Goclever Hybrid 3G Update will I lose any factory apps and settings I have very recently bought a Goclever Hybrid 3G tablet/combi.

When going on Goclever web site I saw that there was a new update which is to improve power system problem? It says that if I download the update without back up of apps and data I will lose all, so to back up externally to a PC. I am not too clever on things like back ups so I was hoping that if I download the update without backing up the apps and data would the apps and data that came with the tablet remain on board only losing stuff that I have put on or will I end up with an empty shell.
Please help.

Barry.
That very much depends on the update. The manufacturer/vendor might have made only "bug fixes" with this update -- but he might as well have decided to replace the entire system. In neither case you end up with an "empty shell" (I wish that would be the case!), as manufacturers/vendors are rather known to add stuff nobody really wants (see: bloatware) rather than to remove apps that ship with Android by default -- but it might very well be that some apps got replaced or will simply be removed.

What surely will be gone, according to the description you gave, are all your data and the apps you've installed yourself, as obviously the update implies a factory-reset. If your device is already running Android 4.0 or higher, you might wish to take a look at Full Backup of non-rooted devices for how to make a good backup. At least apps+data should be restorable to a newer version of Android then; for other things (SMS, call logs, etc.) you might rather prefer some dedicated tool -- or rely on your Google-Cloud-synced data and pray they will restore automatically (if they start to, don't interrupt them: you cannot re-start the restore, which is one thing making it so unreliable). See also the backup tag and especially its tag-wiki for details on available backup methods plus hints for recommended readings on this topic.