CHUWI Hi13 review: Windows tablet with 3K display for 330,78$

Design and processing

Visually, the CHUWI Hi13 makes quite a lot, the tablet is up to the display completely made of metal and nothing at the 33.20 x 22.00 x 0.80 cm large housing stands over or is otherwise badly installed with each other. The screen edges offer enough room for the hand in the landscape mode as well as at the edge of the hand and in general the Windows tablet is actually well in the hand. Where one should actually say hands, with a fight weight of a little more than one kilo is the device not exactly light. With the longer use of the Hi13 I noticed that I tend to hold the tablet with both hands or put on my forearm. And even with the power supply (237 grams) and the optional keyboard, which brings again 900 grams on the balance, the whole thing should be quite clumsy.

The packaging is, as we’re used to from CHUWI, minimalist. It comes in a simple cardboard which protects the device sufficiently, but doesn’t impress visually.

Display

The display of the CHUWI Hi13 is clearly the highlight of the device, the untypical 13.5 inch make the Hi13 not only larger than many other tablets, but also offer an unusually high resolution. 3000 x 2000 pixels make images and videos look sharp and this is not by accident, the screen is the same as in the SurfaceBook. The only difference to the screen of the Microsoft tablet is that the display of the Hi13 is not laminated (no optical bonding) and there is a small gap. A pity is that the display then also partly quite strong. If you use the tablet in an environment with dimmed light sources the color intensity stands out a lot.

Performance & benchmark test of the CHUWI Hi13

In terms of performance, the CHUWI Hi13 makes a big leap forward and leaves the Intel Cherry Trail processors behind. The Intel Celeron N3450 is the Intel Celeron N3450 , the clocks with 1.1GHz and / or in the burst 2.2GHz and provides together with the 4GB DDR3 memory for neat performance with the predecessor model the Hi12 still an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 . 4GB are however not really correct, only 3.4GB the remaining 600MB were allocated to the GPU to ensure the high resolution.

General I was with the performance but very satisfied, surfing and multitasking went very fluently and rarely one could sometimes observe a jerks. Only with very large PDF files or web pages with many high-resolution images does the hardware start to buckle and you have to wait for it to come back afterwards. Videostreaming à la Neflix and Co. ran completely smoothly and also 4K Youtubevideos could be played without delay. The 64GB internal memory, of which 57.2GB are usable can be expanded by using SD card with up to 128GB.

Benchmark test results

• 3dMark Ice Storm 14 385 (Graphics score: 13553 ; Physics score: 18323 )
• Geekbench  Single-Core score: 1404; Multi-Core score:  4012; OpenCL score: 5648

Who wants to gamble on the CHUWI Hi13, should not expect too much. Current AAA games do not run naturally on the Tablet PC, but if you want to catch up with some old classics or be satisfied with performance-friendly games, you can have fun with the device. I have briefly tested HalfLife 2 on the Hi13 and had 50-60 fps in all settings on average. At Skyrim it looked unfortunately quite different, even on the lowest settings I rarely came to over 15 fps. But who is playing something with the settings and, for example, when the resolution is something down, should be able to play this title halfway smoothly. League of Legends or Dota should not be a big problem for the device.

Camera

The CHUWI Hi13 has a main as well as front camera which comes with 5.0MP and 2.0MP respectively. The photo quality is as expected to be rather poor, is sufficient for smaller snapshots or short Skype calls completely.

Battery and runtime

The 10,000 mAh battery sounds only after a fairly long time. But if you consider the resolution of the tablet, you can imagine what the reality looks like. I have the device times a long-term test and watched, as long as it is 100% battery survived. Especially with tablets it is in my opinion important that you can use them without a socket in the immediate vicinity for a long time. With 75% screen brightness, the CHUWI Hi13 has kept about 4 hours during normal operation (video streaming & web browsing). A rather sobering balance. If you really want to bridge long trains with the Hi13, so should lower the brightness, take a power bank or a train with sockets.

Connections and accessories

All important connections of the CHUWI Hi13 are located on the left hand side of the device. Here you can find the already mentioned Type C port (data & load), a MicroSDand a MicroHDMI and MicroUSB slot  (2.0 data only). Also on the side you can find the 4 speakers of the tablet, which unfortunately only average quality, for watching videos and similar but completely sufficient. The right keyboard can be connected to the underside and the in-house stylus remains magnetically on the side of the tablet. If you buy only the tablet, but only the power supply.

Conclusion

The CHUWI Hi13 meets its price, I was especially convinced by the 3K display and the consistently satisfactory performance. Office applications and other small programs run very well and watching videos and pictures just look great on the tablet. Even if the device can be used well without a keyboard, one should consider well, if one does not order one. Just when you write a lot, right keys are just better suited to the 13.5 inch tablet does not stand by itself of course and one coming in a package with a keyboard 2 normal large USB slots.