The Intel Atom processors are low-power chips designed for smartphones, tablets, and other small and relatively affordable devices. This year Intel is introducing several new members of the Atom family ranging from the reasonably powerful Atom x7 chips used in devices like the $499 Microsoft Surface 3, mid-range Atom x5 chips for devices that will sell for $349 or less, and x3 chips for entry-level devices.

How cheap is an entry-level device? Pretty cheap. One of the first devices with an Intel Atom processor is a 7 inch Android tablet that’s expected to sell for around $50 in China.

Want to have one shipped to the US? Geekbuying is taking orders for $70.

teclast x70_01

The tablet is the Teclast X70 3G and it features an Intel Atom x3-C3130 processor based on the architecture that used to be code-named SoFIA. The chip is a 1 GHz dual-core processor with Mali MP2 graphics and integrated support for 3G.

The Teclast X70 3G has pretty modest specs including just 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. It has a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen display, but at least it’s an IPS screen which should offer decent viewing angles.

Other features include a 2MP rear camera, 0.3MP front camera, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, a micro USB port, microSD card slot, and dual SIM card slots. The tablet ships with Android 4.4 KitKat software.

While this is the first tablet to feature Intel’s new low-power x3 processor it probably won’t be the last. And while these tablets won’t be the fastest around, it looks like they will be some of the cheapest… or at least some of the cheapest with an Intel processor. The Teclast x70 3G sells for about one tenth the price of a Microsoft Surface 3 (or one seventh the price if you want to ship one to the US).

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

18 replies on “Teclast X70 3G: First tablet with Intel Atom x3”

  1. By Asgard this sounds horrible! Half a gig of RAM is pure torture no matter what CPU you are using.

  2. Just 512MB RAM? Makes this $48 Ployer MOMO7W tablet: https://liliputing.com/2015/03/meet-a-48-windows-tablet.html with a bigger 1GB RAM, 16GB storage and quad core chip (plus Microsoft Windows) even more enticing! However there are differences, such as that 2MP rear camera, Bluetooth, GPS and higher capacity 3200mAH battery (in comparison with Ployer MOMO7W tablet specifications: https://en.ployer.cn/product-details-66.html which has 2500mAH battery and the rear camera was optional, probably optional were Bluetooth and GPS as well)…

      1. I was more concerned about the “pretty modes stpsecs”.
        In any case – no thanks.

        1. For $50, for the whole device, what did you expect?

          SoFIA was always intended for the budget low end of the spectrum, especially the early 3G only models and they’re mainly targeting emerging market regions with them… So don’t expect too many of them to make it to mainstream markets…

          The purpose was just to get Intel’s foot in the door for integrated SoC offerings and get into regions they had previously little to no market share in, like China… Besides, it’s still a hybrid Intel/ARM SoC and is even made on the 28nm FAB…

          It won’t be until Broxton comes out that they’ll have a more serious phone range SoC with integrated modem by sometime next year, which should be fully Intel based… Till then look for either older Merrifield/Moorefield based Phone SoCs or newer Cherry Trail x5 or even x7 based devices with a separate modem chip to fill the mid to higher range offerings that are Intel based…

          1. I understand building for a (low) price, but at some point the device becomes unusable. You might be able to (painfully) live with 512 MB of RAM but 4 GB of storage will barely hold the OS and a couple of apps and almost no personal files. Non-technophiles will not understand the compromises made for the price, they will just think the tablet is a piece of ~!@#$% and will think poorly of the brand or any company associated with them.

          2. Sorry, but you’re talking about people who are not the target consumers… again this is a low end budget offering mainly meant to break into emerging markets… places where things like 3G still dominate and mobile devices are up to a decade behind what we’re used to…

            There are plenty of devices that only make sense in the region they’re intended for but not in the areas they may be exported to…

            Besides, there are many options that make use of microSD cards and you’ll see a little higher specs offered once the LTE version comes out, which will also increase the core count from dual to quad… So this is also a bottom of the barrel offering and it should go up from here…

          3. You can’t install apps on the microSD card anymore. 4 GB of internal storage is not enough anywhere in the world if you are using a fairly recent version of Android.

          4. Sorry, but your assuming this would come with a OS that can’t use the microSD card… Most mobile OS still allow it… You can even do it on WP 8.1 even though you can’t do it on W8.1…

            While a China based device could get their alternative to Android or a older Android release… Low end devices rarely get the newest releases…

            Emerging market regions don’t have that many apps available yet anyway and they won’t be using resource hogging apps there as well…

          5. I know everyone is bitching about the low storage and the meager ram, but I might consider one of these in a few months when they are more common or if a company like blu or archos picks some up or even if refurbs pop up for cheap I mean $50 plus it has mobile networking isn’t a bad deal.. would be nice for getting data from companies that don’t really give many options for cheap..plus this tablet would make an amazing GPS with Here maps. With the phone capabilities it looks like you could use either a mobile phone SIM or a tablet SIM so I could add a free tablet data sim from T-Mobile and use a Straight talk tablet SIM at $20 per month for 2gb to just be able to call out in areas where my T-Mobile plan can’t get a signal.

            edit: just found out that UMTS is only on 2100mhz making this tablet effectively worthless… hoping someone will make a version with US based UMTS bands

          6. Incorrect, SoFIA is specifically a mixed SoC… The only 100% Intel SoCs are the higher end tablet SoCs like the x5 and x7 SoCs!

          7. Well, it was an ARM design of Infineon and they flipped the ARM cores to IA. So the CPU in the SoC is x86. I call that 100% intel SoC, but you are right in the sense that the radio may have ARM based controllers. But that is not visible to the end-user and even the high end Intel discrete LTE modems have it, like the 7×60 series.

          8. No, a SoC is a lot more than just the CPU cores are pretty much the only thing from Intel in the SoFIA SoC… The GPU is Mali, not Intel GMA, and the whole SoC is made on the 28nm FAB by TSMC!

            The x3 is not produced on any Intel FAB, but that’s also what helps it in markets like China that make it hard for an outside company to do business in that region… like avoiding VAT, etc. and working with local distributors, OEMs etc…

          9. Besides, you wouldn’t want to confuse someone into thinking this could run full Windows!?

            Only the Bay Trail T, Cherry Trail x5 and x7 SoCs can… But Moorefield, Merrifield, and SoFIA are phone only SoCs… and Intel had to cut a lot of corners to get a integrated modem working with SoFIA, which is one of the reasons they originally partnered with Rockchip to help develop it…

        2. Intel’s Sofia is designed to compete against extremely cheap ARM chips with ARM Cortex-A7 cores. Here is a possible Intel Sofia leak on Geekbench database: https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2026268 Compared to Allwinner A20 (with dual ARM Cortex-A7 cores at almost the same frequency): https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1774527?baseline=2026268 Intel’s Sofia is slightly faster per clock. Compared to Allwinner A23 (also with dual ARM Cortex-A7 cores but at higher frequency): https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1841276?baseline=2026268 Intel’s Sofia is nearly equal. The main problem is nowadays the majority of ARM chips used in tablets are quad cores, with the exception of Apple’s triple core A8X chip…

    1. Luckily it wasn’t Microsoft Windows bloatware. That tablet is going to use Android as its primary operating system, thus can use reduced amount of RAM (also reduces the cost for the ODM). But I also agree that 512MB RAM (and 4GB storage) still feels rather small.

Comments are closed.