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Teclast X98 Pro - Win10/Android 5, Atom X5, 4GB RAM, 9.7" 2048x1536 US$233.60 (AU$317) @ Everbuying

170
X98

I approached an associate of Everbuying some time ago to ask for a deal on the Teclast X98 Pro, as with the latest Intel X5 Atom and 4GB of RAM, it would be very fit for productivity purposes (a reason which has prevented me from buying the earlier 2GB models, in spite of good prices).

Note: you should probably choose USD as currency, as the AUD conversion rate is not so great. I based the $317 price on XE.com conversion rates.

An Everbuying Rep has since come back to me to offer a discount on what I believe was already the lowest price out there. I think $317 AUD is amazing value for a 9.7" tablet with very high resolution, Windows 10, Android 5.0, 4GB of RAM, and HDMI. In terms of performance, this is pretty much similar to the Microsoft Surface 3, but less than half the price.

I told the Rep that fast shipping and honesty about stock levels are important to avoid the wrath of Ozbargainers, and she informed me they have 30 units in stock, and more arriving within the next few days. Their free shipping to Australia takes 5-11 Business days, but Expedited Shipping is only US$1.99 extra (3-7 business days).

Sadly I already purchased another tablet before Everbuying got back to me due to urgent need, but otherwise I would definitely be buying this tablet from this seller, due to them offering the best price and affordable fast shipping.

I am not gaining anything from this, but I think this product suits the Ozbargain audience, and because the Rep has been very open and cooperative I have no problem recommending this deal.

specifications
CPU: Intel X5 - Z8500 Quad Core 2.24GHz
GPU: Grafis intel HD Gen8
RAM: 4GB
ROM: 64GB
Gravity sensing system
9.7 inch screen: 2048 x 1536 QXGA IPS screen
Windows 10 + Android 5.0 dual boot
Battery: 8000mAh battery
Bluetooth 4.0
OTG Function
HDMI output
Dual cameras: 5.0MP back camera with auto focus, 2.0MP front camera

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closed Comments

  • Awesome specs!

    • +1

      Yep, that's why I had been drooling over it myself for a while. The old atoms had a limitation of 2GB RAM, which in my opinion does not make it "fit for purpose" for doing anything real. Windows itself takes up 1GB easily, which really only leave 2GB left. So a 4GB tablet has in essence got 3 times as much available RAM.

  • Two questions:

    1. All these Chinese tablet or phone, I was under impression they can have all the latest blings and dings technologies stuffs but lg Samsung apple Sony etc with older tech or specs are still run smoother and better overall. Is this assumption still correct?
    2. is this the cheapest store compare with others like gearbest banggod etc?
    • +4

      1.) really depends. There are different grades. To pass a blanket judgement on all "Chinese" phones/tablets would be wrong. Some products have made a name for themselves based on quality (e.g. Xiaomi). Teclast tablets are quite popular, with many good reviews about them. Personally I have had phones from HTC, LG, Sony, etc. I had software problems with all, especially LG and Sony, and got zero support. If I can get a decent product for half the price, it's worth it IMO.
      2.) I spent quite a while looking around for the best price. I am unable to find it cheaper. Banggood and Gearbest are more expenisive, and their shipping costs more too. Keep in mind that the margins on these products are very small - you won't find a "30% off sale" on these things anytime soon.

    • Teclast produce really good quality tabs and have a lot of good reviews online.

      • +2

        I have the 8" teclast …… has glass screen which a lot of other tablets don't have. Works fine except short battery because its 8". Believe that the 10" has bigger battery and lasts longer. But its still hard to beat my iPad for battery life …… but is so expensive.

        But if you want dual boot, or windows 10, these are hard to beat.

        Sold my Chuwi on eBay …… came with a plastic screen and I didn't want to buy screen protectors forever.

  • +1

    Good on you for the effort mate :)

  • +2

    batteries of all these tablet are NOT to be desired for… compare to iOS devices, they suck big time in real usage cause they work fine if you use them continuously vs the iOS ones, the android window device would be an hour or two behind ios if used that way. However, they loose power a lot faster on standby compare to iOS devices, hence to this date, ipad still wins out.

    I had the older X98 air 3G, its android power management was better than the window one but I only manage 1/3 of the standby time vs my ipad 4 or Ipad mini 2, or even the dated ipad 3 I had.

    the same goes to my Toshiba Encore device, Nexus 7 gen 1 tablet… battery standby capacity still the weakest link, I hope it changed in the latest atom, but I am not putting much hope on that,

    • +1

      It depends on what people need, though. None of the other tablets you mention would be suitable for what I use a tablet for: serious productivity purposes. I love Android for my phone, but I can't use it for doing work (beyond email or a bit of browsing). I have an iPad, which is most commonly used by my 3-year-old to play "Hello Kitto Cafe!" :)
      I think this tablet is good value for people who want a serious Windows tablet (license cost is incorporated into the price after all). People who do not need to run full Windows applications, a large screen, and the ability to hook up an external monitor may be better off with a cheaper Android tablet or small Windows tablet.

      • can this tablet hook up with a keyboard via bluetooth?

        • Yup. You meant to buy the tablet with the keyboard cover. White and black from Everbuying.

        • @scotty: thanks, but would it work with any bluetooth keyboard? (had the same doubt against surface series re the quality and cost of typecover)

        • +1

          @melfes: Yes it's Windows on a PC device with standard Bluetooth radio. I can't see why it would not work with a standard bluetooth keyboard/mouse.

        • my Teclast x98 air II has no trouble, doubt this would have any either….

    • +3

      Cant compare mainly because Windows and Android are true Multi-tasking OS'es whilst iOS (despite the latest updates) is still mainly single task switching. Battery life will depend on how the user installs their apps and how usable it is.

    • +2

      The reason for this large discrepancy in battery size and usage time is due to the OS rather than the brand. Android is created as a multiplatform OS designed to work with multiple and different generations of hardware whereas iOS is purely designed for their own devices. It can be more efficient since there's no surprises on what phones/tablets they can be installed on, this is also why apple products have weaker hardware, yet runs smoother. Android is open source and more widely available so more and more companies will use android on their phones/tablet. Your comparison proves this as it doesn't matter which brand you're comparing to.

      • I think it's more to do with how they tackle the background processes and hibernation. From what I've seen with Android devices and from what I've heard from iOS users, Android don't shut them down or limit them as much as iOS do. So Android tend to have bad standby battery life due to things running in background and things waking the phone up from hibernation (which you can control with apps like Amplify, Wakelock Detector + Greenify etc etc).

        That said, I think both approaches have cons and pros.

        • Correct, android background stuff eats too much, it is a constrain drain, only way to stop that is turning it completely off, so does Windows, there should be an OS setting to stop almost everything but touch screen after say 5 minutes to save max battery.

        • @jackau: Some manufacturers started to introduce something similar to that (i.e. Samsung and Smart Manager which turns background processes off, not sure about other manufacturers since my gf's on CM ROM). That said, I frankly find it to be a positive thing rather than a negative thing, given that you keep it under control. That said, it'd be better if Google starts to introduce more control over background processes though since it being doable =/= everyone knows how to do it.

        • Thats not entirely correct. The latest Android builds have three levels of power saving - Standard mode, power saving mode and Ultra Power saving mode. The Power saving modes both can cut down the amount of background processes to almost nothing and save power. But at the same time, you lose all of the niceties of the OS being able to update real live information for you. If you run it in power saving mode, it is almost guaranteed that the battery life will match that of Fruit machines. Thats what you get to balance battery life and usability of having everything on at the disposal of your finger tips.

        • @bchliu: I apologise, I thought it was a feature not yet present in stock Android.

          I frankly don't think it's comparable though because power saving mode makes you lose other features along with limiting background processes as far as I know (i.e. haptic feedback etc). Also, it doesn't give you ability to control those as well. I frankly think there should be more options to control the background processes, that do not require me to root and install 3rd party apps. Android have been giving too much freedom for app developers and not much ability for the end users to control it, in my opinion.

          Also, wakelock from some of the apps are just ridiculously high (it constantly wakes the device up from the hibernation which reduces standby battery), it'd show on the battery setting with phone being awake without the screen being on. They need to stop some of the apps from doing that as well.

          I frankly think it's an approach that Android took which made Android to brute force certain things like battery life, performance, etc with pure hardware. If you know how to use the hardware and the OS to its full potential, I think it's really nice. It allows multitasking like watching Youtube while being on Ozbargain without any problems along with other things. If you want to use it to its full potential, you need a bit of knowledge though.

  • Does anyone know how this would be for editing photos (lightroom) vs a surface pro 3?

    I'm needing a portable photo editing solution and am considering the pro 3.

    • SP3 would smash this, keep an eye out for deals soon as they get replaced with the Pro 4.

    • Wouldn't SP4 be better with better colour reproduction if you want to edit photos and stuff?

    • +1

      You won't be able to run lightroom CC because this tablet has a 32 bit processor and you'll need 64 bit for CC. However, it will be fine for lightroom 5. I run lightroom 5, photoshop and photomatix pro fine on my Chuwi Hi8 and the specs are much, much lower than this.

      • +1

        Ehm, that's not entirely accurate. See http://ark.intel.com/products/85474/Intel-Atom-x5-Z8500-Proc…
        This is a 64-bit CPU. It's the new Atom X5 Z8500.
        The Surface Pro 3 comes in different flavours. The most low-end i3-based model would be a little bit faster than this one, but not very much (much more expensive though), but the higher-end i5 and i7 ones would definitely be faster than this tablet. But for "Office" tasks and basic photo editing it should be good. Can't comment on the screen quality (colour trueness), but it is supposed to be decent.

      • Thanks for the tip Mahogany, about Chuwi Hi8 running Lightroom. Amazing to see what these little machines can do. Any success with the gps?

  • +1

    this is a nice tablet, but the design was not updated to accomodate the x5 chip which has higher thermals than the previous x98 3g air.

    So you may experience thermal throttling

  • A couple of Bucks cheaper here

  • I think I'll wait for a proper special to come onboard from Geekbuying or Pandawill to be under $300. Nice specs but think its a bit expensive still for what it is.

    • +1

      Hmmm, I don't think we'd be able to see something like that any time soon.
      Baytrail tablets were cheap because of Windows 8.1 with Bing and Baytrail being subsidised to an extent where Intel was losing money from those.

      • No.. Even when Baytrails were first released, it wasnt too bad of a price ($200) and kept dropping to the sub $100 mark. So was expecting it to apply to the newer X series Atoms. I think maybe around the Christmas (or Post) sales will get there.

        • I remember ridiculously low price for the tablet started appear after the newer Baytrail CPUs were released (i.e. first batch were z3740 and z3770, then came z3735F and other variations) and less so with W8.1 with Bing. I am not too sure whether the newer Baytrail CPUs were the cause of the cheaper price (i.e. Intel subsidised them further or something), but I think all the cheap Chinese tablets (at least those I can think of) are not with z3740 but with newer batch of Baytrail CPU.

          Someone who's in touch with the manufacturer would know better :S

  • Code VNWJBBZC, found on the web
    Added will make it a little more cheaper here

    • Nevermind.

    • what does it go down to? seems you need to log in for that to work?

      • +1

        another 5 bucks off the advertised price above.

  • Quick question about this would anyone know if there was Google Play on the android side of this tablet plus is this is international release version? Asking this because with the non-international there seems to be microphone and like language issue

  • 11.11 is less than a month away. Might see a price drop then.

    • Why would this be discounted on 11/11? Just curious, I am thinking of replacing my laptop/tablet, I might look at the bargains on that day if there is a bargain on that day.

      • 11.11 tend to be the click frenzy in china with massive online discount promotion.

        • Nice, might look for a tablet that day then, thanks :D

  • +2

    Found a review for those who are interested.

    http://techtablets.com/teclast-x98-pro/review/

    • +1

      That heat issue puts anyone off buying this.. sigh.. I know how bad they heat up with my previous Voyo purchases..

  • Damn.. tempted to get this.. but I could get the Samsung Tab S2 from TGG on Salsac.. works out similar price.. decisions..

    • +1

      If you just want an Android device, Tab S2 will most likely be better. I think Baytrail CPUs were around on par with Snapdragon 800 and Cherry Trail didn't improve much other than GPU (which was around Snapdragon 600 in terms of benchmark I believe?). So I don't expect this to be able to compete with Exynos 5433. Also, even though Samsung is famous for being slow with their updates, they do give out updates and they do make apps for the devices (i.e. I think Game Tuner app that just got released looked alright in principle). XDA is there if you want a custom ROM for your device (which is usually less with Chinese tablets). Also, some of the features that are present in Touchwiz are alright (i.e. multi-window, sidesync, etc etc).

      That said, if you want something that's productive, I don't think Android can beat Windows OS. I frankly think if you want Android, it's usually better to go with something that just does Android. It's when you want something productive that these dual OS devices start to shine.

      http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/10/12/samsungs-game-tuner-…

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