Review of Hi8 Pro after several days of usage

[Hans]

Hi all,

thanks for this site, this is very informative. I want to give something back and share my impressions of my Hi 8 Pro. It looks like I got lucky since my tablet is not defective (besides the software issues).

Why I bought it / usage

• Use it while traveling to download, copy and examine my photos, delete out of focus photos etc. The challenge is that I only use RAW files as file format. The tablet is cheaper than a WIFI drive. An iPad dos not allow file access and I did not find good image sorting programs for Android either. And I do not want to carry another expensive device with me.
• use to view data sheets in my electronic lab, maybe connect some usb devices and use the tablet to control the measurement devices

Build quality
It looks okay, it is sturdy enough that it does not bend. The backside is quite nice. The most annoying thing is the scratch sensitive screen protector film (see screen section).

Weight: 346 grams

Battery runtime
I did not do a stopwatch test, but it looks like that 3-4 hours are reasonable. It looks like all have problems with the battery status report. Mine jumps quickly from 40% to 20 and then to 12%. If I am lucky Windows will correctly shutdown, sometimes it goes off without notice. Charging time is around 3 hours, sometimes the charging never stops, so the LED keeps blinking, sometimes it stops. Windows cannot estimate the remaining runtime due to this bugs. I hope there will be a BIOS update.

Boot time and eMMC speed
The boot time is 23 secs. Note that I have installed a few applications. Read speed is around 76 MB/s, write 32 MB/s. See the attached crystal disk mark result. The small file write rate is quite slow, so installing Windows Updates or Software takes some time.

USB connectivity
Here I need to test more USB-C Hubs. I have two here, one with USB Power Delivery and just a USB Hub. The one with the power delivery does not work at all, the other one just recognizes USB 2.0 devices, USB 3.0 devices are all ignored. I will order a few more hubs and hope that I am not limited to USB 2.0.

According to the other thread there seems to be no easy way to power the tablet and use USB devices. I don’t think that this tablet supports the USB Power Delivery spec, since the Intel Atom is USB 3.0 only. The only way it could work is to create an USB-C OTG adapter and combine it with the USB charging spec. There is no ready made adapter.
I really miss a separate microUSB net to the USB-C port, even if it would be only for charging.

Audio
The internal speaker is really bad. The headphone output produces a static noise floor, otherwise it is okay. So it is not quite.

Cameras
They are very poor. They should leave out the rear camera and integrate a better front camera instead.

WIFI and Bluetooth, HDMI output, micro SD
It works for me and I did not do extended tests. I get WIFI reception within my flat, so all OK. HDMI works without a problem on a full HD screen.
My 2, 8, 16 and 32 GB microSDHC got recognized without a problem. I don’t have bigger ones to test.

Screen
Since I am a photographer this my main interesting area. I don’t want to do editing, just examine my shots and delete out of focus photos.

The factory calibration is quite bade, the color temperature is around 7700 Kelvin, so very blueish appearance. I have used my spectrophotometer and calibrated my screen. That really improved the quality. According to my calibration the color space coverage is

• 73 % sRGB
• 51 % AdobeRGB

so the color space is not terrific at all. The spectrophotometer allows to measure the brightness, too. The maximum screen brightness is 330 cd. The backlight illumination is also not very even, but acceptable.

There is a screen protector film preinstalled. It is quite scratch sensitive and I got bubbles beneath it after a few days. Initially I did not notice the protector and wanted to install a screen protector film by myself. I have removed the original one. Without protector the fingers don’t slide as good as with the protector. Installing a new protector is painful since it is hard to install it without dust particles underneath the protector. I still have one the screen. I have already ordered three more protectors and will try again.
It is a pity that there is no glas on top. But that is due to the price.

RAW file viewing speed
This is crucial for me. To make it short you have to use a fast raw image viewer. I have used fastrawviewer and clicking from one file to another takes 2-3 sec with 12, 16 and 20 MP camera files. So it is okay, sadly this program is not very touch friendly. And the Windows photo viewer does not support many camera types, one of my camera does not work with that. It displays the internal JPEG from the RAW files, so it is very fast. It is touch friendly.

Summary
+ small form factor is pleasant
+ feels quite fast and responsive
+ touch screen works well and precise
+ it has good specs for its money
+ HDMI output
– Battery reporting issues
– Battery life is not great
– limited color space on the screen
– speakers and audio output not terrific
– USB issues with USB hubs (have to test this more)
– only one USB-C port with no possibility to charge and use USB devices at once
– no glass on top of the screen, only scratch sensitive film on top

That was a long text and I hope it was interesting.

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[Hans]

I took some photos from the outside and also opened the tablet. I wanted to search if it possible to connect power somewhere inside. Sadly it is not easy to figure out, there are no obvious test points. Somehow I would need to fiddle around at the USB-C connector.

The mainboard looks to be glued onto the screen. There are two screws, but they seem to offer some support for the connector. There are pins for a second speaker. Around the Realtek sound chip there is place for a few other ribbon cable connectors, I don’t know what they are for. Next to micro SD slot there seems to be an unpopulated slot and an area around it. I think this could be a place for a SIM card plus mobile data modem. The R+ R- pads have no connections, there is no component to attached to it.

At the top there is one WIFI antenna and two unused mounting spaces. One could be for example for an ambient light sensor. If Chuwi would relocate the speaker e.g. to the top or the other side, I would be possible to have a bigger battery inside.

I would love to see what is under the cans, but I don’t want to risk damaging it. The smaller contains the WIFI chip, the antenna is going there. The bigger one must be the CPU + some interface chips + eMMC.

If someone wants to donate me their faulty one, I can do a full teardown and post high-res photos.

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[Dave]

Hi!
Thanks for the pictures!!!
I have a question, have you tested if your tablet recognise a microphone as installed? Because mine doesn’t and if I am not wrong, in the last photo there is one soldered to the motherboard (lower right side of the photo).

[Hans]

yes my microphone works. It is located at the bottom right corner. There is a small groove in the case.  If I open the Windows mixer for recording device, I can see a Intel SST microphone and the mic level.

I tried recording with Audacity, it works without a problem.

[Dave]

Hans wrote:

yes my microphone works. It is located at the bottom right corner. There is a small groove in the case.  If I open the Windows mixer for recording device, I can see a Intel SST microphone and the mic level.

I tried recording with Audacity, it works without a problem.

Well, with that and the information in the other post in the forum (“Hi8 Pro dual boot os is here”), I think the conclusion is that the tablets with a serial number between 0 and 2000 might have some different hardware inside, and therefore a different BIOS. Mine is one of them, what makes me wonder now if it will end up receiving any BIOS update.
I am not sure, but I will try to open the tablet in the future to check if any different component is visible in the inside.

[dawei]

Why I bought it / usage
shame on me

Battery runtime
as expect but terrible. shutdown at 40%

Boot time and eMMC speed
slower than dv8p

Audio
worse than dv8p

Cameras
never use it

WIFI and Bluetooth, HDMI output, micro SD
after rebuild the system the sd is working

Screen
good the screen with little problems(flash screen) I have to restart.
x265 does not work

Summary
pos
shame on chuwi

 

sn 2xxx

[Vedran]

dawei wrote:

x265 does not work

 

It didn’t occur to me to test x265 playback on Chuwi, so I tried a 1080p x265 encoded video, played it with VLC from Windows Store and it was (surprisingly?) just fine. What kind of issues are you facing?

[Pete Scoffield]

Not too bad! I found the dual boot version on geekbuying at $99, seems like a good price for what it offers.

[Ryan]

I got this tablet directly from china in recent sale , dual boot win10+android 5.1 system. Not much complain for a tablet at this price.

Mainly i use this for surfing, reading articles and checking some documents.  The screen was bright and sharp .

However, the only annoying thing to me , the backlight is too strong in the dark ( even at zero percent brightness).  Have to use app like night screen, lux to filter down the brightness.

Also, the battery drains out quite fast if you running video or games. It don’t last long .

 

 

 

 

[Pete Scoffield]

If anybody’s still interested in this tablet, geekbuying’s fb page just posted a $20 coupon. I’ll leave if here so you can save some time: 20CHUWIHi8Pro

[Author]

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