I've been ruminating over this topic for months already and I'm not closer to deciding.

Scratch that, I've pretty much decided, I just can't get myself to place the order. Also ordering from China always makes me a bit anxious, not only because these wholesale dealers aren't exactly known for their stellar customer service, but because of the: "tales of the customs officers that are dicks".

Anyways I've been interested in a 4:3 format large tablet, mainly to read documents, everything else would be secondary. And lo' and behold a few chinese tablets come with retina displays which are 9.7" and have a 4:3 aspect ratio.

My absolute favorites are these ones
The Cube i6 Which is a dual boot machine.
The Cube Talk 9x Has half the storage space but only comes with Android.
There's also this But it comes with RemixOS which makes me a bit wary.

Then there's the Teclast X98 which has quite a bit of support in XDA.

And finally, there's the Ondas There's the V919 which has dual boot and the 989 Air over which there isn't really much talk about.

However these tablets are somewhat old by now and I have no idea if there are any better/cheaper choices.

Do you have any ideas, suggestions? Do you own a chinese tablet that doesn't suck? Which one and what makes it good?

Are these tablets you own and have tried?

I've tried two tablets, it was the SuperPad 7 or something. It crashed like crazy and wouldn't stay up for more than 2 minutes at a time; Ended up getting a full refund on it.

The other tablet is one featured on eBay i think, and aside from the battery life it works...

No. Those are tablets I have an interest in. I don't own or have tried any of them.

I'm trying to decide on wether to get one of those or if anyone knows of a better option.

Must be 9.7" 4:3.

The one I bought was terrible and ended up being a complete waste of money, I recommend buying a more expensive but familiar brand, it will save you money in the long run.

Chinese electronics products today are what the Japanese ones were in the 60's and 70's: cheap but low quality.

With time we will eventually get quality electronic products from China, but it feels too early right now.

The Cube and Teclast ones are pretty much the only decent chinese tablets

I have an Ainol Novo 7 Fire, but it is a little bit old :)

The Cube(s) have had a little bit of love poured over them by the XDA community. It's been praised by a small sector for the quality of its build.
However they gush over the Teclast. They have a separate sub-forum for it where they support it actively with home-brew apps and image roms.

Personally I like the Cube more aestehtically. Secondly, I wouldn't really tinker with it. Just use it as an e-book and maybe as a word processor.

TechTablets has good reviews of Chinese tablets. I'd also suggest googling for reviews.

I've gone through a lot of Chinese tablets -- my favorite so far is the Chuwi Hi8 (on the strength of its Retina display and its newer Intel SoC). I have heard also a lot of good things about Cube's iWork tablets, especially the iWork 11, which seems to be basically a cheaper version of the Surface Pro. However, from my experience with my Hi8, I would echo the comments of others who say that if you want an Android/Windows dual-boot tablet, get one with 64 GB of storage.

I would stay away from tablets equipped with the newer ARM SoCs from AllWinner and Rockchip, as they've apparently garnered poor reputations for power consumption and stability. It's not 9.7" 4:3, but the Chuwi Hi10 (10" 16:10) might be worth a look.

http://techtablets.com/chuwi-hi10/review/

I would have bought a cube myself at some point .Seems to have better balance value/what you get. If you have the $$$ definitely get a teclast. Forgot the link but one guy has detailed reviews of models of both brands...

http://www.crystalinks.com/china_stonetablet.jpg
There you go! It has a cracked surface, but it still displays text without a battery recharge for countless years now.

Considering the use I will put the tablet to, and the fact that this will be mostly a vanity item, I'm trying to save every last dime I can. Interesting, I hadn't looked at the Chuwi Hi8 previously because I was dead set on a larger screen. It looks like a very nice pice of tech, and going for less than a 100$ right now.
Unfortunately I still want larger screen and I really prefer the 4:3 form factor. Like I said, it'd be mostly for reading, and the wider screen feels more book-like to me.
It's good to know that bit about the Allwinner SOCs. I'll try to steer away from them.

The Teclast Air III is going for less than the Cube i6. Which makes it quite interesting. And then there's the i6 Remix.
Have you guys ever tried Remix? I understand it's simply an Intel-compiled Android?

Fair enough. I've used several generic 4:3 7.9" Android-powered iPad-mini clones and I understand how you feel about the form factor. I also know what you mean about a bigger screen. I'm currently transitioning to my Hi8 away from my Tegra Note 7 @ 1280 x 800, and the difference between it and the 8" 1920 x 1200 display of the Hi8 is like night and day. After using for reading through several volumes from the Humble X-Files Bundle, as well as eBooks on Kobo, I wouldn't go back to 7" 1280 x 800 again.

From this review it looks like the X98 Air III is a compelling option for you. I don't own a Teclast tablet but I've heard good things about them all around.

I haven't used it myself, but yes, Remix is another flavor of Android centred on x86. From what I know it's supposed to be basically Android For The Desktop. I've seen a review of the i6 Remix and the specs look really nice. Between the X98 Air III and i6 Remix, I don't think you could lose either way.

My only concern is the issue of updates and future software support, (The i6 Remix ships with Remix 1.0, which is based off of KitKat; will it get Remix OS 2.0, that's based off of Lollipop?) but Chinese companies have surprisingly been pretty good about issuing update images.

Edit: The comparison is a bit outdated, as the X98 Air 3G/Air II and i6 reviewed here are the previous iterations of the i6 Remix and X98 Air III, but they're similar enough that you might find this useful:

http://techtablets.com/2015/03/comparison-teclast-x98-air-3g-dual-boot-vs-the-cube-i6-dual-os/

Weird. XDA is generally the go to place for info like this, but I have never heard of any of this generic stuff, and I live in China. Here we all use Apple, Xiaomi, Mizu, Huawei, Samsung, etc. These generic devices are probably mainly for export I would guess.

As for me, I usually get Samsung or Xiaomi products. Currently I am using a Mi Note Pro and it's pretty good. The related tablet is the http://www.mi.com/mipad2/ which is currently China only, Mi pad 1 is international distribution though. It's only 7.9", so I guess it's not what you are looking for anyway.

Well yes, that is entirely true and I'm aware of it.

But I like you guys best.

Xiaomi has some cred since even I've heard of it. But in this case they're probably not what I'm looking for.