Tablet: Chuwi Hi12

I have a Chuwi Hi12 Tablet, with a Keyboard and Pen. These are some of the issues and where possible solutionsI have discovered.

Review:

Tablet

The Tablet is actually quite robust and screen is very clear.

Specifications:


Keyboard/Touchpad

Quite heavy but cradles the tablet really well. Lots of possible configurations including a reverse one allowing the tablet to sit on top of the keyboard (will add some photos one day).

Very "cheap" feeling, and often misses characters - which is really annoying. Unable to turn off the touch pad (Googling shows that you can go into the Windows settings -regedit - but that's a bit extreme. Would really benefit from quick key combo to turn on/off as it often gets tapped when using the keyboard (I much prefer an external mouse anyway)

Pen

The pen is not very responsive (tried to do a signature which is a bit of mess)

Connectors

  • There are 3 USB connectors.
  • USB 2. Found a USB Network Ethernet adapter goes best in this slot.
  • microUSB (same as Samsung phones) also used to charge the battery
  • USB 3

Operating the tablet

Turning it on.

Hold the power button for approx 5 seconds - until the red light blinks.

When the dual boot screen appears;

  • If you have no keyboard attached wait until the time is up and it will boot to the last OS
  • If you have a keyboard attached you can accept the current selection by pressing the [Enter] key, or change OS by pressing the left or right arrow keys then enter, or you can wait until the timer finishes.

Resetting the machine:

Some documentation states that 10 seconds will reset windows however research in this it appears that 30 seconds is required. The 30 second off will allow you to resurrect your tablet if it blank screens on sleep mode.

Trouble shooting

The more I use it the more it seems that Microsoft are creating issues. Conspiracy folks would say they really want to differentiate their Surface machines as some of the issues seem to affect other non-Microsoft hardware.

Will not restart

Probably the most annoying issue and one featuring on many discussion forums.This appears to be a Windows 10 issue and particularly sleep mode.

From what I understand when Windows 10 is installed the Power settings default to "sleep" mode. However, a tablet with a magnetic cover, without a keyboard actually doesn't have any switches to wake it up (you would think it would be triggered by the power button).

So, what I would do is "shut it down", then close the cover. However, as it had not yet shut don, the "sleep mode" message was sent to the computer overriding the shut down command. So when you tried to turn it on it would be blank and no amount of turning on would fire it up again.. except one - the 30 second power button reset!!


Battery keeps draining even when switched off

The second issue was that plugging in the laptop to recharge didn't work either as another default setting said the PC was to remain connected to the Internet (WiFi) even in sleep mode. So it kept polling for a signal effectively draining the battery!!


Power meter will not go to 100% and stops charging

Power icon: My Power icon kept showing 60% in Windows 10 and not charging. The solution turned out to be a Windows 10 issue and it turns out that you just boot into Android and back to Windows and it will reset the battery meter.