Teclast X16HD 3G Review

The Teclast X16HD 3G as the name suggests is an HD, 3G tablet. It’s another dual boot from Teclast released the same time as the X10HD 3G. The X16HD features a 10.6″ 1080p screen, an Atom CPU with 2GB of Ram and storage wise you have 32GB and 64GB options. The model reviewed here is the 64GB one, which I recommend for dual boots if you want to have more than 10GB of free space.

Hardware & build:

The X16HD runs of an Atom Bay Trail Z3736F which is a quad core CPU that can boost upto 2.16Ghz. On the ram side of things you a get single channel of 2GB running at 1333Mhz. The build quality of the X16HD 3G I’ve found to be above average. You have a uni-body alloy backing, which is is a matte black resistant to finger prints and smudge marks. The front glass touchscreen has a large bezel somewhat reminiscent of the Dell Venue 11 Pro in looks. The joins between he front halve and rear metal body are solid and there is no flex or movement what-so-ever. It’s slimmer than most Chinese tablets I have testing coming in at around 8.1mm in thickness.

Overall the Teclast X16HD feels slim and even premium in the hand. I wish more Chinese brands would adopt full metal rear housing as it makes the tablet not only look better, it’s a lot stronger because of it.

The hardware is good for document editing, Office, internet browsing, watching videos, light gaming and streaming video. These tablets are fine, but if you want to edit that 1080p GoPro video clip you took, you can forget about that. That is beyond what these little Atom chips were designed for.

Storage:

The model I brought was the 64GB one, there is a 32GB model for around $15 cheaper, but to be honest is not worth it. Being a dual boot system you need all the storage you can get. It’s a Hynix branded eMMC (Embedded Multi Media Card) and the speed for a Hynix was a disappointment. But still okay for a 4.5 spec eMMC. Nothing as dire as the 80 mbs read and 30 write eMMC I test in a Voyo Mini PC. See below how the X16HD’s drive does against other tablets.

X16HD eMMC hynix 64GB disk bench

The Hynix eMMC CrystalDiskMark showed lower than average speeds.

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Screen:

The 1920 x 1080 screen on the X16HD isn’t the sharpest, but I’m one of those people that think 1080p is still fine for a 10.6″ tablet. As long as your not looking at the screen an inch away from it you don’t notice the pixels. The color of the screen was all washed out looking off on first boot. Using the Intel Graphics software I just toned down the brightness from 0 to -16. In Android this isn’t an issue the screen seemed fine. It seems to be a drivers issue in Windows, at least it’s an easy fix. Once adjusted the screen looks good, it’s one of the better 16:9 displays I’ve seen (On a Chinese tablet). Brightness is very good, up to 395 lux was recorded. Defiantly one of the brightest displays review, but it still couldn’t match the ultra bright Onda V116w 1080p screen. The hardware id of the IPS panel in device manger is MS_9001, I’m not sure who makes this one.

Keep in mind, a 1080p screen will also give you less Windows scaling issues with apps that don’t support Windows 8.1 scaling. 2560 x 1600 resolutions with apps like Paint Shop CS5 will give you tiny, teeny menus since it does scale properly.

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Ports & Connectivity:

You get the standard Realtek 150mbps Wireless N and BT combo card, no issues with reception within the house. But I did have a couple of instances over my week of use where I was confronted with a limited connection. This has only happened twice and seemed to be related to coming out of sleep.

The upper left side of the tablet you’ll find a microSD and micro sim card slot. This supports 3G on 2100Mhz and 1800Mhz here in Europe. US buyers might want to check what bands your network uses for 3G. On the right side there is nothing but a speaker. Teclast in some strange move decided that the micro usb and micro hdmi port where better suited to the top.

Port placement could be better on the X16HD 3G

Port placement could be better on the X16HD 3G

An odd design choice that I’m no fan of. It just seems wrong, specially when using the tablet in a keyboard dock to be charging it from the top having the cable stick up in the air, it should be on the bottom left or right side at least and not on the top left hand side..

The mic and micro hdmi port are in the middle,  the volume controls and power button are on the top right.

Using a Sandisk USB 3.0 extreme 64GB usb memory stick I was able to get up to 40mb/s read rates over the microusb 2.0 port transferring 10GB of large data files.

Teclast X16HD usb 2.0 speed 10gb transfer

Keyboard Case (Optional extra):

While I didn’t have the 10.6″ original Teclast X16HD keyboard, my 10.1″ keyboard worked just fine. However due to the fact the tabelt is a little larger (0.5 inches) The tablet sticks out a bit when you close the keyboard up as a cover. if you are getting this tablet, I whole recommend you also get a keyboard for it. It turns the X16HD into a Surface clone / Netbook pc it really adds to the tablet and allows you to type much faster than the touch screen.

Teclast X10HD 3G keyboard dock case

OS Windows: 

I was pleasantly surprised to see Windows 8.1 Pro load, but this soon turned to disappointment when Windows asked me to activate my copy. It would not let me. Lucky for me my seller on AliExpress had a new key to enter and the solution to the issue. Still I can’t say I’m impressed by this, having to buy a Windows 8.1 key will put the price of unit up quite a bit.

First boot in Windows, I had 32.8GB free. But running Windows update this soon dropped to around 28GB. Overall the experience in Windows is great, fast, fluid and I can run and application I want to. Internet explorer 11 in metro mode runs like a dream and has to be the fastest and smoothest browsing experience to date. Chrome on the other hand is improving, but can bog down on heavy web pages.

OS Android:

The X16HD 3G comes with Android 4.4.4, and at the time of writing this review the Play Store is broken, it’s all down to a miss configured build.prop file from Teclast. The fix is here, it’s not the first time this has happened and it will no doubt, not be the alst. Teclast need to get someone outside of China to test and confirm Google Play works. The user free storage space when I first booted over to Android was 12.8GB, it’s enough for a few large game installs. You have the option of using a microsd card for your Mp3 collection etc.

The stock Teclast launcher isn’t wonderful, it’s a bit slow and they have plenty of Chinese bloatware apps and things you’ll want to uninstall straight away. You can lucky remove most of them via the launcher or settings/manage apps. There are a few that remain however that will require root access and an application like Titanium Backup to remove.

The stock launcher, best to install Nova or Apex launcher over using this.

The stock launcher, best to install Nova or Apex launcher over using this.

All the games I tested ran fine, Asphalt 8 Airborne, GTA: Vice City, Modern Combat 4 and Real Racing 3, all with good frame rates and lag free smooth. AnTuTu result was quite good, 35k and GPUBench saw a respectable 69 fps average.

Tecalst X16HD 3G GPUBench result Teclast X16HD 3G Antutu 5.6.2

Windows Benchmarks:

You can see the benchmark results below. The X16HD 3G did well, scoring around the same as other tablets running the Z3736F.

Teclast X16HD 3G PCMark 7

Geekbench 3

Gaming:

The Atom Bay Trail platform is no gaming beast, it has on 4 EU cores that are Intel Gen 7 graphics. Still you can play Android store and Windows store games, 95% of them without any lag. Apart from ones that are super graphically intensive like Modern Combat 5. Old games like Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2 run great and even a bit of 2009 title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 run and it’s even playable on the lowest of settings. See the videos below to get an idea.

Battery life:

Batter meter issues strike again on yet other Teclast dual boot tablet. It seems to be an issue they haven’t been able to fix yet. If you stay in Windows and fully drain the tablet and then recharge it overnight the meter will report the two cell’s just fine. But boot into Android and then later back into Windows, it will read only one battery cell of the two and you’re faced with a battery meter stuck at 7% for 3 hours.

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I manged an okay 6 hours and 14 minutes in Windows. And only 5 hours and 08 minutes in Android. Much less than I would have hoped for but it seems it’s down to the rom optimization or lack of.

Heat:

Stressing the little Atom soc while running benchmark after benchmark, saw the little chip hit 77 degrees. According to HWinfo it didn’t throttle either, so that was a good thing. The tablet itself hardly even felt warm. And even during a long gaming session of Real Racing 3, I didn’t feel much heat coming from the tablet.

Charging time:

Charging when powered on means no OTG usb (unless you use a usb hub that allows this) and doing so it too around 6-7 hours to charge from 10%. Powered off and left to charge it took around 4 hours to fully charge, this is the normal rate for most of the tablets I’ve tested. It’s not going to win any rapid charging benchmarks.

Audio quality:

The audio output with my headphones on the X16HD 3G is quite loud, louder in fact than most tablets out there. Normally they have the volumes tweaked back to stop people damaging their hearing, not this tablet you can blast your eardrums all you like. However it seems the loudness has come at a cost, their is a slight buzz when the audio is low or between tracks you hear it. I only notice it then and not listening to a video or Mp3.

Camera:

The top front facing cam is a 2.0 megapixel unit, it does it’s job for Skype and other video chat apps in good lighting. In low light it struggles a it and you have to tweak up the exposure to get a better result. The rear facing 5 MP camera again, in good light does a good enough job for a quick picture or video chat. But the quality is well below that of a mobile phone 5 megapixel camera. I would save the photos for your mobile phone or digital camera. This is no Air 2.

Check out my sample images below to judge the quality yourself. (for some reason the are upside down, but on my PC and the X16HD the correct way up!)

 

Conclusion:

Overall I liked the Teclast X16HD 3G, I’m impressed with it’s build and slimness, if let down a bit from that strange port placement. The screen is bright and one of the better 1080p panels I’ve seen (After tweaking the brightness in Windows). Windows runs great and the Android experience needs a bit of work. At the time of the review ( April 12th) there is no OTA that fixes the build.prop configuration issue that stops the Play Store from loading. It feels as if the software just isn’t quite 100% there yet. There is a fair amount of Chinese bloatware from Teclast and the stock Android launcher is average at best. Android and Windows store games run great on the unit and it even handled Call of Duty MW3 like a champion besting most of the other tablets I’ve tested.

Saying that, I would still take this tablet over the likes of the Onda v116w or even the Teclast X10HD 3G.

Buy this Product

Good

  • Good 3D performance
  • Screen is brighter than most tablets tested
  • Excelent solid build qaulity
  • 3G support with a micro sim slot
  • Loud audio output via headphone jack
  • Thin at 8.1mm

Bad

  • Static buzz over the headphone jack
  • Windows 8.1 Pro wasn't activated on our unit
  • Play Store needs a build prop edit to work
  • Bad port layout
  • Battery meter stuck at 7% issue in Windows
7.7

Good

3 Comments

  1. Do this device have a free office 365 with it ?

  2. I have two big problems with this tablet. The first one, gigantic, is that windows is in chinase, is a windows 8.1 single language, and tried hours of fixing and nothing … and the second one i cannot use shift key in android (with original physical keyboard) …

    • I had the same issue with the shift key in Android, seems it does work with these keyboards. Same on the PiPo W3F dual boot. As for the Chinese issue, I had this problem on the Onda v116w. I had to install my own Windows 8.1 ISO, before you do that as your seller for a offline English language pack. They have the backs to install. Something about that Windows Pro Chinese connected version blocks traffic from outside of of China looking for the language packs.

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