If you're looking for something that can act as a suitable replacement for your phone or laptop, you won't find it in anything with Packard Bell's name on it. If, however, you're after a larger screen that'll help you get a better idea of what those people in Bridgerton are packing under those corsets, the Silverstone T18 is perfect. It helps that you only need to charge it every two days or so.
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Design
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Display
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Performance
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Battery
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Camera
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Value
2024 has been an interesting year for Packard Bell. We’ve since played with and reviewed two of the company’s laptops, and there’s still more to come. That ‘more to come’ bit involves Packard Bell’s range of tablets, of which we’ve been messing about with the Silverstone T18 – a R4,300 bundle of dynamite. For legal reasons, that’s just a metaphor.
Or is it? We’re not trying to instil some sort of Galaxy Note 7 fear in you, but instead remarking that, like a bundle of dynamite, the T18 isn’t exactly the belle of the ball, looks-wise. But it packs a punch where it matters and gets the job done. And it’ll do so for a whole lot less than the competition.
You’ve seen the price. The Silverstone T18 is budget in every sense of the word. That doesn’t mean you get to turn your nose up at it. We commend Packard Bell for dressing up a package capable of taking on load shedding head-on, and then some. It does what tablets do best: play Netflix (but, you know, in bed).
A colourful personality
People have been trying to make these tech-filled rectangles more attractive for years. Companies with bigger budgets have (mostly) succeeded, but you’ll have to suffer through with a comparable price if an aesthetic body is all you’re after. That’s not an option here. What you see, which admittedly isn’t much, is what you get.
Attracting all the attention on the front is the 10.5in 1,920×1,200 in-cell display that’ll hit all the right notes when watching Netflix or playing Fallout Shelter but expectedly falls short when matched with anything from the Apple factory. It’s all coated in a healthy mass of aluminium that goes a long way to help make the T18 feel more premium than it really is.
Unfortunately, metal means fingerprints. And an increased fear of the dreaded ‘butter fingers’. That’s a non-issue for the T18 because Packard Bell’s thrown in a free folio-style cover right out of the box. You may dislike missing out on the metal feel, but slapping on the cover immediately makes the tablet a more comfortable hold, with the bonus of defending the rear from our prints.
Where the buttons are, depends on who you ask. Packard Bell clearly wants this to be a horizontal affair from the get-go because of the camera’s notch found along its fat bezels. By that logic, the power and volume buttons run along the top, leaning towards the left. There’s a USB-C charge port right where you’d expect, alongside a couple of speakers, a SIM tray, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Another two speaker grilles line the opposite end.
Keepin’ it light
For a R4,300 tablet, we were relatively surprised at how well our review model stood up to the heat. It features a MediaTek MT8788 octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM and a rather rough 128GB of built-in storage. It’ll require the sacrifice of your own SD card if you’re looking to turn this thing into a proper load shedding-beater, though.
That 6GB of RAM isn’t quite as malleable and that’s… fine. It proved more than capable of keeping up with our demands — managing some light (and we mean light) gaming, bouncing between multiple streamers, and flipping through the occasional comic book. All the bits in between proved to be just as smooth of an experience, only running into the occasional issue when our gaming ambitions got ahead of us.
Dial it back to something that doesn’t require a whole lot of prodding or a high 120Hz refresh rate and you’ll be just fine. If you’re looking to compete in the COD: Mobile Championships or something similar, you’re looking in the wrong place. A casual bout of Marvel Snap or Game Dev Story, though? You’ll hear no complaints.
The epic highs and lows of highschool football Silverstone T18
Stepping into any sort of relationship with a tablet and expecting a camera system that’ll blow you away is always going to lead to heartbreak. Especially when you’re working with a sub-R10,000 tablet like the Silverstone T18. Properly manage those expectations and admit that you’ll never use a tablet for snapping pics anyway, and the 5/13MP setup used here makes a whole lot more sense.
Honestly, for a tablet, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a company willing to drop the necessary dough on anything more than a 13MP sensor in the first place. It’s still got nothing on the smartphone residing in your pocket, but if it’s all you have at hand, it’ll do just fine. Images are fairly decent as long as you’ve got the right lighting, though expect some detail to be lost in translation. Colour reproduction, too, leaves a lot to be desired.
Had Packard Bell swapped the 13MP sensor on the rear for the 5MP sensor on the front, we’d have been a whole lot happier about it all. The most likely candidate for its use is during the odd video call that would benefit from the added megapixels. As it is now, the front sensor muddled along perfectly fine the one time we actively used it.
You won’t hear nearly as many complaints when it comes to the T18’s battery life. Why would you? The 7,000mAh battery that’s in there is easily the tablet’s best feature, putting it roughly on par with something from Samsung’s budget range. Considering all you’ll be doing is watching Netflix or using the Kindle app, it’ll garner at least two days of life before whining for a charger. Add some regular gaming in, and you’ll knock 24 hours off that.
Packard Bell Silverstone T18 verdict
If all of that sounds good, expect to set aside R4,300 for the privilege of owning one. It’s on sale more often than not, which only ups our opinion of it even further. Even if you’re unlucky enough to only find the Silverstone T18 at its full price, Packard Bell’s efforts won’t leave you disappointed. It’s not the prettiest tablet out there, but it makes up for all that with a decent screen and a battery that’ll eat load shedding for breakfast when Eskom inevitably brings about its return.
