Chuwi Hi9 Tablet Review: a Compact Tablet with a Quality Screen and Good Sound

On our mobile, we watch YouTube videos, make video calls, play several video games and, above all, watch Instagram again and again. What do you think about the idea of doing it on a bigger screen, at a higher speed, and with a more durable battery? All the basic actions that you usually perform on a smartphone can be enhanced on an Android tablet.

Chuwi is one of the most popular Chinese manufacturers of tablets and laptops. Last year, the release of the Chuwi Hi8 tablet with 8-inch Full HD screen, Windows / Android systems, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory was a real success and a really interesting device for the budget price. This year 2018 the Chinese manufacturer plans to release the next generation of its tablet. It will be called Chuwi Hi9.

Chuwi has shipped a number of Windows tablets and laptops since Intel decided to take low-consumption processors seriously. Usually, Chuwi delivers tablets with dual bootable support (Windows / Android), but the Chuwi Hi9 will come out with Android Android Nougat ready to use.

Today we thoroughly review the Chinese tablet Chuwi Hi9, which has made me leave my personal mobile aside for any multimedia task or personal leisure. If you want to know how then I detail my experience with it from beginning to end.

First of All, we want to be thanks to the Chuwi because they will give us a chance to unbox and test to this Chuwi Hi9 Tablet. You can easily purchase it on Gearbest.com just at $169.99 with use of this Coupon Code: Chuwihi9

Specifications

Unboxing

The Chuwi Hi9 comes in a cardboard box with the following dimensions: 12.2 x 6.89 x 2.17 inches and a weight of 778 grams, remaining standard compared to other similar products and within this, we will have what it takes to enjoy it, in other words, nothing out of the other world. The Chuwi hi9 tablet box has the following equipment inside:

• Chuwi Hi9
• Charger with European Plug 5V\3A
• USB / microUSB Cable
• Tempered Glass & Pre-Applied Film
• User Manuals

Design & Quality

Chuwi Hi9 will be similar to previous models of CHUWI products, such as Chuwi Hi8, Chuwi Vi8, and others. However, the new tablet will receive thinner glasses around the screen.

The body of the tablet will be plastic resistant to fingerprints with a metal frame on the sides. On the front, there is a camera allowing you to take selfies and a LED indicator that will flash for notifications.

On the right side, you can see the power button, a volume rocker, and a memory card slot. The left side is empty. On the top, there is a microUSB connector and a 3.5 mm audio jack.

The back cover is made of soft plastic. There is a rear camera in the left corner, and the company logo in the center. At the bottom is the speaker grille.

the Chuwi Hi9 is an 8.4-inch tablet. The Chinese firm has chosen to fit this size in a body of 21 centimeters high, 12 wide and 7.99 millimeters thick, a format that adapts perfectly to its use with two hands both horizontally and vertically. In short, the Hi9 has a compact and light body, with a design that does not involve any discomfort, either using it vertically or horizontally. Good grip and design without fanfare, yes, the position of the speaker will make us cover it with your hand, sometimes being slightly annoying. Regarding its peripherals and interfaces, we have the following:

• 1x Micro USB port
• 1x 3.5mm headphone jack
• 1x Microphone
• 1x Speaker
• 1x DC Port
• 1x SD card slot

Display

The Chuwi Hi9 stands as a compact alternative in the tablet landscape. An 8.4-inch display with a 16:10 ratio stands out from the front. It follows that the resolution adopted is QXGA, ie 2560 x 1600 pixels, and 350 PPI. A good value of which, however, we will talk about performance.

The panel is of the IPS type and offers a good lamination, without running into annoying reflections. You can not say just as much about color fidelity: as soon as you are flanked by a good display you will immediately notice alterations. Also, I would have preferred more saturation, so as to avoid this washed out effect. It does not even exceed the maximum brightness value, while the control sensor is sufficiently responsive.The display has a good range of brightness and the colors of the screen are saturated and are practically not distorted in the corners.

As previously stated, the Chuwi Hi9 comes with a pre-applied film. As expected, this has almost no oleophobic treatment. Going to remove the best situation definitely, but do not expect miracles: sometimes a clean one will be necessary. To protect everything there is a 2.5D glass.

But the most annoying thing in this sector is the lack of reactivity. The panel has the support to 10 touches, but on several occasions, it happened to have to repeat a Swype or see suddenly interrupt a vowel on Telegram. Not having found dead zones in the touch screen, this could be due to lack of software/hardware optimization.

Hardware & Performance

The technical division is based on a 28nm MediaTek MT8173 chipset, certainly not the best performing solution. This SoC includes a quad-core Cortex-A72 / A53 CPU at 1.99 / 1.57 GHz. Unfortunately, the response is just enough. In more situations, I have noticed a strong instability of the system. More than once I happened to press the Power button and see the display turn on after 1/2 seconds, with clear lag in the lock screen. This could be due to a lack of hardware/software optimization. Starting from the PowerVR GX6250 GPU which, as indicated on the MediaTek website, supports full HD display. I do not exclude, therefore, that piloting such a resolution can put it in good difficulty.

Fortunately, in the gaming world, performance is better. There are no penalizing difficulties with heavy games like GTA San Andreas, Asphalt 8 and Riptide, as well as lighter titles like Monument Valley 2, Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. The 4 GB of RAM LPDDR3 allow you to keep a good number of apps on load without incurring recharges. Without considering the (slow) 64 GB of internal memory eMMC 4.5, not fast but still large and expandable via microSD, which can be used as system memory.

However, playing you may notice some drop in frames. And here we return to the talk about instability regarding temperatures. After a few minutes, you notice an overheating of the body in correspondence with where resides the chipset, up to peaks of 45/50 ° C. They are not extreme values ??(especially in winter), but in summer it could be annoying.

Although the chipset is not one of the fastest on the market, the Chuwi Hi9 does create passable values in the relevant benchmarks. AnTuTu scores 73,523 points in 6.xxx Version and 91,442 Points in 7.xxx Version, while Geekbench rates the performance of a single core in 1501 and multi-core in 2988.

Chuwi Hi9 OS

Little by little the Chinese mid-range begins to realize that the layers of personalization overloaded and showy do not attract the user as it would pure Android. This Chuwi Hi9, fortunately, has already made the change: includes Android 7.0 Nougat without any signature customization. Literally, Chuwi has not added any customization beyond those of the Android operating system, such as changing the font size or pressing the “Home” button twice to open the camera. In my opinion, pure Android is a success, but not adding any software function like gestures on the screen or a simple split screen is an error. As soon as we buy the tablet we find several pre-installed Google applications, such as Google Play Movies, Hangouts or Google Duo. If we are fans of wallpapers, the Hi9 comes with up to 33 stock funds, so there’s nothing to worry about. Chuwi Hi9 comes with Android 7.0 Nougat updated with the patches of November 2017. There are no customizations whatsoever and the system is exactly what you would expect from Android stock.

Camera

Although we seldom bought a tablet for his camera, Chuwi wanted to comply with this section. Specifically, he opted for a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front camera. To emphasize, we have the integration of an HDR mode in the rear camera. As far as I’ve tried, I can say that the photographic section is not by far the best specification of this tablet, but I can assure you that it fully meets its mission. In other words, we can take more than complete photographs during the day and according to what interiors, but as soon as we have a low-light situation, both cameras drastically reduce their efficiency. Luckily, the HDR mode that I mentioned before, helps to improve these situations of low light or high contrast, highlighting some dark details and increasing the brightness of the image in general. In addition, the camera also provides us with the “Quantum Dot Film” technology, responsible for representing a complete and faithful range of colors.

Speaker

The speaker is unfortunately single and is positioned in the back. The volume is however quite high, while the quality is what one would expect from such a product. you get a More good sound when you connect 3.5mm headphones to the tablet.

Connectivity

Although it is a compact device, the Chuwi Hi9 does not have LTE connectivity. Instead, there is a Dual Band 802.11 a / b / g / n Wi-Fi modem with good speed. We also have Bluetooth 4.1, while GPS is not supported. Speaking of sensors, the accelerometer is present, while gyroscope and compass are missing.

Battery

The Chuwi Hi9 has a 5000mAh battery installed. Unfortunately, the battery gauge of the tablet is not really reliable and it often happens that the percent linger disproportionately on the last percent. A reliable PC-Mark battery test result could therefore not be determined because the battery indicator falls too fast down. In everyday use, the tablet with me about 3 days with 1-2 hours of use. The battery life is sufficient for a day under intense stress. However, the wrong battery indicator is quite annoying in the long run. The Chuwi Hi9 is charged with a 5V / 3A fast charge adapter. The entire charging process takes just 2 hours. A very good value.

Conclusion

If I had to keep a single feature of the Chuwi Hi9 I would not decide between its design or its software. On the one hand, it is a compact and lightweight tablet, you can take it anywhere and it is also comfortable in any position. On the other hand, Android offers pure and hard, so the performance is assured and you can assume that there will be no surprise in this regard. On the other side of the coin, I feel obliged to reproach his photographic section and his lack of personalization. First, it would have been nice to have “a few more megapixels”, because even though the tablets are “not made” to take photographs, sometimes a spontaneous photo could give us a worse result than expected, especially in the situations mentioned above. Second, in the case of a tablet that thanks to its design takes advantage of its screen, the need for personalization tools is essential, above all, the aforementioned split screen. Ending the negative aspects, comment that sometimes it takes some extra seconds to unlock, causing you to press the lock button twice.

If you want to spend about 150 USD and have Android 7 Nougat (with its split-screen) and 4/64 GB of RAM, this Chuwi Hi9 is one of the very few choices available. Alternatively you have to add another 50/100 USD to your budget unless you want to settle for Android 6 Marshmallow: in that case, the choice is extended.

The purchase of this Chuwi Hi9 Tablet. is recommended only to those who know what they are going to meet, or a device with which we must have a certain patience and few claims in use. You can find it on Gearbest at a price of $169.99 with Use of this Coupon Code: Chuwihi9