I’m in almost the same boat. With the Chinese 11.11 sales coming up, I’m seriously teetering between the Hi10 Plus, Hibook Pro, and HI12. Judging by the responses here and on ChuWi’s actual forums, The Hi12 seems to be the most popular; however personally I’m wary of toting around something as big as the Hi12, or as heavy as the HiBook Pro with the full clamshell keyboard. On the other hand, a full keyboard with the extra ports seems handy, though my current tablet has none of them and I’m doing just fine.
I think the Hi10 Plus is the winner for me, with its Surface 3, 3:2 ratio and larger battery than the HiBook. Reports of the Plus screen seem to be very good, and it’ll have fewer pixels to push around than the HiBook Pro. The 11.11 sales on AliExpress are giving a good price ($179 US) for the Plus – with the slightly newer / better z8350 processor to boot – so I’m hoping that this will give me most of the experience of a Surface 3 at one third the price. Also crossing fingers that newer units have mostly functioning USB C ports, sine Chris’s unit was a dud though at least one poster here has suggested his USB C was working properly.
What it comes down to is support if / when things go wrong. I fully understand that buying ANY Chinese electronics is a lottery regardless of manufacturer, and there’s no indication that either ChuWi or Teclast are a better one. People tend to come to forums like these only when things go wrong, so I’m hoping that there are enough units out there that are in fact working well enough. Otherwise, it’s a bum deal for the larger percentage of us who get duds than stuff coming out of Taiwan or Korea, we just have to roll the dice and hope for the best.
Mark
