I received my Chuwi Hi9 today, shipped from Shenzen via Belgium Post (!) registered mail, arriving in Hawaii (the long way around.. .through Belgium and NYC) exactly 2 weeks after placing the order with Banggood. I surmise that Banggood had inventory in Belgium, so buyers in the EU may get really fast delivery. Banggood had the lowest price (USD 179) on the day I ordered. I also got a case for the AllDoCube Freer X9 (an 8.9″ model; the Hi9 is 8.4″) that fits OK (Chuwi doesn’t have a case on the market yet for the Hi9).
Pros: 1) Laminated, 2560×1600 IPS panel that is as good as, or slightly better than, the ASUS “Zenpad 3 8.0” 2048 x 1536 IPS panel … at half the price of the Zenpad. The Zenpad uses a Qualcomm® MSM8956 Hexa Core, 1.8 GHz and Adreno 510 GPU, so Chuwi engineers have pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Impressive. 2) Native Android 7, no “improvements” added by Chuwi. Another plus compared to nearly every other non-Google tablet. 3) The Hi9 arrived with a screen protector applied and a spare screen protector… a very nice touch. I hate chasing bubbles in screen protector applications. All in all, a great value. I’m fine with a plastic case and a lower price compared to the metal case tablets.
Cons: No support for exFAT file system in the uSD slot or through the uUSB port. Micro USB-B with 2.0 services and speeds… no USB-C / 3.1 Gen 2. CPU is stretched to the limit in mp4 playback, and is very sensitive to video player. VLC player stutters. X-Player doesn’t stutter. OTG is supported via the uUSB port, at least with a 32GB SD card formatted plain FAT.
If you want to load a uSD card with mp4 movies to watch on your Hi9 , you’ll need to dedicate the uSD card to “use as internal storage”, since movies are over the 4GB limit of plain FAT (FAT has a file size limit of 4GB, smaller than any HD movie I have, thus the need for exFAT). Chuwi chose not to pay the $5.00 license fee to Microsoft to include exFAT in Chuwi’s distro of Android, even though Chuwi promotes the Hi9 to watch movies. Errr, maybe Chuwi should update the marketing to “watch streaming movies or dedicate your uSD card to internal storage”. IMO, Chuwi made mistakes in not including exFAT and in not supporting 256GB uSD.
You might be able to root the system and a install third party exFAT app like Paragon (haven’t tried it). Being forced to dedicate the uSD to Hi9 internal storage is 0.5 points off. No USB-C 3.1 Gen 2, and the REALLY SLOW transfer speed to the uSD, take another 0.8 points off. Final score: 8.7
The probability of Chuwi updating the Android distro to add exFAT is zero, IMO. How would Chuwi charge for the exFAT license in an update? Taking a broader perspective, Chuwi has changed the playing field of 8″ tablets, and Lenovo, HP, and Dell should be worried.
