The TECLAST TL-T29 8gb - The DaHarder Review

DaHarder · 05-12-2007

Introduction:

The TECLAST TL-T29 has been around for a few months now, but being the type that refuses to buy any DAP smaller than 8gb, I eagerly awaited the availability of the 8gb model.

Well, here it is, and I’d like to share a few of my thoughts on this lil’ bugger.

Design:

The design of the player is really quite nice, and the physical size is a bit of a shocker given the claims that this was some kind of ZUNE-Knockoff by more than a few web sites.

Trust me, the only thing these two players have in common is the fact that they’re both rectangular, with relatively large displays (given their respective sizes) with a round control pad located at (what would appear to be) the bottom/front portion of the player.

Note: The TECLAST is meant to be used in landscape mode, with the control pad to the user’s right.

Admittedly, I’m serious stickler for fit and finish, and in this respect TECLAST has certainly done a fine job, as every seam was mated perfectly with no discernible ‘tooling marks’ or unsightly gaps.

The finish of all visible surfaces was also without flaw, and the plastic coating covering the front and rear areas seems to have done its job well.

It’s a very handsome lil’ player, and because of the dominating 2.0 display, certainly rises above the iPod clone moniker.

Data Transfer:

Upon first plugging the T29 into your computer, it’ll simply appear as a standard removable USB 2.0 drive, so it’s all a matter of ‘drag and drop’ from thereon.
Strangely, for a DAP that supports so many file formats, I wonder why the music directory is labeled MP3 and not simply MUSIC, but it really is a minor issue… all told.

I placed a random sampling of 800 various files (MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, AVI(Xvid), MPEG1) in their respective folders, and found the transfer rate to be about on par with my MEIZU/Apple/Smasung players.

I really didn’t bother going into any serious timing/measurements, because.. well, I found the speed to be quite good, so I left it at that.

Navigation:

Though the player does have both the power as well as the rec/a-b repeat button located on the top right edge of the player,, all GUI functions are accessed via the small joystick surrounded by a glowing red circle.

The tactile feel of the joystick is pleasant enough, though, due to its size, it might prove quite troublesome for those with larger hands/fingers.

There’s nothing really special about this controller, and there’s no learning curve as it simply reacts intuitively to each movement of the users finger/thumb… a Good Thing!

The GUI itself is not bad looking per se, with it’s CLIX meets PSP look, but it lacks in sophistication, and is far too sluggish/lethargic, so much so, that I wonder why they even continue to ‘hype’ the fact that the player has separate CPUs for GUI and Audio, because it obviously did nothing to better performance.

The single biggest annoyance is the lag-time between song, especially when selecting from a long list of files… the worst I’ve yet experienced.

It took anywhere from 33 to 111 seconds to even star the selection at times!

Screen:

The T29 is a very small player at 73.5 x 42.1 x 9.8 mm, yet TECLAST managed to squeeze a rather large 2.0 inch TFT onto its front surface.

With the exception of a few touch screen players available, the T29 represents some of the best space utilization in the industry.

As far as the quality of the screen goes, it really little more than standard fare when compared with its peers., as the viewing angles are no better than some 30-35 degrees off axis, and the color saturation is little more than acceptable.

Sound Quality:

This is the sole reason that I buy DAP units, to listen to high quality music on the go, so brace yourselves, this might take a while…

I’m a big supporter of OGG for music compression, and it’s great that the T29 supports not only OGG, but also MP3, WMA, and FLAC.

The problem is, they all sound pretty terrible, not matter what the bit rate, especially through my SHURE E530 IEM, which tell absolutely no lies!

With all the talk/hype surrounding the use of two separate DAC units in these players, I really find it development money wasted.

When set completely flat, this is by far the most boring and lifeless DAP I’ve heard in a very long time.

ANDREAS VOLLENWEIDER’s White Winds, were simply not blowing at all during the entire listening session, as the low end was left completely unsupported with very little control or punch. The usually ‘spine tingling’ chimes use throughout, were obviously very veiled and in many cases nonexistent.

On HALL & OATS - Big Bang Boom, a great piece of studio work, the ‘sparkle’ was simply nowhere to be found. The liberal use of cow-bell in the refrain of the chorus was buried so far back in the presentation, that it was barely audible.

This was not sounding good, and matters actually got worse when I switched the ERYKAH BADU’s World Wide Underground, where the bottomless bass on DANGER and I WANT YOU caused so much distortion that I couldn’t listen to either of them for more than the first minute.

Ok… Before I give up, I feel obligated to take a listen to PINK FLOYD’s master recording, Dark Side of The Moon… this time changing to less revealing head phones, the AKG K26p.

Ok, this was a bit better, though the cymbals and guitars (definitely) sounded muted and lifeless.

It was at this point, that I did the unthinkable and tried out some of the EQ settings.

1 – ROCK – Pink Floyd (Time) - an improvement, but the bottom end turned somewhat muddy, though not unlistenable, and the highs improved slightly.

2 – JAZZ – AL JARREAU (Alonzo) - The pitch perfect vocals were pushed way too far forward on this setting, the same when listening the SHIRLEY BASSEY’s - Diamonds Are Forever, though the percussion sounded a bit more realistic.

3 – CLASSICAL – TCHAIKOVSKY – (Symphony No. 5 in E minor) – USELESS SETTING… Enough Said!

4 – POP – JUSTIN TIMEBERLAKE – (My Love) – It’s sounded as though the EQ setting were simply configured I some bizarre/extreme ‘u’ shaped configuration, dropping the mid section almost completely of the spectrum… Not Good!

There also two USER EQ setting which are customizable, and a multitude of distortion (and pain) inducing 3d Settings, but after about an hour of tweaking/fiddling, I pretty much gave up, and concluded that the sound quality of the T29, at least for the critical listener, is just sub par, with the best compromise being the ROCK setting with no 3d effects.

Video Playback:

All video to be played on the T29 must first be converted using the included AviCHI software.

Yes the software’s interface is crude and unfortunately uses that same hideous font as the player itself, but it does work, and pretty much swallowed most files I fed it.

Once on the player, the large-ish screen, really does a fine job of entertaining, with acceptable frames rates, and no detectable artifacts during a complete viewing of HEAVY METAL.

Yes, the viewing angle is very limited, but I can’t imagine many ‘multi-watcher’ situations on a DAP with a 2 inch screen.

Additional Features:

TECLAST wasn’t shy about providing a few extra bits of (questionable) functionality in the T29 either:

1 – FM Radio – It works well enough, though nothing special.

2 – Ebook –A very basic text reader, if that’s your thing., also displays lyrics.. Yipeee 

3 – PHOTO Browser – Makes good use of the nice big screen, and the basic slide show works during music playback.

4 – RECORDER – Pretty strong feature on a budget DAP, and works rather well.

5 – DICTIONARY – Difficult to navigate, but works just the same.

6 – CALENDAR – All headings (month/day etc) are NOT in English, so… Somewhat useless.

7 – GAMES – A TETRIS CLONE and a MINE SWEEPER Clone… Ok, I guess.

8 – FILE MANAGER – Without a doubt the slowest file manager ever implemented on any device… Talk about lag-time!

Battery Life:

The battery life is a claimed 15 hours audio/4 hours video, though using OGG files, it returned just under 10 hours of audio playback (under normal use) and made it just under 3 hours of video.

Price:

My TECLAST TL-T29 8gb cost me only US 133.00 shipped http://www.jtcelectronics.biz/servle...eclast+Players, and undoubtedly represents an unprecedented value on the dollar-to-mb scale.

Conclusion:

I mentioned before that the single most important function for any DAP (to me) is to provide a pleasurable Digtal Audio Playback experience, and I’m (somewhat) disappointed to report that the very well manufactured/handsomely designed TL-T29 fails miserably in this area, and no manner of EQ/3d Effect tweaking seemed to better the situation.

When pitted against its peers, the every one of them soundly (pun intended) trounces this lil’ guy!

Yes, it does appear to be a great value for the money, and the video playback really surprised me, but…

If sound quality is NOT your top priority, I'd definitely give the TECLAST TL-T29 a long hard look... The Overall Value Is Unbeatable!

Err0r · 05-13-2007

Nice review! I really enjoyed reading it.

But there are two things I have to disagree with.

The sound quality. Although I initially was a little disappointed with the sound, its clarity still baffles me. Using more sensitive headphones will result in hiss of some players like the Meizu M6 or the iriver Clix, but with T29's dual circuitry design, the S/N ratio is very impressive, eliminating almost all hiss.
The speed. I personally did not encounter speed problems when casually listening. But then again, I used the 1GB model, which would not hold as much music as yours.

DaHarder · 05-13-2007

Please understand, that I tend to be extremely demanding when it comes to sound quality.

These are the headphones/IEMs I auditioned the T29 with:

OVC T100

V-Moda Vibes

AKG K2p

Ultimate.Ears Super.fi 5 Pro

Ultimate.Ears Triple.Fi 10 pro

Sennheiser HD497

Sennheiser HD600

GRADO SR-80

ALESSANDRO MS-1

SHURE E530

SHURE E4c

SHURE E3c

All straight from the player, and with my C&C XO/Go-Vibe 5s headphone amps.

The player is not a total loss, but the audio quality is greatly lacking in my opinion, and I'm far from just a casual listener.

DimaMP4 · 05-13-2007

Great review!

btw DaHarder, could you like sell me a pair of earphones? you sure got a lot, I have like cheap shitphones. LOL

DaHarder · 05-13-2007

LOL!

Dude, if you only knew, I'm into the hundreds when it comes to headphones/IEMs.

Look no further than the Crossroads MylarOne or MylarThree...

They retail for (roughly) US 39.00 and 57.00 respectively, and sound better than most IEM units costing many times more.

http://www.jaben.net/

DimaMP4 · 05-13-2007

Nice...but ouch, if I only had that much cash ^^ lol

ckinnane · 05-13-2007

I have the C260 which has I think has maybe 10 - 15 Db more noise than the T29.

The only problem I have is that its extremely fussy with impedance. My Sennheiser HD650s are my ultimate headphones, but on the C260, they pick up the noise from the touchpad, it almost acts like a transducer, picking up your finger taps and movements near and on the headphone plug, I imagine the C280 is similar.

I have a headphone AMP, which I haven't tried it with yet - I just picked up the new Sony MDREX90LP bud phones - with the right EQ, they sound fantastic on a C260 (Sonys are naturally bright, but the range is all there 5Hz - 25 Khz.)

There is no noise from the player I can detect with the bud headphones and the only hiss I hear is dependent on the recording alone.

DaHarder · 05-13-2007

The T29 sounds better when played through my C&C XO, C7C Box+ or Go-Vibes 5s or 6, so the headphone out is most likely the reason for the poor sound quality, but let be honest here...

This is a BUDGET DAP, and few if any potential buyers even know (or care) what a headphone amp is/does.

DimaMP4 · 05-14-2007

Err0r, you have also a Meizu Music Card, which one do you like better? Because I should get my Music Card soon. ^^

DaHarder · 05-14-2007

I also have a couple of MEIZU M3s (white 4gb and black 8gb)...

Between the MEIZU and the TECLAST, I'd take the M3 for its outstanding music playback, and overall refinement.

The TECLAST is great if the larger screen, better video playback, and better value appeal to you, though it suffers greatly in others areas, and feels more like a OEM/generic product than does the M3.