Teclast X6 Pro 2 in 1 tablet review – does it have keyboard?

Processor Speed Not Quite As Stated

Quick Overview:

Disclaimer: I have owned Teclast products before and never had a problem. They are a very good company, but on this occasion, I don’t believe the product to be up to scratch.

Pros
-Lovely screen
-Ergonomics feel great
-Full blown Windows 10 is great in such a compact device
-A very decent selection of inputs (e.g. USB) considering how compact it is
-So much potential

Cons
-Not ready-to-go out of the box (requires some updating)
-Regular WiFi connection issues (definitely the product, not the router)
-Overheats doing basic tasks
-Struggles with running basic tasks smoothly
-Listing states 2.2 GHz processor speed, but it is a 0.90 GHz processor over clocked to 1.51 GHz with the possibility to be overclocked to a maximum 2.2 GHz (you do not get this out of the box). If you are stating 2.2 GHz processor speed, the majority of people will expect it to be a 2.2 GHz base clock speed. Overclocking really heats up the machine and using that much power to do basic tasks isn’t great, and even then, in my experience of using this machine, it still doesn’t do those tasks that well. This may be a case of Expectation vs. Reality, but even so, the expectation set by the listing is that it’s a 2.2 GHz base clock. I don’t think this has been intended to be misleading but maybe rather a breakdown in communication between whoever has designed the computer and chosen the components, and the person who then put the listing on Amazon.

If you’d like to read a little bit more about my experience using the X6 Pro, feel free to check out the rest below.

Let’s start with the good.

There are many things to really love about the X6 Pro, most of all the fact that it is a full blown Windows 10 system in an incredibly compact body, when if you compare this to similar products, they more often than not are running a light Operating System such as Windows 10 S or Android (like the majority of tablets unless you go with an Apple product) or something similar, so I tip my hat to Teclast for that. It truly does have a sleek design and ergonomically feels great to use. It is a slightly heavier tablet, as is to be expected, and so the slightly larger bezels most commonly associated with laptops instead of tablets are useful for finding a comfortable position to hold it in, although expect your hand to get tired after a little while.

The screen is very pleasant to look at and the touch response is good, most of the time (more about speed and performance below). It is a little unusual watching videos on the screen as it has dimensions which end up leaving you with letter-boxing (the black bars) on the top and the bottom of your screen, but this is fine once you get used to it, and is perfectly acceptable when you think about the mount of screen real estate the extra space gives you.

The speakers are okay. Not great, not terrible, but okay. They are forward facing which is a massive bonus so good design work on that front, but they’re on the lower part of the side bezels, which means if you’re holding it in landscape your natural hand position often covers the speakers up, which is a slight oversight in the design. When I pushed the speakers a little further by adjusting the Speaker EQ Levels, it did get louder (out of the box they’re pretty quiet), but there is a lot to be desired in terms of the quality.

On the surface, this feels like it SHOULD be a great machine to use.

Now for the areas which really need to be addressed (The BAD, if you will):

– When the item first arrived it was running incredibly slow. Boot up time was good, but programs loaded slow, touch response was slow, loading videos and photos was slow. Everything was slow. I spent a long time going through and checking that the drivers were all up to date. There were plenty that needed upgrading. After updating everything that needed to be and restarting the computer there was definitely a clear improvement in performance, but still not as expected. I then ran the Windows Updater and again it needed an update. After this, again, the performance was better but still much slower than expected.

It’s worth noting that even if updating all of the drivers or running Windows Updater DID resolve all of my problems, I don’t know how many every-day non-techy or even slightly computer savvy people would necessarily know how to find the drivers and update them, or think about running Windows Updater. It’s not a hard process, but a lot of people aren’t confident with technology and if that’s the case then they would think that the slow computer they have received is what they’re stuck with. Either way, updating the drivers did not resolve the issue for me.

– I have had regular issues with maintaining a stable connection to WiFi which I haven’t been able to rectify. For some reason this device seems to disconnect and then require a reboot to get it to connect again when all my other devices maintain a stable connection (just confirming this is not a router issue but rather a problem with the device itself). It seems to be when the laptop goes idle for long periods of time, but if you’re selling this to be a Tablet PC then it really needs to be able to sit in idle without losing connection to the internet as tablets do, or even as other laptops do (I have a primary workhorse of a laptop and it’s never had this issue when returning from idle).

– Overheating seems to be common. It has never gotten to the point where the PC has reached thermal throttling, but it gets pretty damn hot when it’s doing pretty much nothing (streaming videos seems to be enough). I understand that this is most likely because this machine is incredibly thin, and from what I can tell either uses passive cooling or incredibly small fans, and I am pretty certain it’s safe, but it can be disconcerting.

– This unfortunately was the clincher for me: the processor speed on the system does not match that stated on the listing, or rather, I don’t think the listing is as clear as it should have been. You can see from the screenshot above that on the listing the stated processor speed is 2.2 GHz (which people would expect to be the base standard and expected out-of-the-box speed of the processor), but when you look at the System Settings it is a 0.9 GHz processor that has been factory overclocked to 1.51 GHz. After looking this processor up, the max overclock speed it can achieve is 2.2 GHz, which is what the listing states. If you are listing the processor to be a 2.2 GHz processor, consumers will expect it to be a 2.2 GHz base speed, NOT the overclocked speed. When you overclock your processor you’re driving more power into it which ultimately makes the processor get hot and should be reserved to heavy duty tasks, not doing basic every day stuff. This will be the root cause of the performance issues that I have experienced.

Finally…

Teclast are a very good company who have been around for a good 10 years and I have owned Teclast memory sticks, power banks and SSD’s before without any issues. They are well known and to be honest do sell quite a lot of very good computer equipment, but on this occasion the product didn’t quite hit the mark with performance.

I would definitely consider buying this machine again if the processor was a 2.2 GHz base speed processor as one would expect from reading the listing, and I think it’s difficult to expect non-tech knowing people to make sure all the software is up to date (I guess this is the benefit of going to a physical retailer in that more often than not they will make sure that the product is ready to use). I love the screen, the battery life is okay, the sound okay, but the BIG win is that the X6 Pro is running full Windows 10. Sadly, the processor performance really lets this PC down. Some others may have had a better experience, but on this occasion I don’t think a replacement would produce better results and I am returning the product.

Lessons learnt…
Don’t necessarily trust the specs stated on a listing. They might not be wrong, but check online first what the specs of the hardware are as the expectation set out by the listing may not truly represent the reality of the product and performance received.

Teclast are a great company who produce very good quality equipment, and the concept for this machine is great, but I think a little more work needs to go into it before I’ll be recommending this particular product to anybody.