[REVIEW] Teclast X98 Air 3G Dual Boot - tablet

mdabar

Here you are my personal review after using ;-) It's based on my experience with the product, there is no advertisements, if you want more information about how I bought it, the price or where, ask it below and I will share the information.

Almost four years have already run since I bought my first tablet up to the date, I've been using it quite a lot, upgrading to the different Android versions and of course trying all possible custom ROMs that I found interesting.

But after this years, not only the OS, also the specs have changed in a interesting way, of course making all the devices much more powerfull. And my old Acer Iconia A500 was asking me for a replacement more capable of following nowadays rythm.

So I started looking, comparing,... and of course talking. We all know that iPads and Samsung tablets are a safe option, but you are really paying for them, sometimes more than enough.
And by the other hand, I have the chance of knowing from first hand sellers (like Etotalk, with whom I talk often via Skype) that can share their experience with me.

In the past years I have tried (quite) a few different smartphones and other gadgets, in a way that I have realized that, Chinese doesn't mean bad quality, it just mean “double check before buying”. So that I have found some awful products not working at all, and I have found really good quality devices. For some of which I have already done reviews sharing my good impressions (and the points of improvement!).

Having said that, I was recommended to take the Teclast X98 Air 3G, which brings something that I found really really attractive: dual boot.

I already know (tablets, tv box and smartphones) how Android does on the mobile market but, Windows?
I have used quite a lot Windows Phone 8 on Lumia smartphones, I saw real improvements with the first updates, and they are very nice to use mobiles BUT with a lot of limitations on tasks that I can do on daily basis with iPhone or Android. It's true that the ecosystem of applications is growing but sometimes not fast enough or (mainly) not with the quality you are expecting. With huge differences between Microsoft or Nokia applications or 3rd party apps. Still a lot of work to do, hopefully solved (at least partially) with the arrival of Windows 10.

Having said that... Yes! I took it that tablet with a lot of expectations and first one met was that it was at home only 3 days after ordering it


Packaging and design

Very nicely packaged, with a “potato-plastic” bag covering the tablet, then in a second layer we find, a plastic protector for the screen, , the USB cable, an OTG USB cable, warranty card, anti-radiations sticker (yes first time I see it) and the charger (US plug) which is of 2.5A!! simply amazing, but we need to have into consideration the size of this battery (I’ll come back later).

I must mention here that everything is on Chinese. I don’t consider it a real issue because being honest, normally nobody reads the papers, we all know that once any device arrives first thing we do is booting it. And probably charge it.

I leave you this video I recorded for the unboxing (for the moment in Spanish I’ll translate it soon).

Search on YouTube -> "Unboxing y primeras impresiones Teclast X98 Air 3G Dual Boot"

Maybe after this video, there is not much to say about the design, but I'm doing a review so... let's start with the front clean and simple view. Nothing but the big screen occupying almost the full surface and the tiny 2Mpx on the top. As said, very clean design (reminds me an iPad) but sincerely many times when using I'm missing some button.

On the left side we have both, the power/lock button and the volume up/down one, on the same just at the bottom, the slots for microSD card (up to 64GB) and the SIM card.
Moving to the bottom side of the tablet, we will find the plugs for micro USB cable, jack 3.5 and micro HDMI. Which leaves us the right and the top sides completely free of buttons or slots.

Turning the tablet, on the rear part, we have the main 5Mpx camera on the top and two speakers on the bottom. On the middle just “Intel inside” logo. Below that “X98” mark and again a lot of Chinese stuff.


Hardware and specifications

As I said on the beginning, the hardware has evolved quite a lot on the last years. I would point that one of the main surprises of this device is that it brings an Intel Atom processor (not very common on mobile devices), but take a look to the rest, it’s not bad at all:

Brand / Model Teclast X98 Air 3G(Dual OS)
OS Dual boot: Android 4.4.4 Kitkat / Windows 8.1
CPU Intel Atom Z3736F Quad Core 2.16GHz
GPU Intel HD Graphic
RAM 2GB
ROM 64GB
Extend card MAX supports 64GB Class 10 Micro SD Memory Card (TF-Card)
Screen 9.7 inches QXGA with a resolution of 2048x1536; IPS-LCD, Multi-Touch Capacitive technology; 16 Million Colors
Languages Czech, Dansk, German, English, Spanish, Russian, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polski, Greek, Portuguese, Svenska, Turkey, Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
Color Front White Back Silver
Dimensions 240 x 169 x 7.4 mm
Net Weight 498g with battery
Camera Front Camera 2.0 mega pixel / Rear Camera 5.0 mega pixel / Auto Focus
Connectivity Built-in Wifi IEEE 802.11b/g/n 11Mbps to 54Mbps / Built-in 3G WCDMA Module / Built-in HDMI Out Port / Phone Calls / OTG
Sensors GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, Gravity Sensor
Battery Built-in Lithium Battery: 8500mAh


Screen

The Teclast X98 Air 3G is equipped with a 9.7 inches IPS screen with a very good resolution of 2048x1536.
Once we remove the sticker that comes with the tablet covering the screen, we quickly realize about the quality of this screen, the image and colors are greatly appreciated, and the angles of vision are very wide, no need to be just in front of.

The bright levels are very good, allowing to select very low bright or very high bright, however I'm missing here the option of automatic bright. Normally it comes with every smartphone, and even my old tablet has it. Here I have to select manually the level I want and it doesn't adapt to new conditions, so a point to improve here.

This tablet includes the Intel HD Graphics chipset, what I would say makes more complicated to compare with other devices where we know more about their GPU capabilities (i.e. the common Mali GPUs).
Up to now I have had no issues playing games or with HD videos, so I would say that this chipset makes its job.

Inside the settings, we see a new line for enabling Intel video improvements, but there no further description, so I just enabled it hoping to get the most of my tablet. As I told before the quality of image and watching videos (online/offline) is very good at every moment.


Software and multimedia

This is probably one of the main strengths of the Teclast X98 Air 3G. There are not many tablets allowing dual boot in such an easy way. As said a few times already, it comes with an Intel CPU, which means it can run Windows (not only Android as most of tablets) and... leave open the door to Linux, since... it's an Intel CPU!

I have read many questions about this model and how to use the dual boot function. In my case it's very easy (maybe as part of the customization by Etotalk) since every time I boot it, it asks me which system I want to use.
By default it remembers the last one I used and will boot it after 10 seconds, but I repeat, I don't need to change anything or enable whatever to access that dual boot screen every time.
Once again, this menu is in Chinese, so... I luckily there is only one button on that screen and it's for “OK”, they should have translated some more things to English at least.

Going into both OS:

Android works very well, smoothly as on any new device and (good point) with a few applications already pre-installed (mainly thinking on GooglePlay which give us access to all the market).
I sincerely don't like the default launcher, not allowing me to use widgets or having on the desktops only the apps I want and leaving all the rest for the menu. So one of first things I did was installing another launcher. I tried some free ones from Play, all work well so I just left the one I liked more by its design.

I have tried many applications and some games and no one single error or incompatibility message. Kodi, WPS, Maps, Asphalt 8, MX Player, VLC,...

Talking about connectivity, no surprises here. The WiFi connects very fast and I didn't suffer any unexpected disconnection. It's equipped with Bluetooth 4.0, which recognises, pairs and transmit fast enough, I tried with Digicare DO headphones and the quality of sound was excellent.

I know everybody will be expecting now the comments about the 3G WCDMA that brings the attention to this concrete model. And I must confess... also to myself. So I inserted the SIM (normal size) on the slot that can be found on the side and it didn't do anything... my mistake Plane Mode enabled :P

Now yes. SIM card detected, searching for networks... different ones available. I left itself do the choice and suddenly I received the provider's SMS with the config and tariffs information. Good job Teclast!
I couldn't resist then, I call to that number from my mobile... and I could answer the call! It's true with almost 10” is not a comfortable gadget to talk, but sincerely. I appreciate the option, we can always use a BT hands-free, and it allows us to send SMS, use whatsapp on a tablet, etc. very useful!

Finally the OTG function using the included cable was better than I though, very fast transference of files.

Time to shift to Windows. Once started I see more chinese menus and words that I found on Android's first boot. After going to the control panel and changing language and regional settings almost everything is now on English (because I choose that language) although there still some (isolated) words on Chinese.
After some days using, I've found that some of the applications were installed from the Chinese Store, so by removing them and installing again they are in the correct language
It's an improvement, but In settings for example the words “bluetooth” and “3G network” still appear in mandarin.

In the past years I have been using mainly Linux on the laptop and iOS or Android on mobile devices (except for that period using WindowsPhone). So I was completely new to Windows 8.1
It's maybe a little early to say it but, this tablet has made me love Windows 8.1. I feel I have a full computer on my hands, being able to execute programs, not only mobile applications. And Office 365 is included for one year!! with 1TB of OneDrive storage. This alone already made more than one third of the cost of this tablet.
I have told a few times lately: I like the route Microsoft is taking in the last times but... once more I'm delighted on how well their services work altogether.

Where's then the “but”? Of course there is. Again, need to improve the ecosystem of mobile applications, however it's not a problem on this device since you can run real programs planned for the desktop version.

I'm not still an expert on this Windows. I must confess that I'm still booting Android for many things, but each time I use this Windows I enjoy simply exploring new options or features of the system, playing with apps I found and trying different stuff...

For the connectivity, same impression, all works more than properly, fast WiFi, good BT, 3G networks at good speed too. No complains at all. Like in Android, the OTG function works very fast.


Camera

I'll start saying that on every (or almost every tablet) I've tried/used the cameras are quite deceiving (probably except for the iPads) despite the number of megapixels announced.

What happens here? Exactly the same, both cameras offer I would say a poor quality when taking pictures, a little bit better for videos. And we don't flash for the main one.

Is that all? For sure not! I didn't know where to handle this subject, so at the end I left for this section. Skype works amazing! Connects fast, great video quality, fluid in both ways and the sound higher than in many smartphones or tablets.

I was surprised with the quality of the video-conference, after trying the camera app... but I don't know, maybe is the way Skype handles the image, the result was very very good.

Maybe the point is not as much recording as playing or editing video, since both in Windows and in Android, we have a full set of apps for editing our videos. Some of them are included, the rest can be downloaded for free from each Store.


Autonomy and battery

Maybe you passed the specifications table from the beginning quite fast but... did you realize this Teclast X98 Air 3G has a 8500 mAh battery? Yes, it's huge!

It means that it will allow us to use it for longer and, when it's time to charge it, the charger included being 2.5A helps a lot on this task, it will take around 3 hours for a full charge, so quite similar to the time a smartphone will take to charge.

Since it uses a standard micro USB for charging (thanks god!), we can use the same charger and cable than for our smartphone. BUT, normally those chargers give an output power of 1A, so the charging time can be infinite. So better use the provided one.


Conclusions

No doubts we are facing a very very good product. It's not the cheap tablet that we can buy with coupons on the supermarket or with the newspaper. It's a powerful device that can offer us a lot.

The remarkable points (already mentioned most of them): dual boot which allows us to have the freedom of Android for playing and multimedia, but also the professionalism of Windows for working with Office or executing other software; simple and clean design with an excellent Retina Display; microSD expansion and 3G slots for improving storage and connectivity capabilities; fast quad-core Intel Atom CPU and Intel GPU,... and all that standing below 500 grams.

For the points that need improvement, I have already mentioned them a few times, and I will summarize them on: automatic brightness (I don't understand why it's not available) and please, less Chinese content on the package and on the tablet menus.

The price seems very correct for me. Specially when it includes VIP shipment with a trusted company like DHL, it's an extra since I have ordered a few times already to China and if you take the standard one, you can be waiting for one month.

coldfire1x

Good review. How long th battery lasts in real usage?

mdabar

The first days of usage I really had the impression the battery wasn't lasting so much. Then I realized I was contiuously trying, rebooting, installing apps,... This week I've been using in "normal mode" and it lasts for several days.

For example yesterday, I did like 25min of Skype, watch videos over LAN, installed a couple of new apps (to check which one was the best for playing videos from my NAS) and spent some hours browsing the web, checking email, reading news... when I finished I still had more than 50% of battery. And during most of the time I had the bright at full... this is the issue of not having automatic bright adjustement hehe :-P

Anyway, much more happier than I though at the beginning... I was even thinking on taking another one for my wife (so no need to share hehe)

Regards,

PS: if you like the review, click on the "Thanks" button, I'd appreciate ;-)

mdabar

coldfire1x wrote: »

Good review. How long th battery lasts in real usage?

Ok, with normal use (I mean not trying everything new that I see), it seems to last longer and longer :-D

davidom2513

I want to get this tablet but want to make sure the GPS works good. Its a present for some who will be traveling over seas so has to work well here and abroad.

Has anyone had any experience with the GPS? I read on banggod.com that GPS doesn't work with the intel chipset. But other places says it does, so its unclear.

Any input would be apricated

mdabar

I think I tried back on the day... If I can I'll try this afternoon ;-)
Cheers

griffdaddy

Where's the cheapest place to get one at the moment? gearbest have it for 128 but I think it's only the Android version

mdabar

I bought mine in Etotalk and the service was good, using DHL delivery I had it at home in 3 days

davidom2513

mdabar wrote: »

I think I tried back on the day... If I can I'll try this afternoon ;-)
Cheers

That would be great

Thanks a million