Teclast F15 Hands-On First Impressions

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We finally have a large 15.6″ Gemini Lake laptop. And quality one from Tecalst, fully laminated OGS screen 1080p IPS screen, a backlit full-size keyboard including a number pad. For a 15.6″ laptop it’s slim because it’s not actively cooled but passively so no loud fan or having to worry about blocking any fans and later them filling up with dust.

Teclast F15 Hands-on Video index:

00:55 – Unboxing
01:52 – Design & build
04:21 – Screen
05:00 – unlocked bios
08:00 – Keyboard & touchpad
09:35 – Hinge Vs rear ports
10:55 – Audio & sample
11:44 – Battery estimate
12:15 – First look performance
13:12 – Rear ports part 2
13:54 – First impressions
14:15 – Pros & Cons (So far)

The chipset powering the Teclast F15 the now in short supply Celeron N4100, with Intel’s 14nm shortage due to production issues pricing has only been going up. Some like Chuwi resorting to using old Atom’s and 6th gen Core M3’s it’s that bad. 8GB of DDR4 2133Mhz RAM running in dual channel and a Teclast branded M.2 SATA3 2280 SATA3 SSD. Selling current for $419 (with coupon GBNBTCF15) you can see Intel’s 14nm chip shortage at work, expensive considering the low-end CPU.

The screen is an IPS 1920 x 1080 fully laminated panel. Blacks look deep and so far color seems good at first glance but I will measure the sRGB and Adobe RGB values in the full review. For the average consumer, it looks absolutely fine. Top and side bezels are slim giving the F15 a more modern look.

The keyboard is backlit as mentioned, two levels of brightness with decent space and good key travel. Shortcuts for everything and the number pad that is more often than not left out nowadays. The touchpad is just huge, the biggest I’ve seen on a sub $500 laptop. It’s using Windows precision drivers, accuracy is good and so far a joy to use. Not complaints at all. The palm rest like the build of the laptop is made of alloy. No real keyboard flex under normal typing pressure it’s very solid.

The build overall is excellent, well finished with a premium look and feel to it. Somewhat heavy however at 1.89 kilos and 16mm thick.

Other specs include rear-mounted USB 3.0 x 2 ports, MicroSD slot and HDMI 2.0A (4k60hz) and D/C charging. The battery Teclast claim to be 45Wh, but HWinfo and Battery Bar Pro both report about 43Wh. Which is looking to be good for around 7 maybe 8 hours so far in my early testing. As seen in my hands-on video the SSD speeds are fine, the Geekbench 4.0 score is great for the chipset and overall performance seems quick for light office type work, video, and web browsing.

The final review will feature full battery specs, some light games like LoL and CS:GO, plus a quick Linux support test. So check back for that in a weeks time.

Pros:

Solid premium build quality and finish
Bright OGS screen, slim bezels, deep blacks
8GB DDR4 2133Mhz dual channel RAM
256GB SSD, with 2242 & 2260 size support
Super large accurate touchpad
Great backlit keyboard with number pad
Almost no keyboard flex and good key travel
Clean 3.5mm audio output no static
Full sized HDMI 2.0A spec (4k 60hz)
Completely unlocked bios

Cons:

Expensive for the spec. (Love to see Core M3-8100Y version)
A bit heavy, around 460 grams heavier than the F7 Plus
Matte screen or touch support would be more practical
Weak speakers should be louder
Ports at the rear, no type-c

https://techtablets.com/2019/03/teclast-f15-hands-on-first-impressions/