I purchased the Teclast M89 to replace my Asus Z580 (P01M). I selected the M89 due to the screen and price. I didn’t find any new tablets with the same screen resolution for under $200.
The good:
The M89 has essentially no bloatware and a relatively current Android 7.0 OS. Performance and battery life are sufficient for a day’s intermittent use for web browsing, reading news, and watching video. Wi-Fi connectivity is as good at both 2.4 and 5 GHz as my other devices and better than the Asus at 2.4 GHz (the Asus didn’t have 5 GHz). A Samsung EVO 128 GB micro-SD card didn’t work when first installed but has worked fine after it was formatted using the tablet. The screen looks great.
The not so good:
The GPS only recognizes the U.S. satellite constellation. It acquires the satellites faster than the Asus did, but not nearly as fast as my Samsung cell phones. Sensitivity is better than the Asus — it acquired a fix indoors where the Asus wouldn’t. There is no compass. I would not recommend this tablet for navigation.
When listening to audio using Panasonic earbuds, I did not hear the hissing or other continuous noise that some have reports. However, when using Google Player or VLC it would drop out or skip a beat every 25 seconds or so. This only happens on audio files, not on videos for some reason. Fortunately there is a work around — turn off notifications in VLC and open the equalizer window and leave it on screen while the audio is playing. If I find a better fix I’ll update the review.
The AC adapter supplied with the tablet did not have a U.S. plug. An adapter was supplied but it was almost as large as the AC adapter itself. Fortunately standard USB power supplies work fine with it.
Summary:
I’m happy with the M89 and now that I’ve found a way to remove the annoying audio glitch it has replaced my older Asus. It seems like the limited GPS satellite and audio issues could be resolved with a firmware update if Teclast cares enough to release one. The build number on my M89 is V2.13.20180906, Kernel version 3.18.35, Android security patch level April 5, 2017. There is a Teclast OTA app to check for updates.
DRM Info reports ClearKey CDM as Google Version 1.0 and the Widevine CDM security level as L3. HDCP is unprotected.
I gave the tablet an “8” rating due to the great screen, excellent Wi-Fi, the great price, and the lack of bloatware (a major issue with my old Asus P01M). The GPS and audio issues kept me from giving it anything higher.
