Recently I posted that Teclast has an up and coming release announcement on the 10th, a Cherry Trail 9.7″ was mentioned and a Core M tablet. Well details on AliExpress have leaked out that the Teclast X98 Pro is coming, as expected it’s packing the next gen Atom Cherry Trail. An Atom X5 Z8500 to be exact, which can boost up to 2.24 Ghz. This is paired with 4GB of LPDDR3 1600Mhz RAM and a 64GB eMMC. The rest of the system looks to be exactly the same as the X98 Air series (Air 3G and Air II).
The Teclast X98 Air 3G successor the X98 Pro.
The next gen Cherry Trail, as tested in my Surface 3 offers a healthy boost in GPU performance, so we can expect a good 30-40% more GPU power over the old X98 Air 3G and Air II. So it will be great for gaming and a decent step up from the Atom Z3736 Gen7 GPU that has 4 cores. The X8500 has Intel GFX has 12 EU’s. No mention in the listing if the USB port is a MicroUSB 2 or microUSB 3.0 port which the Z8500 supports. I hope it’s the latter and will seal the deal, but we will find out on the 10th once it’s all official.
And of course, it’s coming with Windows 10 Home, but there is no mention of dual boot. Maybe it will first release as a Windows 10 only machine and later on Telcast will release a dual boot bios and Android 5.0 ROM on their forums. So just like what they did with the X98 Air 3G that started out as an Android only machine, which later switched to Windows and then dual boot.
Teclast X98 Pro comes with a healthy 4GB of Ram.
Teclast have surprised me, my guess was X5 Z8300 and 2GB of Ram. But they have stepped up the game with a 4GB X5 Z8500 Atom X98 revision, it will be the first Chinese manufacturer to go with a Cherry Trail. And I assume others like Onda, Cube, Chuwi and PiPo will follow and later release their own Z8500 series tablets?
The price? The listing shows it as $277 usd, remember this is a 3rd party selling it on AliExpress with their cut on top. So when it’s released on the 10th on Tmall, I expect it to be around the $210 mark in China? Around 1299 Yuan is my guess.
Many thanks to Mark K from our forums for the tip off. Join our discussion in the Teclast X98 Pro forum.
Chris G
More details from the official press marketing images here: http://techtablets.com/2015/08/more-details-emerge-on-the-teclast-x98-pro/
Radial Apps
I don’t know really, seeing that a few days back, I could’ve got an i7 stylus for $299, whether it’s worth $277… I really hope on the USB 3, which might be a deal breaker if absent
Mohammed
Can the Intel Cherry Trail Z8500 CPU compete with the Intel M Core ?
Can’t wait to see the benchmarks on this baby 😀
Chris G
No, the Core M 5Y10 is still about twice as fast in benchmark results like Geekbench 3 etc. The GPU in the Cherry Trail is the big step up from the Z37XX series.
Lorenzo
what about battery life comparison?
Pablo_2015
ohhh man!!! now, i dont know if buy this teclast or the cube i7 stylus.
Mohammed
Me too 🙁
Leo
This is great news. Can’t wait to order mine. 🙂
Dim565
Yes! Cherry Trail and 4GB look very cool! I also did not expect. I thought that the first few tablets on the Cherry will be with 2GB.
Niw I’m waiting for official release and reviews 🙂
Chris G
Yeah, the Teclast must have listened to people asking for 4GB minimin ram. It looks good, I hope they add Wireless AC dual band, have a full sized or microUSB 3 port and pogo port docking connector for keyboards on the left side 🙂 (dreams are free)
Adam_F2
While we’re dreaming, I’d like to see a black or grey version – like 99% of big brand ‘professional’ tablets/notebooks. The spec is definitely getting more enticing though.
Chris G
Yes it would be nice in black. I hope Teclast can make a “Black Edition”