Teclast F7 Plus: new budget notebook with 14 inches for $336.96

With the Teclast F7 Plus, the Chinese manufacturer is launching an upgrade version of the Teclast F7 on the market. In addition to a current Celeron N4100, there is now more and newer SSD system and main memory. The design has also been fundamentally revised. But that seems very familiar to me. The Teclast F7 Plus now looks like a laptop of the CHUWI LapBook series, with better specs!

• Teclast F7 Plus Laptop
  • at GearBest for $336.96 | AliExpress for $349.99

Technical data

Why does Teclast offer more & better storage?

I am currently becoming more and more sympathetic towards Teclast! Compared to other manufacturers, the Chinese manufacturer is not stingy with ROM and RAM, but always gives his notebook fast SSD memory and sufficient memory. Meanwhile, CHUWI or JUMPER usually give you slower eMMC memory and often only 4 GB RAM – not exactly future-oriented.

The highlight: Teclast has had its own research and development team for mass storage devices for 18 years. In addition, Teclast is not dependent on external suppliers; there is a separate supply chain for core components that are required for the company’s own production of mass memory modules. This explains why Teclast has a significant competitive advantage in this area.

Differences between Teclast F7 Plus and Teclast F7

With the Teclast F7 Plus, the 14-inch model series is also being upgraded from the older Intel Celeron N3450 to the newer Intel Celeron N4100. As always with budget laptops, an external graphics card is not used. Instead, the Intel UHD Graphics 600 on-board chip is used.

The first batch of the Teclast F7 was still shipped with 64 GB eMMC (like our test model), but a short time later there was an update to a 128 SSD, which can now also be found in the new Teclast F7 Plus. In addition there is a solid 8 GB energy efficient LPDDR4 RAM. A solid basis for office work, multitasking, surfing and video streaming.

In the area of connections there is now a second USB-A 3.0 port instead of a USB-A 2.0 port. Micro-HDMI also became a mini-HDMI port, which I personally welcome, as the mini-HDMI port is at least a bit more robust. Otherwise there is still a MicroSD slot and a headphone input.

The battery capacity has only slightly increased from 37 Wh to 38 Wh, so the manufacturer promises an average battery life of about eight hours. As with its predecessor, the Teclast F7 Plus also features dual WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. In addition, a newer Bluetooth 4.2 module is implemented here.

Teclast Notebook with CHUWI Design

With the CHUWI LapBook SE, which we already tested at the end of last year, CHUWI’s new, uniform design line celebrated its debut. The “Herobook” and “LapBook Pro” models, which have already been introduced but cannot yet be purchased, will also have a very similar look.

I immediately liked the design of the CHUWI LapBook SE: large keyboard with keys almost up to the edge of the case, with backlight, large touchpad and all in a high-quality aluminium body. You see, I’m a fan of the design.

Therefore I am personally pleased that the new Teclast F7 Plus appears in a very similar aluminium body. The phenomenon that laptops from different manufacturers look almost identical has already been observed several times. There are clear parallels between the Jumper EZBook X1 and the Teclast F5. The same applies to Jumper EZBook X3 and CHUWI LapBook Air.

I could well imagine that components like the case are partly sourced from the same suppliers, but I’m not sure. Either way, it’s certainly no coincidence that the new Teclast F7 Plus looks similar to the upcoming CHUWI models, as the manufacturer has earned a lot of popularity on the net. What do you think of Teclast’s approach? Is it okay or should they have designed something more independent?