Which is the NEW King of 9.7" air tablets?

[BamaPanda]

I hope to hear from other Cube T9 users on their opinion if the Cube T9 is the new reigning champ of the 9.7" realm - replacing the Cube Talk 9X!

Or should we look to ...
Teclast, Onda, iFive? All have great examples of Chinas answer to the iPad Air as well!

Regarding the T9, I know that there has been a few issues with the screen, but I would think it was mostly early models, and Cube has shown itself good to take care of QC issues in the past.

The T9 is slightly heavier than some other 9.7" models, and not as thin. Still the MT8752 CPU and Mali-T760 is one of the fastest combos available in China tabs today, and a bigger battery makes for longer use. The rest of it is just excellent Cube quality.

The build quality has been brought into question because of its plastic back (necessary with three antennas), but I see nothing wrong with it at all. Just a new type of build! It is solid with no creaks, just put together right!


New champ?
T9
Teclast T98
Onda V919
FNF iFive Air
Another??



Video

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?23264-Cube-T9-impressions-video&p=284003#post284003

[giouncino]

As owner of Cube talk 9x I can say that the battery of T9 is exactly the same of Cube talk 9x.

Keeping in mind all I've heard about T9, I think that on MT8752 SoC, the Teclast T98 is a little bit better product wrt T9:

-lighter
-no grainy screen issue
-fast as T9
-on the same level of T9 (or probably a little bit better) regarding build quality. I think that Talk 9x is still the very best on this specific aspect.

It has a little bit less battery life, but it still can reach 10 hours, so I think it's more than enough!

If I need to buy a new tablet, even if a love new cube products, I would give Teclast with the T98 a possibility...

[Vohukain]

Teclast T98

I can totally agree with giouncino. I think that Cube Talk 9X was the best choise back in summer 2014 but now T9 and Teclast T98 are slightly better. If I bought a new tablet now it would be Teclast T98.

Teclast has a good build quality like giouncino said. (I think that Cube and Teclast are the best in this category with small price tag. How ever Cube have had issues with screens lately). I would only add to that what giouncino said this: T98 has also almost all needed frequencies for 3G and 4G in Finland (3G; 2100Mhz and 900Mhz, 4G; 1800Mhz, 2600Mhz (only 800Mhz is missing)). T9 doesn't have 900Mhz 3G and 800Mhz 4G connection. Lack of 900Mhz 3G is bad thing in Finland.

[Edius]

Teclast T98

I was looking over 4pda forum on Teclast section and found some usefull opinions.
- problems with battery (sudden shutdown at 10-8%)
- Antutu score ~ 37000 for Teclast compared with Cube T9 ~41000 is 10% lower.
- very hot when charging - that is not too good for battery health on long term.
- firmware bloated with chinese app's who can't be removed without root - in T9 all chines apps can be removed after fresh install/reset without any root.
- bootloader seems to be locked and a special procedure needed to unlock before any rooting attempt.
- lower battery capacity in specs (8500mA vs. T9's 10000mA) that will provide enough juice for ~ 7 1/2 hours vs. 9 1/2 hours on T9.

+ quality screen IGZO G+G.
+ stereo speakers (have no ideea about sound quality), but in T9 sound is very good too compared with Talk 9X's very poor quality speakers.
+aluminium back shell (lower weight, but in theory will decrease WiFi/GPS and your carrier signal)...do not forget that Cube T9 have three antennas (2 in upper part and the third at the bottom, the last one was put on the second speaker place) and I can say for sure that T9 is far better on communication quality if I'm looking at U65GT or T98.

Looking over all +'s and -'s, I'll still go for Cube T9 today due to better functionality/performance (screen quality is 100% what you guys have in your earlier 9X's after mate inner film was removed and I have no reason to consider that a " - " for T9 screen quality).

[BamaPanda]

I was looking over 4pda forum on Teclast section and found some usefull opinions.
- problems with battery (sudden shutdown at 10-8%)
- Antutu score ~ 37000 for Teclast compared with Cube T9 ~41000 is 10% lower.
- very hot when charging - that is not too good for battery health on long term.
- firmware bloated with chinese app's who can't be removed without root - in T9 all chines apps can be removed after fresh install/reset without any root.
- bootloader seems to be locked and a special procedure needed to unlock before any rooting attempt.
- lower battery capacity in specs (8500mA vs. T9's 10000mA) that will provide enough juice for ~ 7 1/2 hours vs. 9 1/2 hours on T9.

+ quality screen IGZO G+G.
+ stereo speakers (have no ideea about sound quality), but in T9 sound is very good too compared with Talk 9X's very poor quality speakers.
+aluminium back shell (lower weight, but in theory will decrease WiFi/GPS and your carrier signal)...do not forget that Cube T9 have three antennas (2 in upper part and the third at the bottom, the last one was put on the second speaker place) and I can say for sure that T9 is far better on communication quality if I'm looking at U65GT or T98.

Looking over all +'s and -'s, I'll still go for Cube T9 today due to better functionality/performance (screen quality is 100% what you guys have in your earlier 9X's after mate inner film was removed and I have no reason to consider that a " - " for T9 screen quality).

Regarding the Teclast I am a bit surprised ...the vote for it to equal anything from Cube, as I have read some of the same things regarding issues with the T98.

There have been a few in this forum who had T9 problems, but I am thinking it was early production models. Were any actually returned?

As for the matte, I personally find no issue with it. Maybe mine was applied correctly. Still what seems to be is mostly the perception after it is compared to say, the T98 ...and it is not quite as vivid and bright. Cube apparently done this to cut down glare, and I am OK with that.

Oh, well. It is still by far the best I have owned. It has my vote!

[BamaPanda]

As owner of Cube talk 9x I can say that the battery of T9 is exactly the same of Cube talk 9x.

Keeping in mind all I've heard about T9, I think that on MT8752 SoC, the Teclast T98 is a little bit better product wrt T9:

-lighter
-no grainy screen issue
-fast as T9
-on the same level of T9 (or probably a little bit better) regarding build quality. I think that Talk 9x is still the very best on this specific aspect.

It has a little bit less battery life, but it still can reach 10 hours, so I think it's more than enough!

If I need to buy a new tablet, even if a love new cube products, I would give Teclast with the T98 a possibility...

Just wondering if you had acquired a T9 yet?

Regarding the grainy screen issue, I am hoping that was just a few examples ....just like those few reported with the 9X. I do not see any grain with mine, and I would assume it has the same matte attached to the underside for glare.

[giouncino]

No, as I wrote, I don't see any reason to switch from my beloved Cube talk 9x to another tablet at the moment!

But cube T9 and Teclast T98 are the tablets to go for at the moment (both are good!), but between them I still prefer T98:

- latest FW revision of T98 makes rooting procedure simple as for T9
- bloatware is not an issue, once rooted...
- antutu is not a reliable benchmark: every Antutu revision gives very different results, T9 and T98 SoC are the same, then performance are practically identical.

About battery life, I've read 10 hours for T98, in browsing, and for me, is enough.

T98 touchscreen and display are better on T98 and these are the strongest points of this tab, compared to the T9
Furthermore, a weight of over 600gr is too much for a modern tablet, where Apple with its iPad Air 2 was able to go less than 500gr...T98 weight is 510gr, quite good!
I've not read any communication problem with T98 with it's alluminum back cover (never had issues with my talk 9x with its alluminum back cover too)
Teclast have stereo speaker, a plus that I forgot!

In any case MT8752 proved to be a fantastic SoC: low power and very good performer!

PS: About prices:

Cube U65GT 16Gb is 153€
Cube T9 / Teclast T98 32Gb are 222€

I don't care about +16Gb and 4G at the moment so a price difference of 70€ is quite high, furthermore I don't like going over the psycological limit of 200€ for a chinese product...

I still consider cube U65GT a bergain! Great reliability and quality at a very low price!
But thinking at the future it's better to go for a T9 or T98, hoping for a lollipop update.

[Edius]

Larger battery= more weight in my opinion.
Price is higher too (comparison on the same vendor) .. today ~23 $ cheaper for T9 (maybe higher for T98 due to IGZO G+G screen).
..and orders number is relevant too.
Antutu .. same SoC but different nand used... T98 have some generic LPDDR3 (in T9 we have faster Samsung nand LPDDR3) and this could be the main difference with inpact on Antutu score/overall performance.
One good thing is we have the same SoC, two different factories with an different aproach:
T9 - faster (~610g/9,4mm)/Dual anti-rolling frames/Dual antennas/10000mAh battery
T98 - IGZO screen (520g/7,4mm)/stereo speakers/8500mAh battery

[giouncino]

Honestly I don't think that Antutu can be used as example...

I think that opening a T98 the LPDDR3 can be the same of T9 too, simply teclast didn't advertised that. More than that RAM performances are not driven by the brand, but by the frequency and more important the latency of them!

I don't want to defend Teclast at all costs (I've never had the possibility to use Teclast product by myself), I'm simply evaluating products...

here the price of T98 (249,99$ shipping included, the same of T9):

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Teclast-T98-4G-LTE-MT8752T-64Bit-Octa-Core-Android-4-4-Tablet-PC-9-7inch-2048x1536/32256191457.html

[BamaPanda]

On reflection I made have been a bit hard on Teclast. I had seen a video showing internal build between a X98 and a Onda V919, and I got them reversed in my mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vspDY3mw7fw

Still Teclast seems to have many reported instances of QC issues. This could be due to them being a big player in China (lots of tablets built).

Hats off to the T98. Looks to be a really nice tab.

Hopefully the QC issues that they have had will get better in the near future..

NOTE ...I changed the original posting to Who is the NEW King of 9.7" air tablets?


It surely is changing, no doubt, and Teclast looks to be a player (if they get QC better).

[greebly]

I do not have a T98 nor have I ever had the opportunity to see/use/test one. It is easy to defend a purchase to justify the choise. I don't try. I have a talk 9x and purchased a cube T9. I paid $242.00 U.S. shipped. I prefer the T9 compared to the talk 9x. But would be happy with either. I have had zero issues with the T9, but have only had it a week. My guess from the specs of each it comes down to how good support is from the manufacturer. How current they provide updates, how soon they implement lollipop ( if they do at all) and how well they handle problems that come up.

[giouncino]

Software support seems good on Teclast too!
(OTA update is working properly on Teclast tablets)

About Lollipop, more than Teclast and Cube is a matter of WHEN Mediatek will release the suitable source codes for their SoC (MT8752 and hopefully for my beloved MT8392) capable of the new Google OS!

[Edius]

Software support seems good on Teclast too!
(OTA update is working properly on Teclast tablets)

About Lollipop, more than Teclast and Cube is a matter of WHEN Mediatek will release the suitable source codes for their SoC (MT8752 and hopefully for my beloved MT8392) capable of the new Google OS!

Mediatek already make some steps to Lollipop, Elephone P6000 powered by MT6732 quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 will be updated. In this video is a beta FW.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ghp4vBFhro

L.E And something really insane is detailed here

[BamaPanda]

I do not have a T98 nor have I ever had the opportunity to see/use/test one. It is easy to defend a purchase to justify the choise. I don't try. I have a talk 9x and purchased a cube T9. I paid $242.00 U.S. shipped. I prefer the T9 compared to the talk 9x. But would be happy with either. I have had zero issues with the T9, but have only had it a week. My guess from the specs of each it comes down to how good support is from the manufacturer. How current they provide updates, how soon they implement lollipop ( if they do at all) and how well they handle problems that come up.

You may have noted in prior posts I destroyed my 9X, but I too loved it. Question on the T9.

Do you see & I am curious your opinion on the T9 regarding anything looking like a grainy screen?? There have been some who have had this issue with the T9 (and some also with the 9X) ...but I see nothing here on mine that might be translated as grainy.

And this is not to discount any who have had this issue. It just makes me wonder if Cube left the film off of some models (unlikely); if it was installed wrong ..or if some users are just a bit more aware of something others are not seeing.

Welcome to the forum ...by the way!

[greebly]

BamaPanda, I have held the T9 side by side with my 9x both on the same webpage which is mainly white and could not discern any difference whatsoever between them. I have the original factory applied screen protector and the screen does not appear grainy to me.