Teclast M26 gets reviewed -- behold its lameness in video form

Teclast's budget-priced touchscreen-based M26 PMP seemed interesting enough at first, but as more and more details about it trickled out, we quickly got disenchanted by the player. Now, MP4 Nation has confirmed most of our suspicions with a video review of the device. While the reviewer is quick to point out that many of the players problems could be due to its pre-release firmware, it's pretty clear that the player's resistive touchscreen leaves a lot to be desired, with scrolling less than responsive and some tasks requiring numerous taps before the player gets the hint. That's to say nothing of the device's interface lag, the inexplicable button on the front of the player that does nothing but blink annoyingly whenever the touchscreen is in use, or such "features" as a calendar that simply shows you the date. Head on past the break to see for yourself.

[pbase @ Jul 14th 2008 6:14PM]

Posters were giving the reporter crap on panning this before. Seems like he was justified.

[YpoCaramel @ Jul 14th 2008 6:45PM]

I don't really care if the end device turns out to be crap - I was just against him dissing the device without any proof aside from the fact that it's Chinese and cheap. If a review says its crap, I'm fine with that.

[Erik @ Jul 14th 2008 6:25PM]

nice design... Bad software.
By the time this is mass produced the iPod touch will be upgraded.
Looks cool though.

[BrianB @ Jul 14th 2008 8:44PM]

I think the point is that this will be cheap and plays media files nicely enough. You don't really think a device under $100 can be as cool as iPod Touch?

[jbm0592 @ Jul 14th 2008 6:25PM]

Looks almost exactly like the P2

[Jeremiah Mahoney @ Jul 14th 2008 6:30PM]

It doesn't look to terrible.

[Gavin @ Jul 14th 2008 6:28PM]

Wow!

[phanbouy @ Jul 14th 2008 6:32PM]

Gavin!

[deyanimay @ Jul 14th 2008 6:41PM]

Cheese!

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Jul 14th 2008 7:19PM]

Life... Sigh

[chris @ Jul 14th 2008 6:30PM]

if the reviewer is noticing all of these flaws with the player, why is he still considering branding it?!

"yeah it lags...that's the tradeoff" but i still want to invest thousands of dollars to brand it...

[deyanimay @ Jul 14th 2008 6:36PM]

because its cheaper for those who can afford $300 ipod touches.

[deyanimay @ Jul 14th 2008 6:42PM]

* I meant can't

[Slim Daniels @ Jul 14th 2008 6:30PM]

meh...

[BigD145 @ Jul 14th 2008 6:43PM]

8GB for $100 is pretty good and the review isn't even of a production model because they aren't out yet.

[grull27 @ Jul 14th 2008 6:44PM]

Was it really that necessary to copy the iPod Touch/iPhone firmware?!

[ydoucare @ Jul 14th 2008 6:45PM]

wtf is with the interface, it's almost a straight clone of the iphone/ipod touch.

[vdogg89 @ Jul 14th 2008 11:17PM]

uhm thats sort of the point. Its a cheap alternative to the iPod touch

[Scott Miller @ Jul 14th 2008 7:41PM]

Oh no, another iPhone story..... Oh wait, it's just a copy. It's better than an iPhone. Right?

[Lowest Ranked @ Jul 14th 2008 8:13PM]

........except this is a PMP not a phone.

[Don Corleone @ Jul 14th 2008 6:54PM]

Are those man-hands or what?

[roman.kim @ Jul 14th 2008 6:56PM]

I can't take the man seriously if he considers iPod's sound quality to be good.

[Saad Rabia @ Jul 14th 2008 7:00PM]

I don't see where the "lameness" is?!

[fred @ Jul 14th 2008 7:26PM]

For the amount of money it cost, this is pretty darn good.

Makes the perfect player for a pre-teen for Christmas.

[SoulinEther @ Jul 14th 2008 11:55PM]

I agree with you. While I certainly am not a big Apple fan, the interface is fairly decent on this product even if it's attempting to mimic that of the iPhone/iPT's - which is a pretty smooth interface.

Just a few things that the company should consider (seriously though, it's not like they're going to read this):
-Make the back button bigger or the screen area where you can click it bigger.
-Make the small buttons larger. Something has to be done about the seek bars, too - maybe there should be some sort of finger swipe animation you could do anywhere on-screen to rewind and fast-forward the video (or song?). Example: similar to laptop touchpads, maybe you can swipe along the bottom from left to right/right to left to seek the song/video, and swipe along the right from top to bottom/bottom to top to adjust volume.

If I wasn't trying to reduce the number of devices I carry around with me, I would seriously consider this product.

[james @ Jul 14th 2008 7:04PM]

looks like the p2 but SHIT firmware

[phanbouy @ Jul 14th 2008 7:40PM]

kinda like with creative products, yes?

[initialxy @ Jul 14th 2008 7:11PM]

the first thing i'm gonna do is to change the background image to solid colour.

[Mattijs @ Jul 14th 2008 7:19PM]

Stupid laugh of the commenter in that movie. That blinking light is blinking when it is loading, or moving data. And why should the manufacturer adverts that its screen is less good than an Itouch..who would do that?? Think it is a very good alternative for people who doenst have loads of cash on hand. It does do the job with a lot of supported formats. Only wait for a firmware update.

[Steven @ Jul 14th 2008 7:31PM]

I'm with a few of the other readers on this one; it doesn't look as bad as you guys (Engadget) is making it out to be. And for

[Steven @ Jul 14th 2008 7:32PM]

I'm with a few of the other readers on this one; it doesn't look as bad as you guys (Engadget) is making it out to be. And for

[Lowest Ranked @ Jul 14th 2008 8:12PM]

And for.... what!?

The suspense is killing me!!

[phanbouy @ Jul 14th 2008 8:15PM]

...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

[Steven @ Jul 14th 2008 9:56PM]

Wow, the rest of my post didn't come through, lol. The rest of the sentence was "And for less than $100 it's a steal. Great format support, FM Tuner, video playback, voice recorder, 8GB of memory, and a touch screen... can't really ask for more in a media player. I agree about the interface being clunky but this is a pre-release build." I tried to put a less than sign but I guess it got interpreted as the beginning of an HTML tag. Whoops!

[Matthew Thomas @ Jul 14th 2008 7:40PM]

Engadget, $73 what dont you understand about that?

$73 = CHEAP

Like I said in a previous post, not everyone has $300 for an iPod touch!

[kellygeorge @ Jul 14th 2008 8:08PM]

speaking of knock offs, what ever happened to the Meizu mini-one or whatever they were going to call it? for an iphone "killer" it sure is late.

[Syndrical.One @ Jul 14th 2008 8:39PM]

I LOVE my Samsung P2.
This looks exactly like one but with a chrome trim

When you run the software, it looks like a rip of the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Looks like they tried to take the two best touch-screen PMP's and combine them into one .... one piece of crap!!

[DssTrainer @ Jul 14th 2008 10:47PM]

Wow.. talk about a Sprint icon rip off... and the whole laser light show they do now on their commercials... not to mention it looks instinct-ish.. more so than the iphoney

[SoulinEther @ Jul 14th 2008 11:52PM]

Showed actually a lot of good features and a lot of good potential - especially for the pricetag and for a preproduction model. FLAC support? I'm there.

... but again, this fails to show me any positive proof regarding a key feature:

WILL IT BLEND?

[IceKXG @ Jul 15th 2008 3:13PM]

Wow Engadget, you totally shit on this product for nothing. This thing is actually pretty nice for only $74. What more do you want?

[Jzero @ Jul 27th 2008 11:50PM]

ITS REALLY A GOOD PLAYER. I JUST BOUGHT ONE FROM MP4GLOBAL.COM

CANT WAITTTTTTT!!!!!!!!1 TILL I GET IT