Tablets

Teclast T40 Plus : test / review

Published on: 26-08-2021 / Modified: 15-04-2023

I have mainly focused on smartphone tests in recent months but I told myself that I would be tempted by a tablet to get an idea of what Chinese manufacturers had to offer for around € 200. So I bought a Chuwi Hipad Plus and I was positively amazed by the quality of this tablet. So I told myself that I was not going to stop there by testing another brand and this time I chose the Teclast T40 Plus which was available for a price similar to the Chuwi Hipad Plus.

Teclast has been active for a long time in the marketing of Android tablets and can be found in almost all major stores on the internet (Aliexpress, Banggood, Amazon, ...). The Teclast T40 Plus is an entry-level tablet that runs on Android 11 with a 10.4 inch screen of 1200x2000 pixels which undoubtedly represents one of the strongest arguments of the tablet. This tablet seems to offer better performance than the Chuwi I tested and all without pushing up the price. This test should therefore help you make a choice between these two tablets.

Manufacturer web site:
https://www.teclast.com
Site where I have bought the Teclast T40 Plus: https://www.banggood.com/custlink/GmGY0HZpek

Structure of my test

I test tablets according to a pre-set structure (see below) to provide you with as much information as possible. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of time. Some tests like the network performance tests take several days and for the photo tests I sometimes have to wait for good weather to take pictures in good conditions. I am therefore obliged to publish the tests step by step, so I invite you to come back if the test is not complete at the time of your visit.

Price Teclast T40 Plus

The list below shows the prices for the Teclast T40 Plus from more than 50 sites around the world. If you are not satisfied with any price, you can subscribe to a price alert to be the first to be notified when the price drops.

The above links are affiliate links from companies such as Amazon, Gearbest, Aliexpress,... If you appreciate my work, I would be grateful if you could purchase these products through these links. It costs you absolutely nothing but I get a small commission that allows me to buy the material I test. Thank you very much!

Timeline

August 2, 2021: purchase of the Teclast T40 Plus tablet on Banggood in presale
August 25, 2021: I received the tablet, the test can therefore begin

Why this tablet?

I am not a big consumer of tablets because tablets are designed first and foremost for browsing content where I am more active in content production. So I prefer to use a computer with a big screen because anyway I have to use a computer for my other activities. Why a tablet then? Tablets are quite similar to smartphones so I am not straying from my favorite field to test this kind of product. What interests me in a tablet is the quality of the screen because even more than for a smartphone, the screen of a tablet represents its raison d'être.

The screen of the Teclast has a size of 10.4 inches with a very good resolution of 1200x2000, it is the first thing that motivated me to buy this tablet. Then there is the price, I got this tablet for 171 €, at this price it is difficult to find much better. I don't expect to perform very well, but again, a tablet at this price point is mostly designed to consume video, spend time reading or checking social media.

Unpacking

The Teclast T40 Plus is delivered in a fairly large box in which we find the tablet, a charger, a USB cable, a needle to open the sim drawer and a manual in several languages.

The set is fairly well packed, the quality impression is the same as with the box of the Chuwi except that the Chuwi tablet was better protected by foam.

First configuration

The Teclast T40 Plus runs on Android and follows a configuration process identical to other devices running on Android. Teclast hasn't added a screen to trick you into downloading apps or signing up for a service you don't need.

Finish

The Teclast T40 Plus does not seem to have any particular demands on the finish, the Chuwi clearly wanted to attack the top of the range. This does not mean that the Teclast does not have a good finish, it does offer a more understated level of finish. The rear is covered with a 2-tone metallic surface, the darker surface is arguably made of plastic but it mimics metal to the touch quite well.

The edges follow the same principle as the back, there are two types of material. Metal is present on 3 edges and plastic is present on the fourth edge.

The screen has a clearly visible border, this border is much thicker than on the Chuwi Hipad Plus.

The Teclast is designed to be used in landscape mode, the photo sensor is located in the middle of the horizontal slice. If I take the tablet in this direction, I find the volume at the top left. The sim drawer, the power button and the USB port are found on the left edge of the tablet. There are no other buttons on the other sides of the tablet. The sim drawer can hold a sim card and a memory card.

The camera is housed at the back and protected by a metal rim which protrudes slightly from the back of the phone. If you place the tablet on its back, you will see a slight gap caused by the presence of the photo sensor.

The Teclast T40 Plus has a slightly lower level of finish than the Chuwi but for this price, I find the result to be more than correct.

Specifications

The information below comes from the Device Info HW application. The application provides detailed technical information about the tested phone. I don't test a lot of tablets and the components of this Teclast for the most part seem to be specific to this tablet. The comparison with other tablets or other smartphones is therefore more complicated. The CPU is of a type that I have not yet tested and from that result other choices such as the GPS chipset or the 4G modem which come from manufacturers that I do not know. For smartphones, the vast majority of components are linked to Qualcomm or Mediatek but here we start on a Unisoc, only the GPU is a knowledge standby (Mali G52).

The Teclast T40 Plus is generous in RAM with its 8Gb and 128 Gb of storage, the Chuwi Hipad Plus only had 4Gb of RAM and the same storage capacity of 128Gb. For the battery, it is the Chuwi which wins the duel with 7000 mAh against 6600 on this Teclast.

Here are the detailed technical characteristics:

CPU / GPU Performance

As I wrote in the previous paragraph, this tablet does not use a CPU from Mediatek or Qualcomm. The Teclast T40 Plus is based on a Unisoc T618 CPU which in terms of performance is at the level of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 or a Mediatek Helio G35, so it is not a high performance CPU but I would detail the performance in the next paragraph.

For the graphics part, the tablet is based on a Mali G52 GPU found in many phones, including the Redmi Note 9 or the Honor 9x. So it's not a high performance GPU either. The screen size shouldn't hamper the tablet too much as smartphones using the same type of GPU usually have an equivalent resolution.

Benchmark Antutu/3DMark

I got a score of 193,786 points with Antutu, it's not an extraordinary score, the Teclast offers a performance similar to a Poco M3, a Redmi Note 9 or an Umidig Bison. This level of performance is sufficient to offer a completely satisfactory daily experience but this tablet is not designed for hard core gamers even if it will be able to run most simple games without any problem. I didn't notice any slowing down on basic use (surfing the internet, youtube video, ...), I just sometimes noticed a lag between the sound of the keyboard keys and the display of them.

Gaming

To test the performance in game, I download the mobile PUBG game and evaluate the in-game experience, graphics level and depth of vision. This game is quite demanding and should help you evaluating the performance of a phone.

The Teclast T40 Plus is not a gaming tablet but it allows you to run games like PUBG Mobile without problems. I have chosen the HD level for this demo and as you can see the gaming experience is quite decent. On a 10-inch screen, the flaws in the graphics are much more visible than on a smartphone but the size of the screen brings a playing comfort that a smartphone cannot offer, the two experiences are equal. It probably lacks a little fps and a 90hz screen for the experience to be perfectly smooth but in this price range, the Teclast offers quite acceptable performance.

Wifi performance

To test a phone's ability to receive the network properly, I take measurements near my router and then remotely (and always at the same place). This gives me an average in dBm where a value of -90 dBm indicates poorer performance than a value at -30 dBm.

Wifi signal

I measured a -25dBm signal near my router and a -67dBm signal at a distance. These are average values of what I usually measure, so the sensitivity to the wifi signal is neither extraordinary nor bad.

Download/Upload speed

To test the speed in Wifi, I connect to my router in 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz (if available) and use the Ookla application to measure the speed.

GPS performance

To test the quality of the GPS signal I use the Offline Maps application and I make the same train trip in pedestrian mode. Why? In pedestrian mode, the GPS does not artificially correct the signal to stick to the road, it has no markings, so you can see the actual position. I then use an application to measure the accuracy of the signal.

The Teclast is equipped with a GPS chipset that I have never tested before and by running the precision test, the precision fell to 1 meter quite quickly but unfortunately this level of precision quickly deteriorated and then fluctuated at the 5-meter level. This level of precision is not very good and the fix seems to take a lot of time, so this tablet is not very good for GPS.

4G signal

This tablet can accommodate a SIM card, so I tested it as a phone with my probe to assess its sensitivity to the network. I performed 1259 measurements with the Teclast T40 Plus and got an average signal of -102.71 dBm with -99 dbm and -120 dBm at both ends. At the same time I obtained a signal of -93.602 dBm with the probe, the difference with the tablet is quite large. The tablet's sensitivity to the 4G network is below average but where it would be problematic with a phone, I think this problem is less important for a tablet because a priori, it is not intended to replace a phone.

Battery range

Charging time
I charged the Teclast T40 Plus battery from 0 to 100% in 262 minutes, this corresponds to a charging speed of 0.37% of the battery every minute. It is not a very fast charge but it is quite linear up to plus or minus 90%. The last 10 percent are particularly slow.

Autonomy
With 100% brightness, I get 428 minutes of battery life and with 50% brightness I got 1036 minutes. This level of battery life should allow you to use the tablet for two days in normal use before having to recharge it. The manufacturer announces an autonomy of 10 hours but he does not indicate under what conditions this autonomy was measured.

Photo camera test

To test the quality of photos, I do a technical test (resolution, sharpness, chromatic aberration,...) in studio (identical conditions) to evaluate the technical part objectively. From the second half of 2020, I built my own laboratory to take completely objective technical measurements. I then take pictures in real conditions to see how the camera performs. I then evaluate these photos according to my criteria but I publish the photos so that you can evaluate the result according to your criteria.

Photo quality

Photo test / studio

Entry-level tablets like this can't compete with their smartphone counterparts. The photo quality of the best smartphones under $ 200 is significantly better than a tablet can produce. This is not for me a determining factor because the tablet is probably not the ideal tool for taking pictures. I also do not understand those who walk with a tablet on vacation to take pictures wherever they go. A phone takes up much less space and the quality is much better.

For this first test in the studio, I am positively surprised because even if the photo is not of extraordinary quality, I find that the tablet managed to find a good compromise for exposure where many phones produce photos that are too dark. The sharpness at the level of the police car and the rubix cube is quite good but it degrades rather quickly, the periphery passes rather quickly in a zone of blur and the loss of details is visible.

In this photo we can see the loss of detail even better. In the center, the Canadian banknote is sharper than the Hungarian banknote at the bottom right. The facial features on the Hungarian banknote are completely smoothed out and the text blends into a pixel slurry. The colors are not too bad but I would do a separate measurement for the colors.

Photo test / sunny

If I take my usual photo evaluation criteria and apply them to this photo, unfortunately I will quickly come to the conclusion that the Teclast T40 Plus does not produce good photos. The photos are underexposed, the dynamic range is not very wide, the sharpness is not exceptional and the colorimetry is too warm. Tablets are generally not very good for photography, so the Teclast will not stand out for the photo part. I also noticed focusing problems for scenes without difficulties, I ended up with completely blurry photos (without moving).

Video quality

Stabilisation

The Teclast T40 Plus does not have video stabilization.

Video normale conditions

The quality of the photos taken by the Teclast is not very good and the same goes for the videos, I would even say that it is even worse. Videos are underexposed, focus is not very fast, sharpness is poor, and dynamic range is too narrow. For this video, I had the sun in my back and the light was visible on the stones. Sunlight is hardly visible. The Teclast is therefore not the tablet to buy if you want to take photos or videos.

Audio quality

Speakers

The Teclast T40 Plus is equipped with 4 speakers arranged on the wide edge of the tablet, so you won't be clogging one of the speakers with your hands if you are using the tablet in landscape mode. The Teclast produces a very deep sound in the highs that lacks a bit of depth in the bass. I measured a sound level passing regularly 90db with my sound level meter.

Headphones (jack)
The sound with the headphones offers a deeper bass sound and a less pronounced high pitched sound, it is in fact the opposite of what I hear with the speakers. The sound with headphones is of decent quality, I compared the frequency coverage with a Poco X3 and I see that the tablet reproduces bass sounds more faithfully and treble sounds less faithfully. The differences are not very large so probably not noticeable to ordinary people.

The sound produced with headphones is more powerful and does not distort too much, I did not measure any major sound distortion or in any case nothing to disturb an uninformed ear.

Screen quality

To test the screen, I use a colorimetric probe that measures the color accuracy of a screen, as well as other parameters to see if a screen is able to correctly reproduce an image. I also test the brightness level to determine if the screen will be able to display an image in full sunlight.

Colorimetry

The Teclast T40 Plus offers several options for the display and the option chosen by default results in a dE of 4.54, this is a bit too much and I found the colors to be a bit too cool. I tested several modes and the mode offering the best colorimetry is the "automatic contrast" mode with the choice of a warmer color temperature. I thus obtain a dE 2.12, it is an excellent score.

Brightness / Contrast

I measured a brightness of 468 cd / m² with the brightness at 100% and flooding the sensor with light. I haven't seen any options to increase the brightness beyond this number. With 468 cd / m², you should be able to use the tablet pretty much anywhere except maybe under a very bright sun.

I measured a contrast ratio of 1149: 1, it is a fairly normal value for this type of screen. I got a gamma of 2.12 by measuring the gray scales, that's a good score too.

Operating system

Not yet available / tested

Encoutered bugs

Not yet available / tested

Test / Review conclusion

The Teclast T40 Plus is the second entry-level tablet I've tested, so I'll compare it with the Chuwi Hipad Plus, the other entry-level tablet I've tested. The Teclast did not bet everything on its exterior appearance, it has a more common appearance than the tablet from Chuwi but that does not mean that its level of finish is bad, it is rather the Chuwi which had a level of higher finish than what is found in this price range.

On the performance side, the Teclast does a little better than the Chuwi but the two tablets offer performance comparable to an entry-level phone. You can easily consume media (internet, social networks, videos, ...) but if you want to play, you will have to make concessions on the level of graphics. Neither the Teclast nor the Chuwi are intended for a gamer audience. If you don't play resource-hungry games, both tablets will bring you a good experience.

The Teclast offers better connectivity than the Chuwi because it can be used on the 4G network, it is GPS compatible and has good wifi sensitivity. The 4G sensitivity of the Teclast is not extraordinary but it is sufficient for mobile use where you do not have wifi.

The battery life is a little better on the Chuwi because the capacity is simply greater, the energy efficiency of the Teclast is average and it will allow you to last two days in normal use.

For the photo part, it's a very clear disappointment, the photos are frankly not very good, it was also the case for the Chuwi. Tablets aren't the benchmarks for photo quality, phones usually do better.

On the sound side, the two tablets produce correct sound, the Teclast pushes the treble a little too much on its external speakers, but with headphones the problem is not present.

The screen of the Teclast offers a much better colorimetry than that of the Chuwi, the Teclast also offers more brightness and a rather similar contrast.

In this price range, the Teclast offers an interesting quality / price ratio for those who mainly want to consume non-greedy media (music, video, social networks, ...) The tablet is light, it has a good level of finish, it is fast and has a quality screen.

Strengths

- connectivity: wifi, 4G, bluetooth and GPS
- screen quality (good colorimetry)
- good level of finish
- sound quality with headphones

Weaknesses

- photo / video quality
- performance too low for demanding games
- sound from external speakers too high

LAURENT WILLEN
Head of myself on this blog

I share my passions on my blog in my free time since 2006, I prefer that to watching nonsense on TV or on social networks. I work alone, I am undoubtedly one of the last survivors of the world of blogs and personal sites.

My speciality? Digital in all its forms. I have spent the last 25 years working for multinationals where I managed digital teams and generated revenues of over €500 million per year. I have expertise in telecoms, media, aviation, travel and tourism.