Teclast today announced a new tablet, the X98 Air III. In a move I don’t really understand the X98 Air III is another 9.7″ tablet with the a lower clocked Z3735F 1.8Ghz Atom Bay Trail with a revised shell around it. The rest of the specs are the same as the X98 Air series, 32GB eMMC, 2GB of Ram, BT 4, microsd slot. 2MP front and 5MP rear camera. And only Android 5.0, no dual boot Windows 10 / Android here. I think it’s time to move on from Bay Trail tablets, this should be a Cherry Trail X5 Z8300 at least…
It will retail for only 699 yuan in China which is around $110. So it’s a dirt cheap for a 9.7″ retina tablet, but that’s about it. I will not be following this one or reviewing it here. It doesn’t interest me one bit as the X98 Pro and Air II/ Air 3G have Android already. If I do get one it will only be for a quick video review and demo for the YouTube channel.
Matti Rantanen
This device interests me, but my only issue is if it would support USB to Ethernet. What do you think, will it be possible without rooting (for example)?
TecKnight
I am with you on this, Chris.
It doesn’t seem like there is a need for a 32GB emmc Android only tablet
TecKnight
Yes, I am pretty sure we could get dual boot to work on this
Ragnar Ironblood
You know, ‘ts all ’bout taking over the budget sphere
Chris G
True, if we could later hack dual boot on this. It would be a better deal. Remember that the retailers will add their cut on top, so it will end up costing around $140. Add $30 more and you have an X98 Air 3G 64GB model…. (they have been selling for $169-$179 as of late with the sales.
dz11
Some people like me don’t want or need Windows on a tablet. So this will be a good choice for some. It will be faster and cheaper than other popular 32GB tablets like the Cube Talk 9x and it will have more android storage than the 64GB Teclast X98 models. You only get about 21GB of android storage on those 64GB tablets. On this new tablet it will be 32GB.
Shortyk
That’s weird, but the price is good.
Now All we need is the X98 Pro’s spec in this new shell. With heat issues fixed. Kinda weird they didn’t introduced it with their new flagship that came out not even a month ago…
Chris G
On second though it looks like a P98 metal housing from that model. I think they are using up old parts to make this new retina budget model.
The hardware supports dual boot, so it might be possible to later flash this as a dual boot model?