Chuwi is one of the most popular Chinese manufacturers of tablets and laptops. This brand has released several tablets and laptops with Windows since Intel decided to take low-power processors seriously. Last year, the launch of the Chuwi Hi8 tablet with 8-inch Full HD screen and dual Windows / Android OS was a real success. In addition, this also became a really interesting device due to its very low price. This year 2018, the Chinese manufacturer released a slightly more advanced version known as Hi8 Air, in addition to its true generation of tablets, we saw the so-called Chuwi Hi9 and then the Chuwi Hi9 Pro. The latter is what we have for review today. In general, Chuwi delivers tablets with dual boot support (Windows / Android), but the Hi9 Pro comes only with Android in its Oreo version ready to use.
The Chinese company known as Chuwi has been creating beautiful tablets of premium quality, performance, with good price, and amiable technology. These products are manufactured for users all around the world. In this instance, we pay full attention to Chuwi Hi9 Pro which is a gaming tablet.
Introduction to Chuwi Hi9 Pro Gaming Tablet
Chuwi Hi9 Pro was announced in the month of July 2018. It has been in pre-order status since the month of August and now in the month of September, on the 10th day of the month, it arrived in the market.
The manufacturer promptly announced that it wants this device to be “the best back-to-school” tablet. It breaks from the likes of iPad in the sense that it is cheap but also able to “do it all”.
That means the user does not have to worry about performance. Chuwi Hi9 Pro is able to do all that is required of a phablet. It has a big screen, it is fast and can handle all types of gaming software. If one does not have money to buy high-end devices and chooses to buy Chuwi Hi9 Pro, there will certainly be no regret as it can handle all of the needs of the user.
Package
This is a budget gaming tablet, so the package is not very rich in accessories. There is everything you need for using the tablet, and not more. Within it, we will have what it takes to enjoy the device, which is nothing out of this world. In total, the Chuwi hi9 Pro tablet package includes the following :
- Tablet;
- Chinese power adapter;
- USB Type-C charging cable;
- User manual.
Please note that the standard package has a Chinese power adapter, so you need your local adapter for charging the tablet.
Chuwi Hi9 Pro Special Features
Here are the special attributes of Chuwi Hi9 Pro. The CPU is Helio X20. The RAM storage is 3GB while the ROM is 32GB vast. The operating system found on Chuwi Hi9 Pro is Android 8.0. The display size is 8.4 inches and the display type is IPS OGS. Battery specifications for it is 3.8V/5000 mAh. There is also an 8 MP camera setup on the device.
These are the quick-run on the special features of Chuwi Hi9 Pro phablet. Other people also call it Tablet PC. It depends on which one you like to call it.
Display & Design of Chuwi Hi9 Pro
The screen size of Chuwi Hi9 Pro is 8.4 inches of IPS OGS type of 2.5D curved screen. Hi9 Pro uses the power of 2K JDI technology. The screen resolution is 2560 x 1600 pixels in 16:10 format. The user gets the best in terms of great color and contrasts.
The IPS panel offers good lighting, without encountering annoying reflections. However, the same can not be said about color fidelity – as soon as you look at it from the flanks, you will immediately notice alterations. In addition, a higher saturation would have been preferred to avoid this washing effect. It does not even exceed the maximum brightness value, while the control sensor is sensitive enough. The screen has a good range of brightness and the colors are saturated, so they practically do not distort in the corners.
The Chuwi Hi9 Pro comes installed with a thin protective film. As expected, it has almost no oleophobic treatment. You can definitely remove it for better use, but do not expect miracles.
The dimension to it is 266.2 x 177 x 8.1mm. It weighs 500 grams, which some have commented on and showed approval thereof of the device as a back-to-school tablet PC. Accordingly, it is agreed that Chuwi Hi9 Pro is a light device, easy to carry around.
The Chuwi Hi9 Pro is similar to previous models of CHUWI products, such as the Hi9, Hi8, Vi8, and others. However, the new tablet has thinner bezels around the screen. For its price, it should not be surprising that the Hi9 Pro is not exactly a work of art. From certain angles, it looks a lot like an average Android tablet. The construction is plastic everywhere, especially in the back.
Even with the above, the body of the tablet will be resistant to fingerprints with a metal frame on the sides. On the front, in addition to the screen that occupies almost its entirety, there is a camera that allows you to take selfies.
As mentioned above, it is a tablet PC. Yes, you can call it that because it comes with a keyboard. You can quickly attach the keyboard and convert the phablet to a tablet-PC. Other things about the design is that Chuwi Hi9 Pro is accompanied by a webcam; you can find that conspicuously at the top of it, and it has a 5 MP microphone to give off nice sounds such that you can compare it with some computer sounds.
On the right side, you can see the red power button, the keys for volume control and at the top, there is a card slot, USB C port, and 3.5 mm audio port. The left side is empty.
As we mentioned, the back panel is made of soft plastic. There is a rear camera in the left corner and the company logo in the center. In the lower part is the loudspeaker grills.
Camera Features
There is one camera to the front of Chuwi Hi9 Pro and there is another one at the rear. Check online, and you could see a few misleading reviews claiming that this device has a dual camera to the rear, (It is not true) there is only one for each side of Chuwi Hi9 Pro.
The makeup of the front camera which is for selfies is 5 MP. This one is without LED flash. However, because the rear 8 MP camera is delivered by Samsung, it is reputed to offer excellent quality for those who really appreciate picture beauty. Don’t forget that when it comes to camera specifications and performance, Samsung is rated very high worldwide.
Users can bask in the knowledge of being able to use the camera and get good effects even in low light conditions. The LED flash enabled on the rear camera ensures that. For the front selfie camera, those who make Skype calls will notice the optimization as the video will be very clear and the resolution will be high enough to be pleasant.
To emphasize, we have the integration of an HDR mode in the main camera. From what has been tried, it can be said that the photographic section is not, by far, the best specification of this tablet, but it fully fulfills its mission.
In other words, we can take full pictures during the day, even indoors; but as soon as we have little light, both cameras drastically reduce their efficiency. Fortunately, the HDR mode mentioned earlier, 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.
Hardware/Performance, Software, and Storage
Things are simple here, yet they are really made to make the Chuwi Hi9 Pro run at great speed. The Chuwi Hi9 Pro is powered by a 10-core MediaTek MT6797D processor, which as you know, is higher than that of most Android smartphones. The processor is Helio X20, and Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. This implies that it will be easy for the device to upgrade to Android Pie.
To make the device run very fast, there is the Deca core SoC, with two fast Cortex-A72 cores running at the speed of 2.3 GHz. This is able to reduce power consumption in Chuwi Hi9 Pro phablet by 30 percent. At the same time, download speed is improved up to 300Mbps. That’s higher than that of its predecessor. Unfortunately, the tablet speed is a bit inadequate. In some situations, a strong instability of the system has been noticed. More than once, the power button was pressed and the screen was turned on after 1/2 second, with a clear delay on the lock screen. This could also be due to the lack of hardware/software optimization.
The previous chipset is accompanied by the Mali T880 GPU which, as stated on the MediaTek website, supports full HD viewing. It is not excluded, therefore, that supporting a resolution of that type can put it in a good difficulty.
Fortunately, in practice, performance is better. There are no penalty problems with heavy game such as PUBG Mobile, San Andreas, and Asphalt 8, as well as lighter games such as Monument Valley 2, Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.
The 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM allows you to keep a good number of applications loaded in the background.
Storage for Chuwi Hi9 Pro is 32GB ROM and 3GB RAM. The 32GB is able to expand to 128GB by the use of a microSD card. Multi-tasking and massive storage is enabled for the user who is always hard-pressed for storage space in his or her device. You can save more applications with the use of Hi9 Pro.
Although the chipset is not one of the fastest on the market, the Chuwi Hi9 Pro creates tradable values in the relevant benchmarks. AnTuTu gets 95,168 points in the 7.xxx version, while Geekbench 4 scores the performance of a single core in 1619 and multicore in 4557.
Network and Connectivity
When it comes to connectivity, Chuwi Hi9 Pro has 4G LTE with dual SIM slots. It, however, appears that it may not cover for 4G bands of every country, so you may have to check for compatibility before you buy, especially if 4G is the thing that’s making you purchase it.
You also have full Wi-Fi cover that comes with 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, GLONASS, and Type-C USB port.
Battery Life
Battery specifications for Chuwi Hi9 Pro is great at 5000 mAh. This gives the device up to six hours of battery life when you play videos all through. When you do other things like typing for a long time, it doesn’t eat much battery power. But when you play videos or play games, you make use of more battery power but Hi9 Pro got you covered on that too.
The speaker is unfortunately unique and is located in the back. However, the volume is not quite high, while the quality is what one would expect from said product; that is, it is not the big thing but it is not bad either. Although it does not hurt to say that the sound improves when you connect 3.5 mm headphones to the tablet.
Chuwi H9 Pro – Conclusions
If we had to maintain a single feature of the Chuwi Hi9 Pro, we would not know how to 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. Also, the Android operating system that is offered is pure, so the performance is assured and can be expected that there will be no surprise in this regard. On the other side of the coin, we must honestly reproach it for his photographic section and its lack of personalization.
In the first place, although we know that these devices are not intended for photographs, it would have been nice to have “a few more megapixels“, because sometimes a spontaneous photo could give us a worse result than expected, especially if no weather forecasts are taken, the light, the environment, among other things. On the other hand, this is a tablet that thanks to its design uses its screen, this creates the need for fundamental personalization tools, especially the split screen. And to finish the negative aspects, it was commented that sometimes it takes a few additional seconds to lock, which makes it uncomfortable because it is necessary to press the lock button twice.
Price and Availability
Price of Chuwi Hi9 Pro differs from store to store, even online. The manufacturer gave a discount when it went up for pre-orders in August. In the month of September 2018, the price was also adjusted. It was reduced a little so that back-to-school students can afford. Right now, Gearbest online store is selling the tablet device at a very good discount at 27% OFF when you purchase from them. You can buy it on Gearbest for just $133.99.
Take note there are misleading specifications for this device online. It is not running on Android 7.0 like its predecessor, it runs on Android Oreo out of the box. It also doesn’t have a variant, as specified on the manufacturer’s website, Hi9 Pro is a 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM phablet.
You may compare the Chuwi Hi9 Pro Phablet to the likes of Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0, Alldocube X1, and Teclast T8. Above all of that, the Chuwi Hi9 Pro is still a unique product.
