Viewsonic G Tablet: Brief review
I got the G Tablet yesterday. Played with it off and on. A few quick hits:
The screen is really nice.
Hardware seems great.
The proprietary software is ok. I’ll probably flash it with a more stock version of the android OS. Tap n go or whatever is weak.
The kids love it. I got it, installed Angry Birds and didn’t see it for several hours. They have all manner of games, coloring books, word puzzles, and some tank game that’s really fun.
Great for web apps an e books.
Blogging stuff is a little weird on the keypad.
Video is really good as are pictures.
Needs multiple logins so I can have one log in for kids, the wife, and me. Particularly since my son has ordered quite a few pay games without us knowing.
Some apps that work on your phone don’t work well on a tablet. And some crash, like Weatherbug. Not sure if that’s an app issue or an issue with the Viewsonic’s software.
I recommend it. Will update later and will let you know how new OS works. And I’m sure once I play with it more, I’ll like it a bit better.
April 9th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
LCD display? I would hope for an OLED display myself. My Captivate has one and it’s an amazing screen.
The wife has a laptop, and that serves us pretty well for around the house, but we’ve both been thinking of upgrading to some sort of tablet for book reading. I have a Sony eReader, but the screen is small and shiny because it’s touch sensitive. Something along a tablet might work instead.
Keep us updated.
April 9th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
The Weatherbug app has caused lots of problems with various Android devices. Search any of the forums and this will be readily apparent.
April 9th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Weatherbug is horrible. Crashes on my phone every time I try to run it.
April 9th, 2011 at 9:14 pm
Weatherbug won’t run on my phone running 2.2 either.
April 9th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Very nice looking device. Glad to see that someone’s finally putting out an Android tablet that’s significantly cheaper than the low end iPad, but not so cheap that they end up making cheap toys.
April 9th, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Oddly enough – no problems with WB on my T-bolt.
Any news of Honeycomb on that thing? BEcause the rpice is quite right
April 9th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
If it’s a Viewsonic, good video is a given (I won’t use anything but a Viewsonic monitor).
April 10th, 2011 at 3:02 am
Weatherbug crashes on Windoze, crashes on Knoppix, might even crash on Mac (I don’t have Mac equipment). Use Weather Underground to keep track of local weather, it’s a far better system.
April 10th, 2011 at 3:52 am
Uncle, we grownups do not care what you kids think about yer silly toys. Have you thought about how much ammo, or food, or gasoline, you could buy with the money you spent on that silly gizmo?
April 10th, 2011 at 3:55 am
P.s. Or maybe even a book of trig and log tables? Please try not to be such a SWPL person.
April 10th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
@Justthisguy: The only consumable you listed that it even makes sense to spend more beyond planned budget line items on is the ammo ($340 buys a decent amount of ammo and it’s shelf-life stable). Gas and groceries I know to a fairly high degree of accuracy what I need to spend on it and it wouldn’t make sense to spend more. Anyone who can drop that much on a toy should know that doing so won’t leave a hole in their household budget. Stockpiling should still fall under planned budget items, esp on stuff you have to rotate anyway.
Plus, the tablet is a durable good. Bitch all you like about Uncle not buying somethign else durable 🙂
(I would have done the same, though)
April 10th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Nice, my university made us buy tablet PCs, and some people hate them, but I love mine. An Android tablet isn’t exactly the same, but it’s a whole lot cheaper, and lighter, and IMO make a lot more sense for a portable device. If they make a decent stylus and a OneNote app, I would get one.
April 10th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Anybody know of a usable Windows Remote Desktop app for Android?
I can see this being useful as a wall-mounted, always-on terminal for a home automation system.
April 11th, 2011 at 8:51 am
What system are you using? I believe there are a couple of apps that work with X10 ActiveHome Pro.
I’m looking at picking up a used tablet PC (or two) at the next Virginia Tech surplus auction to use with my system, since it’ll probably be cheaper, but that’s not a bad idea either. I expect used Samsung Galaxy Tabs will start to be available cheap soon, now that some more reasonably-priced tablets are starting to hit the stores – especially with Honeycomb starting to really come out.
April 11th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Jake, I have HomeSeer. It does all the standard stuff like X10, IR remotes, macro programming etc, and there are LOTS of plug-ins for it as well.
I haven’t played with it as much as I’d like, and now that I bother to look, Home Seer are offering “HSTouch” as a controller program – which runs on Android (amongst others).
April 11th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Root it and throw Vegan Tab on; makes it a lot quicker and you get Market access. Also, the Honeycomb keyboard from the Market makes email/blogging much easier, or with Vegan you should be able to get a USB or BT keyboard running for serious data entry.
April 11th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
sendarius: Considering how slow RD is on real computers I wouldn’t want to see it on a phone processor, which is what these tablets are running.
Uncle: Really? This is the first positive I’ve seen anyone have on the Viewsonic Tablet(s).
And nobody else seems to like the screen and complains about viewing angles – which is admittedly odd coming from a display maker.
(Contra SDN, though, I stick with HP monitors.)
Me, I’m still not remotely compelled – either to get a tablet, or to get one that isn’t running iOS.
(Me, I’ve been a unix geek for a long time – which is why I hate the idea of getting an Appliance that I “need to” root and replace the OS on for it to Not Suck.)
April 11th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Sigivald: With respect, if RDP is slow you’re doing it wrong. The heavy lifting is done host side, the RDP client shouldn’t be doing much, thus doesn’t take much CPU. You can run a usable RDP client on a Blackberry, and the G Tab runs the 2X client handily.
April 15th, 2011 at 12:03 am
Junyo & Sigivald: My experience of RDP stems from managing a fleet of 150 users running Microsoft Office apps in a terminal server environment.
Not a single Intel processor nor a single cooling fan in the fleet of client machines, and not one of them even remotely capable of running Office natively – with RDP, the users don’t even know that the apps aren’t local and they run like they are backed by serious horsepower.