Teclast F7 Review

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Teclast’s first two notebooks, both winners the convertible F6 pro with a Core M3 and this F7. The Teclast F7 is a budget/entry level laptop powered by the Intel Celeron N3450 (Apollo Lake) quad-core. With 6GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 64GB of fast eMMC 5.1 spec storage. It’s got a 14.1″ 1080p IPS glossy screen with a matte anti-glare protector on it and the base build and design of it is from the same ODM as the Jumper EZbook 3L Pro. However, in Teclast’s hands, it’s been tweaked further and is truly the best Apollo Lake or under $250 laptop out there.

The laptop weighs only 1.32 kilos and under 14mm thin. The full metal body is made of a lightweight, but a rather soft alloy so easy to scratch. On the underside, you’ll find an SSD hatch that lets you add a M.2 2242 SATA3 spec SSD to expand the storage up to 512GB. It will take a 22 x 60mm sized one, with some work – removing the rear and cutting some plastic. I highly recommend installing an SSD, even if it’s only 128GB for two reasons, it will speed up the overall response of the laptop and most importantly give you more free space as on the eMMC drive it has only around 38GB free on first boot.

The laptop has micro HDMI out, two USB 3.0 ports and a MicroSD slot. This slot is only a Realtek USB 2.0 reader. So no point buying a super fast expensive card for it as you can’t take advantage of its speed as it will cap out at around 23 MBs reads and writes.

01:22 – Build & design 01:50 – Keyboard 02:29 – Touchpad 03:01 – Ports 04:37 – Screen 06:29 – Internals 08:29 – Bios / TDP 09:02 – Benchmarks 09:59 – Thermals 11:01 – Battery Life 13:17 – 4k HEVC 14:17 – Audio 15:00 – Webcam sample 15:25 – Gaming 17:10 – Linux 17:44 – Final words 19:32 – Pros & Cons

Teclast F7 Review snapshots:

Thanks to a 9W power limit and great cooling with a large copper heatsink the Teclast F7 performs well, it’s the fastest Celeron N3450 laptop I’ve tested and I’ve seen a lot since it’s release. Best of all if you go into the bios which is unlocked by the way, disable that power limit you’ll boost that performance even further and due to the huge heatsink, thermals don’t exceed 74 degrees C on my unit. Something I’ve not seen until now, normally there is just enough copper in there for the stock power limits. Not here, which is great news.

Overall the Teclast F7 is a fantastic laptop for the price when you look at just what you’re getting it’s hard to imagine it selling for as low as $219 sometimes. It’s almost as if Teclast looked at the popular EZbook 3 Pro and went and improved on almost every aspect. Below is the detailed video review of the laptop, covering everything from the internals, speaker test to gaming and Linux.

Good

  • Full metal light and thin build
  • Unlocked bios & power limits
  • Great thermals
  • Can run no power limit with no issues
  • Clean and loud 3.5mm audio output
  • Large precision touchpad
  • Decent keyboard
  • Better webcam and mics than most
  • Speakers better than most budget laptops
  • M.2 SSD expansion possible
  • Fast to charge
  • Good wifi range

Bad

  • Minor speaker pop noise when waking from sleep
  • 1 hour less battery than the EBP3
  • Hinge is a little loose the last 20 degrees
  • 38GB free on first boot
8.7

Great

Performance (in category) - 9
Build & Design - 9.5
Screen - 8.5
Sound - 8.5
Battery Life - 8

24 Comments

  1. Hi Chris!

    First, thanks for the great job, keep it up!

    I’ve had the F7 for about 10 months now, have been using it mostly for browsing the web, watching youtube etc, and it’s been perfect for that, given the price I’ve paid.

    However, lately it’s started acting strange when plugged in to the wall plug.. it freezes, or restarts :(. Does it every time, it’s just a matter of time..
    It’s fine if I use it from battery power, but that’s a bit of a hassle given the 3-4 hours of battery time I’ve been getting..
    A few months ago it started making a very quiet buzzing sound when plugged in, that might have been connected to eventually developing this fault.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks in advance!

    Attila

  2. Hi Chris!!

    I’ve a huge simple question: I just got a Teclast F7 but……it doesn’t have a recovery software? This model doesn’t have any way to wipe it all and get restored to factory default¿?

    Thanks!!!

  3. Hey Chris 🙂
    I just gut this beatiful laptop, it’s really a good machine. But sadly the USB-ports doesn’t have enough power for an external dvd-writer. Do you have any hints or tipps, how to solve this problem? Thanks! Best regards, Andi

    • Ah external DVD writers a lot of them have a D/C in and you need to use two USB ports. Mine does at least. That’s odd because my F7 at least powers big external 2.5″ drivers. But I admit I haven’t tested my Blu-ray drive in so long its in a drawer somewhere.

      • No problems with a 2.5″ HDD, works like a charm. I’ll try to test another external dvd writer with extra power supply.

  4. Hi, just bought F7 week ago, I would like to know, can I use a power bank to charge it instead of power adaptor?

  5. Hi Chris,

    Teclast F7, does it come with a factory reset option or do you need to format and install everything manually if you want to return it to where it was when you first got it?

  6. Any news on the F7 and Linux touchpad issue? Anyone got the touchpad to work in any of the Linux flavors? I’m hoping to use this as a dev machine.

  7. Hi Chris, I am new here and not so technical. If I would buy F7 with an additional SSD (which do you recommend?) how do I install the SSD? Can I just pop out the existing one and replace it before turning it on the first time? 64GB is not enough for me, would like to have at least 240/256 GB. Thanks for a reply. Seems for me it would be the best to buy an SSD with the original size, since I don’t want to break anything while installing a “larger” dimension.

  8. Hi! Chris!

    Last question! :’D Did you buy the Teclast F7 on Geekbuying? And do yo know if choosing DHL economy on geekbuying means that you will have to pay extra taxes (customs)?

    Thank you very much and have a nice day!

    Cheers!

    • When I use DHL I always have to pay customs. I got mine from Gearbest at $219, then had to pay 38 euros tax on it with DHL on arrival. If I use the free postage method it would be tax-free, but take 2-3 weeks instead of only one week in total. I only use DHL to get things quick for my reviews.

      • Thank you very much Chris! Your answers are always very usefull!!

  9. Hi Chris! Before my question, thanks for your excellent job! I hope someday you’ll try to do a review in Spanish 😀

    I have doubts between the Teclast F7 and the Jumper EZBook 3 Pro. On geekbuying this last one is 198€ and the Teclast costs 300€.

    My requeriments are to photoshop (medium user 150ppi), and multimedia stuff like netflix, youtube… I’ve a good desktop machine, and I’m searching for a budget laptop easy to carry away and to use it to “soft” activities and sometimes to work with photshop but like I said only in “extrem” moments.

    Would you recommend me to wait to a Teclast F7 sale, or I should buy the Jumper EZBook 3 Pro por 198€ (geekbuying Germany warehouse).

    And the last question, some geekbuying experience?

    Thanks for your time and your job, I hope you feel comfortable in Spain 🙂

    Regards

    *Excuse me for my english… 1:38 AM in Spain and I should be sleeping

    Saludos

    • Hi,

      I just got the EZbook 3L Pro so I will check it out today and have a video up soon of it. It should be very similar to the F7, maybe even have a better screen in it. But for light tasks, you can’t go wrong with either.

      Geekbuying, I’ve used them many times. They are good. Them and Bnaggood, Gearbest and lightinthebox all seem to be good.

      • Thanks for your answer Chris!

        I’ll be waiting for your review!

        Have a nice day!

  10. Hi, how this laptop with celeron and no ssd can have 9 in performance as the f6 pro who had M3 and ssd?
    Or its a 9 compared to other celeron?

    • It’s compared to other Celeron N3450’s this is why 🙂 I always compare them this way, for example, Core M3’s to other core M3’s hope this makes sense. But the F6 pro is twice as fast as this. Why it gets the 9 is it’s the fastest and most fluid N3450 laptop I’ve tested, just a little better than my EZBook 3 pro.

  11. Thanks again, Chris. The overall quality and value for money factor is what initially caught my attention with your earlier reviews of Chinese tech. The F7 deserves all the praise for being an exemplary example of what is possible, and what customers deserve, frankly; cheap good looking tech with the right performance to boot. Things can only get better, hopefully. Very best wishes and congressman again with your growing fan base.

    • **congratulations is what I meant to type. Sheesh, I should stick to using my glorious F7.

    • Thanks, yes I agree things can only get better. I hope we see a refreshed Celeron N4100 (Gemini Lake) version, and hopefully not with just 4GB. But also an 8GB option.

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