine and typically stick with Edge under windows.  Watching Netflix and reading a PDF in windows goes right up against the threshold for this little guy, doing so I occasionally get a video stutter or dropped frames in netflix while page flipping (but again, given the limitations and price its relative).

Gaming – I don’t game on the tablet natively but I am a BIG fan of steam in home streaming.  I had high hopes that this guy would nail it (based on prior tablets) but so far it’s been ab it rough.  My old HP X2 bay trail was able to do 1080p60fps at 30ms so long as I used a USB AC receiver and was doing video out (to a TV or projector, the tablet itself was only 720p).  The Hi12 though seems to struggle with decode times.  I’m at 1080p60 and my ping is hovering around 30ms as expected (again on wireless AC via usb dongle) but I have frame loss of 1% on the low and spiking occasionally to 15-20%.  I’m going to keep debugging this because I’ve seen systems with less resources (i.e. bay trail atoms) handle decode better.  I’ve played with all the power settings I could find.  Again it still works, and is perfectly functional most of the time outside of the occasional frame loss spike but its just not doing as well as anticipated based on other machines I’ve used.  It’s not the end of the world though, I bought this for light media consumption and pdf’s.  I mainly steam stream via my steam link and my HP spectre.

Quality Issues – I had none.  literally none.  Nothing is loose, everything seems lined up where it’s supposed to be.  I haven’t had issues with “using it while charging” that some people have.  My tablet also hasn’t turned off suddenly around 30% like I’ve seen others apparently experience.  I’m not discounting their experiences I’m just saying my dual boot unit has exhibited none of these issues.  My cameras work fine, and I’ve not gotten any random crashes in Windows or repeating error messages.

All told, I am incredibly happy with this tablet.  I KNOW it’s not as fast as a surface pro but what I learned about my SP3 was that speed isn’t everything.  I wanted a tablet that wouldn’t make noise, didn’t have a constantly running fan, and didn’t get so hot as to be uncomfortable to hold.  Now if Chuwi makes a Hi12 PRO model that has a Core M and is still passive cooled I will be listing my current Hi12 in a heart beat.  That being said, given how particular I am about wanting a non 16×9 aspect ratio, etc.  The Hi12 is about as perfect a fit as I could ask for (for now).

 

 

Dell

 

[Don]

Nice review John.  I too am satisfied with the Hi12 Dual OS. Keep us posted on the decoder issue

[Author]

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