[John]

I haven’t been active on here in awhile so sorry for the late reply but I do not have the keyboard cover so I Can’t attest to how well (or not) the glass protector works with the keyboard cover.

[John]

I’m US based so my pricing and access to things is probably a bit different then folks across the pond but I’m leaning towards returning the tablet.  Asus has a newer Zenpad that I was able to play with in person at a store and while it was only 1280×800 I found the display to be adequate.  Side by side there is definitely no comparison for sharpness but I also found the laminated display to be an improvement and it wasn’t as night and day.  The Zenpad also runs Marshmallow which means the SD card is actually useable so for about the same money (approx $110 USD) I can go with a Zenpad that runs a MT-8163 chip by MediaTek and while a lower resolution I found the display itself to be of higher quality.  I also find the touch screen to be more responsive and it’s also gorilla glass.

Since I’m not one to really care about having dual boot (it’s neat but having a Hi12 if I want windows 10 on a tablet I will use that device) the only advantage to the Chuwi Hi8 Pro is the high rez screen.  The ZenPad had smoother scrolling in Chrome (under android), was snappier when task switching between apps (android), and has a gorilla glass laminated screen.  as much as I really like the PPI of the Hi8 Pro the ZenPad definitely feels like the better fit for me I just wish it had an option for a 1200p screen like the Chuwi!   My decision is also skewed slightly by my preference for Android in a tablet of this size.  Basically my ideal tablet would be a 8″ Android device with 32gb storage and 3gigs of ram and a 1200p screen but I am not aware of any that fit that bill in the price range I want to spend so compromise comes into play.  The Chuwi made a great first impression and if they offered a simple way to flash it to android only and recover all the wasted space I might be more willing to “live” with Android 5.1

[John]

You bet, it’s funny you posted that.  Basically windows update plays dumb and tells you that your device is 100% up to date (it’s not clearly but I think this is Microsoft dancing around the fact that the device does not have enough space literally to install the update).  When you download the update tool it runs, tells you that an update is available (anniversary), begins the process then errors out with a red message telling you to free up space.  there is no way to point or tell it to use the SD card (I have a 32gig card installed that otherwise reads/writes without issue).  I believe windows requires the free space to be available on the drive windows is installed to so plugging in a thumb drive, sd card, etc. doesn’t change that windows needs 8gigs of free space on it’s partition to work with.  The only solution I could possibly see is if Chuwi themselves released a new windows 10 image pre-patched that could be FLASHED over the original install.  But being that it’s Chuwi (and this is true for chinese tablets in general) I suspect such a solution won’t ever appear.  Now it’s possible there might be an Iso of win10 that could be installed that includes the updates but for a lot of people that isn’t ideal either (driver and hardware issues).

For me the promise of windows 10 was supposed to bet the idea that you had an always up to date version of Windows that was safe and secure and required no weird user involvement of flashing hardware or breaking drivers.  In this regard it fails completely, some solutions might come up but I really don’t have a desire to wait and take the chance when I still have the option to return the tablet and consider other options.

[John]

Like the others I can’t speak to xbox remote play but here is some info about similar solutions!

PS4 Remote Play – Windows App – Works okay so long as you do *NOT* choose the high frame rate option.  720p (hi res) is fine but if you chose high speed (i.e. 60fps streaming) the decoder loses sync and you get a tone of broken frames.  Since most PS4 games are 30fps this isn’t the end of the world but I also suspect it has to do with Sony having very limited hardware decoding support (if any) and it would not surprise me if the Ps4 remote play app was relying 100% on software decoding which  would definitely explain why the Atom chip in the Hi12 can’t handle 60fps.

Steam In Home Streaming  – Works for the most part.  We definitely hit the limits of the hardware decoding engine thought.  If you try to get your stream quality to beautiful and 30mpbs (or even unlimited) it overwhelms the decode engine and you will see frame loss (i.e. skipped frames) from 18-35% which results in a very very chopping experience.  That being said dropping the stream quality down to normal and limiting bandwidth to 30 or 25mbps per second  results in a nice stream.  At 25mpbs I see zero frame loss, at 30mbps I see it hit 1-3% at times which is borderline imperceptible.  If your playing on the tablet itself you would have a hard time spotting the difference between  normal and beautiful setting, if you plug it into a TV or projector though you might see it (effects compression artifacting which can result in smearing and macro blocking).

So the Hi12 is essentially completely up to the task of streaming games, but based on my experience with Steam (which has great hardware decoding support for Intel chips including the Atom) but it appears Sony (and I would speculate xbox as well) are not as finely tuned so your results may vary.

[John]

John mine actually is NOT meant for the Hi12.  Before buying the Hi12 I had a Surface Pro 3 and while I did not end up keeping that tablet, at one point I had ordered some protectors for it and ended up with  a single left over tempered glass protect for the SP3.  Since I had nothing to lose I went to see if it would fit and it was actually a surprising good fit.  I posted a thread about it (with a product link and pictures)

 

http://techtablets.com/forum/topic/glass-screen-protector-sp3-decent-fit/

[John]

I would say you must be insane to order a tablet from china without insurance but feel free to prove me wrong 🙂

[John]

Be mindful of GearBest, if they don’t ship your order immediately e-mail them within 24 hours.  In my case the product (hi12) was listed as available with immediate shipping and only after my email to them did they acknowledge it was NOT in stock.  They then asked me to wait 7-10 days to see if more stock WOULD become available.  Mind you, they didn’t ask me to wait 7-10 days because stock was coming, they asked me to wait to see if it MIGHT come in.  I’m not saying you will have the same experience but I was very unhappy.  Not only that but the entire time this was going on (I watched the website just out of curiosity) at no point did they update the product listing and continued to show it as in stock and ready for sell.  Very very disappointed.  I got free expedited shipping from Bang Good and received my tablet from order within 10 days which really surprised me as having read others experiences I was thinking 3-4 weeks..  I know the prices fluctuate but consider e-mailing BangGood and asking them to honor the previous price, you might get a positive answer!

[John]

It’s an integrated realtek WiFi and Bluetooth component that is directly connected to the motherboard.  It’s not a simple module or standard “card” that one could swap.  Think of it as having a built in wifi card or nic on your computers motherboard.  You could certainly add a NEW card or nic but you couldn’t swap out the integrated one.  The Hi12 is similar, you can’t in any practice way remove the realtek integrated chipset but you can get a USB WiFi or bluetooth dongle.  Support would be limited to windows or perhaps something like Ubuntu/*nix but I don’t believe Android is capable of supporting a USB dongle for WiFi or BT

[John]

what browser?  I get the best performance in YouTube on windows edge especially if you are trying to do 4k or 60fps video.

[John]

It was just a cheapo chinese import I snagged off Amazon.  It worked “out of box” for wireless N but I had to find the actual mediaTEK chipset driver myself to enable the AC connection.  I wouldn’t really recommend or not recommend it, it’s really just a generic off the shelf import with ZERO support from the company but for $15 it works fine 😉

http://www.amazon.com/dodocool-Wireless-Adapter-150Mbps-10-7-10-10/dp/B01EAGWDBS?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

[John]

Also and I’m CLEARLY just speculating but RemixOS would typically be hardware compatible with anything running Android 5.x (or newer) so if they ever did pursue a model with RemixOS I would suspect that it would be made available as a software flash/update and even if they did not OFFICIALLY offer it someone on XDA would likely reverse out the necessary drivers/build files so that folks with dual boot machines could do it that way to.  Again, just speculating, but 1. it appears the remixOS was just a demo and 2. if it does materialize I would say the odds are better then not it would be available to those of us with dual boot machines (but not Windows ONLY machines due to actual hardware differences).

P.S. don’t wait, buy the tablet, it rocks!  clearly I’m biased but the screen is RIDICULOUS!!!

[John]

Good Afternoon James! Wifi is a bit of a fickle beast especially when attempting to compare devices and even more so when attempting to compare different devices behaving in different environments!  My tablet routinely averages around 35-45 megabits per second in my home and in my office running over Wireless 2.4ghz N.  I personally still prefer 5ghz AC (at least when booted into windows) so I use a small USB dongle that cost me around $10 and it barely protrudes from the unit or adds any weight, so just something to consider!  Things that MAY be effecting your speed though.

Are you utilizing bluetooth devices at the same time (keyboards, headphones, mouse, etc.  Anything bluetooth connected to the device).  The Hi12 like many budget machines has shared radio resources for BT andWifi.  So basically having accessories hooked up via BlueTooth is going to be detrimental to your WiFi (and vice versa).   If you AREN’T using bluetooth you might try turning bluetooth off and seeing if that has any impact on your WiFi performance!

Every unit is different but it sounds like you are seeing sub-par performance in more then one environment so it sounds like it is the device rather then external limitations.  Outside of my concern about bluetooth devices it may just be that your device has poor shielding or other quality control type issues that could ave resulted in reduced wi-fi performance but again, easily rectifiable (at least in windows) with a cheap wifi dongle.

[John]

I use a surface pro 3 tempered glass cover on my Hi12 and it’s been a positive experience so far.   I felt like my touch accuracy increased with the glass (compared to the factory installed plastic) but I also have a strong bias against plastic screen protectors.  My stylus is on the way so I’ll be sure to post some feedback about what (if any) impact the glass protector has on the stylus sensitivity.

[John]

I would hope your not really “back to square one”.  The tablet “promo” will end shortly and the coupon will work after that.  It really is a fantastic tablet and I won’t be so pretentious as to say it’s worth the extra $20 or anything because $20 can be a lot or a little.  I think it’s more a matter of do you want to pay the extra $20 today or wait for the “promo” to end 🙂  In either instance I think you will end up with a tablet you will love as there really isn’t anything else like the Hi12 on the market right now (Aspect Ratio, Atom Processor, True Dual Boot, 4gigs of ram)

[John]

Zoenphlux it depends on what matters to you.  I’ve had my unit set to the faster ram speed since about 4 minutes AFTER I got it and haven’t felt any reason to flip back.  It could be that every unit is a little different but I’ve yet to have my unit power down prematurely (even at the faster settings).  I’ve only taken it down to about 20% once or twice though so I can’t say it won’t EVER happen.  The other thing is I think I saw Chris mention that on his tablet it would happen EARLIER if he had a hard drive and other things plugged into the unit.  I never really plug anything into my unit besides a wireless AC dongle.

That being said, 10% in a benchmark is exactly that 10% in a benchmark.  I suspect you won’t likely “feel” it in most general use.  It’s something that is measurable but not necessarily very demonstrable to the actual user.  Worst case, set your ram at the high speed and if you ever need to use that last 30% of your battery flip back to the bios and turn it down.

[Author]

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