FINAL Review of Chuwi Hibook Pro
Background
> Bought it for SGD$334.62 (After $30 Promo code)from Lazada.sg on 28 Sept.
- Disclaimer: No sponsorship or whatsoever, bought it with own money.
> Received the package (Boxes are nicely bubble wrapped) on 6th Oct, hence it took them 8 days to deliver it from China-Shezhen.
> The package includes:
- 1 X Tablet
- 1 X Keyboard
- 1 X Charger (Rated at 5V 3A)
- 1 X USB-C Cable
- 1 X Very Cheapo 3-pin Travel Adaptor
Appearance, Looks & Feel
> Both Hibook and keyboard have an overall metallic appearance. Certainly does not look, except the logo at the back, like a cheapo China product.
> Both Hibook and keyboard feel solid and sturdy. The back of tablet is metal encased, or at least feels like one, and does NOT flex in when pressure is applied to the middle.
> The bezel that surrounds the screen is a fingerprint magnet (Not surprising). By default, the tablet comes with a screen protector.
> The thickness of the tablet feels right for me. It does not feel thick even if the keyboard is taken into consideration.
> The tablet is locked onto the keyboard by two magnetic clips.
- The magnets are powerful which meant that it gives a very firm docking;
- BUT this also meant that it requires much force to undock it. (Tip: Hold the tablet by the top for support while pushing out the tablet through the bottom)
> The tablet itself feels relatively light and balance when holding by its side or Centre-bottom with my right hand.
- Don't really feel the immediate strain on my wrist when holding it;
- BUT does feel tiring after holding it for prolonged periods of time (No-brainier);
- Heat is produce on the left side, hence you may not want to hold the HiBook by this side.
Spec & Benchmark Test
> CPU is Intel Atom Cherry Trail Z8300 64bit Quad Core.
- Geekbench 4 CPU Score (~7mins to run the test) is 778 & 1701 for Single and Multi Core respectively (Battery saving mode OFF);
- Geekbench 4 GPU API Score is 4727 (Not in battery saving mode);
- Max temperature I have gotten is 81 Degree Celsius (Using HWinfo64) in non-aircon environment;
- *Task done include: Installing programs, downloading programs & playing videos all at the same time;
- Max temperature is ~75 Degree Celsius for just playing videos in full screen.
> Ram is 4GB DDR3 BUT clocked at 1067MHZ (According to BIOS)
> Main Storage is Toshiba 64GB eMMc.
- ~44GB of it is partition for Windows and free storage space is ~27GB;
- ~10GB of it is partition for Android and free storage space is ~9.7GB;
- Read and Write Speed is on a slow side of 136.7MB/s and 25.93MB/s (Using CrystalDiskMark).
> The OS are Windows 10 Home Edition & Android Version 5.1 Lollipop.
- Took ~25 Sec to boot up for Windows 10;
- Took ~35 Sec to boot up for Android;
- Took ~25 Sec to switch between the OS.
> Screen
- Max Resolution is 2560 x 1600 (16:10 Aspect Ratio);
- Screen is beautiful and clear, though I think it is a bit overkill;
- There is light bleed (Counted 3 spots) at the right side of the screen;
- Brightness at 50% on Windows and 0% on Android is good for me in indoor.
> Keyboard USB
- NOT able to detect External WD Element 500GB HDD (LED did light up, but no drive detected);
- But ABLE to use wireless mouse;
- Also ABLE to use Sandisk Flair 64GB Thumbdrive. Read and Write Speed is 39.64MB/s and 24.88MB/s respectively.
Sound Quality
> Generated quite a loud sound from its speakers (Located on Bottom-Left-&-Right). But sounds hollow i.e. NO bass at all.
> For the earphone jacked-in, the sound generated is okay. I believe it depends on your App or Program equaliser.
Battery
> Able to charge with Aukey 20,000mAH Power Bank through USB-C. Managed to charge from 18% to 55% in 1.5 hours. I believe a full charge of this power bank should be able to charge the HiBook fully ONCE.
> Charging from the provided charger took about 4 hours to reach from 12% to 100%.
> Able to get ~4.5 hours of battery life from 100% charged to 10% under the following condition:
- Battery Saver Mode OFF;
- Set 50% brightness on Windows & 0% brightness on Android;
- Tasks executed within the 4.5 hours include:
[#]Downloading and Installing of Programs or Apps (e.g. Open Office, R, Youtube, etc);
[#]Installing steam and games like Stardew Valley, Prison Architecture & Torchlight 2;
[#]Playing 3.5 episodes (~1.5 hours)of One Punch Man;
[#]Streaming Youtube for ~0.5 hours;
[#]Running Geekbench and CrystalDiskMark;
[#]Switching between OS;
[#]Ran the aforementioned games for a short while to see the playability;
[#]Installed BitDenfender as my Anti-virus software;
[#]Some of the above stuffs are ran concurrently.
[#]Wifi is ON, bluetooth is OFF throughout.
> Did not see any significant discharge or saw ~1% discharge when switch off and on it the next day.
Performance: Games and Programs
> Takes >10 sec to open a 100KB excel file on Open Office
> Stardew Valley, Prison Architecture & Torchlight 2 is UNPLAYABLE for me:
- Even if the graphic setting is set at lowest details and resolution, there is still stuttering at less intense moment of the game;
- Setting to the lowest resolution leads to annoying sizing due to the 16:10 aspect ratio of the screen.
> Able to play ZSNES (Mario kart) and openTTD SMOOTHLY;
> Playing of 720p One Punch Man (Using VLC) is SMOOTH;
> Surf of website (Using Edge) is generally SMOOTH, but not so for resource intensive website like Facebook especially scrolling down and loading new feeds
> Can't really complain much since the performance is inherently due to the limitation of the CPU.
Other Notable Problems & Issues
> Android can't recognize my micro SD card (Sandisk Ultra SDXC 64GB) formatted in exFAT.
- Need to format it to FAT32 (-_-") which means that I can't store any files that is >=4GB;
- Read and Write Speed is on a very slow side of 22MB/s and 12MB/s respectively;
- Can still use the SD card formatted in exFAT on Windows 10 though.
> Play Store on Android hangs quite frequently.
(Your Mileage May Vary)
. Have not setup Windows yet since I mainly use it on android. Chris from TechTablets has a few videos on the tablet. I bought the keyboard dock as well.
