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Alun Taylor –
For years I’ve been fascinated with cheap and unusual tech, rather than mainstream gadgets. That’s why I keep a close eye on what’s rolling off the assembly lines in Shenzhen, China, epicenter of the cheap and the unusual when it comes to tech. Buying gadgets from China is something of a doubled-edged sword. On the one hand, you can get some wacky and useful gear at agreeable prices. But you also have to buy blind and forgo after-sales support, as well as risk getting stung with local import duty.
Cost aside, it’s worth nothing that you don’t get a UK-optimised device for your money. Case in point: three of the devices I tested have keyboards, but not one of them has the pound sterling or @ symbols where British users would expect them. One arrived with a Chinese version of Windows installed. One of the phones doesn’t work on some UK 4G networks. While impressive for the money, none of the devices are genuine, uncompromised half-price equivalents to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S8, Microsoft Surface Pro, or Apple MacBook.
That said, cheap Chinese devices from resellers like GearBest can fill similar roles for many users. If you must have MacOS, a Chinese machine running Windows or Linux obviously isn’t the same. But if all you want is a small, stylish laptop, you might be in luck.
To help narrow things down (there are a lot of things for sale on reseller sites), I’ve picked out five of my favourite bits of kit from GearBest. Since none of the items are officially on sale in the UK, resellers like GearBest are the only way to get hold of them. There are other options too, like GeekBuying and Banggood, so shopping around may get you a better deal. I’d also suggest shopping around the GearBest site and checking if there are any upcoming flash sales. Prices vary dramatically depending which warehouse you order from—typically China or Hong Kong—and from one day to another.
Xiaomi is the most well known of all the Chinese OEMs. Thank ex-Googler Hugo Barra for that. It’s also the one manufacturer whose kit you can buy with the most confidence. The Mi6 is the cheapest way to get hold of a Snapdragon 835-based Android mobile, and in my book beats the OnePlus 5 as the biggest smartphone bargain of them all. The Mi6’s strengths include decent battery life thanks to a larger than average 3350mAh battery combined with a smaller than average but still excellent 5.15-inch Full HD IPS screen. There’s a whopping 6GB of memory on board too, 64GB of storage, dual-SIM support, and top audio quality thanks to its stereo speakers (the earpiece doubles up as a second speaker).
The Mi6 is one of the smallest flagship phones you can buy, so should appeal to anyone who thinks that modern smartphones are getting far too big for comfort. While the Mi6 is a smart device, it’s disappointing that it’s conservatively designed, particularly when compared to the Samsung Galaxy S8. I suspect that if Xiaomi positioned the Mi6 too close to the cutting edge it would steal the Mi Mix’s thunder.
The biggest downside to the Mi6 is the camera. The dual 12MP cameras can’t match the quality of the likes of the iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy S8, or Google Pixel 2 (the bokeh effects look particularly artificial). But still images are fine for social media and low-light photography isn’t too bad either thanks to 4-axis optical image stablilisation. Plus, you can record 4K video. Sadly, like every other flagship phone, Xiaomi has ditched the 3.5mm audio jack, though you do get a USB Type-C audio adapter in the box. There’s no water resistance either, and you have to forgo 800MHz 4G (band 20). Anyone using the O2 network in the UK should look elsewhere.
At least Xiaomi has a genuine international ROM, complete with Google’s app suite. The same can’t be said for some other Chinese devices like ZTE’s otherwise impressive Snapdragon 835-based Nubia Z17. Xiaomi offers Android in heavily modified MIUI (me-you-eye) form. Because MIUI works atop versions of Android going back to 4.4, it lacks some of Android’s more modern features like the ability to reply to messages directly from the notification bar and support for multiple windows. The arrival of MIUI 9 (only available in global form as a beta at the time of writing) has solved some issues by adding a raft of new features including split window and a picture-in-picture mode, but not the missing notification bar functionality.
Some reviews make mention of the Mi6 having Bluetooth problems. I’ve have had my device connected to the car and a pair of wireless headphones for many hours with no problems, so it may be a batch issue. As for Android updates, the Mi6 will get bumped to Oreo in early 2018, but don’t expect timely security updates or much long term support after that. Still, taken as a complete package for well under £400 the Mi6 is excellent value for money.
Buy the Xiaomi Mi6 here
At under £350 including a detachable keyboard and the HiPen3 active stylus, the Hi13 is nearly £1,000 cheaper than Microsoft’s Surface Book and offers a similar, if less sophisticated laptop experience via its 13.5-inch display. There’s nothing groundbreaking about the design, which harks back to the original Asus Transformer Android tablets before designers started coming up with ever more elaborate ways of connecting keyboards to tablets.
For themoney you get a decent 3,000 x 2,000 IPS display, four speakers that sound considerably less awful than other Chuwi tablest I’ve used, an English version of Windows 10 Home, an Intel Apollo Lake N3450 Celeron chip with 4GB of dual-channel memory, and 64GB of eMMC storage. The display is all you could ask for and more at the price. It’s bright, has very good colour reproduction, and has wide viewing angles. However, there is no Gorilla Glass or similar to shield the screen, only a semi-permanent plastic screen protector so I’d suggest being a careful with it.
Connectivity and expansion are taken care of via USB Type-C (for charging and data), micro HDMI, and a micro SD slot good for cards up to 256GB. Wireless chatter comes courtesy of 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The keyboard dock adds two full-sized USB2 connectors.
As much as I was taken by the build quality of the tablet (although, it’s heavy at 1.1Kg) it’s the keyboard that impresses. The key action is firm, the deck solid, and the trackpad is accurate if rather noisy in the corners. The magnetic docking lugs keep things securely and you can swap the screen around to morph the assemblage from laptop into tent and stand modes. One small issue is the occasional sounding of the Windows connection alert when adjusting the screen angle. I resorted to disabling the chime which was the only evidence that screen and keyboard were occasionally disconnecting and reconnecting.
Some will think it a shame the dock doesn’t have its own battery, but that would add weight to what is already a large and, at nearly 2Kg, heavy combination. As it is the 10,000mAh battery is good for around six and a half hours of mixed use rather than the eight Chuwi claims.
The quad-core Celeron processor has its limitations, but serious gaming and 4K video editing aside the Hi13 does most things with acceptable dispatch. Early models of the Hi13 had 600MB of RAM dedicated to the GPU but that seems no longer to be the case. The battery-powered HiPen3 stylus won’t keep Stevie Bathiche and his team awake at night (it lacks a lot of the Surface Stylus’ key features like the ‘tilt’ effect ), but it does support 1024 levels of pressure. For anyone other than a professional artist it does a perfectly reasonable job. I certainly had no complaints after doodling with it on Windows 10’s various graphics applications for a few hours. It is a quarter of the price of the Surface Stylus.
One last word of caution. Chuwi’s product page for the Hi13 includes the promise of support for Ubuntu. My unit booted into Ubuntu without problem and everything worked with the notable exception of the touchscreen. I have yet to find a fix. That caveat aside, if you want a large Windows tablet but can’t justify £1,300 for Microsoft’s Surface Book the Hi13 comes recommended.
Buy the Chuwi Hi13 here
Buy the keyboard here
Buy the stylus here
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