Zpad/Toshiba/Archos Comparison Article - G Tablet General

Here's a post from a foreign(Hong Kong?) Forum comparing the ZPad(GTablet) to some other platforms. The reviewer seems to know quite a bit about the hardware in these devices as well as background on them. Also, gives a synopsis of the updates as they have come out for the ZPad. I had hoped ViewSonic would have updated this often, or at all.
http://www.hkepc.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=1521745

Related

WM 7

I've come across an article in pocketnow.com which reveals the WM 7 specs. I'm planning to purchase rhodium this june. Does this mean that Rhodium is not capable of running WM7?
You guys think I have to wait until WM7 was released?
Article: http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=7379
those specs seem quite high, but i wouldn't be surprised if that's around the ball-park of the specs required.
This depends on whether or not you can wait that long - WM7 is bound to have delays on the release date, and devices that support WM7 will be quite expensive when first released (not that Rhodium isn't). I estimate that WM7 should not be available until 2010, possibly a year from now (if not longer)...so it depends on whether or not you can wait that long.
On the plus side, i'm sure all the awesome devs at xda can cook up a good ROM or two for the older phones, much like how they have cooked WM6.5 for older HTC phones!
Well that's comforting. 2010 is a year from now. Thanks for the reply. Will be purchasing Rhodium this june then.
the way things are going with MS releases, we'll be lucky to C WM7 next year!
Skimming through that list, there's at least three of those "requirements" which seem a little unlikely...
On a side note, I'm getting really tired of reading pocketnow.com articles that seem to be written by people who haven't got much idea about the market or are just lacking important details. Just look at this other article from them which implies that the WM7 specs aren't likely to be the only ones http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=7380.
If it's true that those specs are focused on a media-centric phone...which I personally think targets the power-user more than anything...then there's certainly going to be more sets of specs, and not just for the screen sizes, but most likely dropping items like GPS, extremely large screens, and the Compass/Accelerometer. If, in fact, there will be multiple sets of specs, then I'd say they aren't requirements at all....they're guidelines that make interesting news and keep people talking.
I think the multiple chassis will be to continue the touchscreen vs non-touchscreen devices. Smartphones are still in demand and I don't think WM7 will remove that alleviate that niche. There will be more similarity between the two, but there will be non-touchscreen windows mobile phones for some time to come.

VZOChat experience

Hi,
In theory VZOChat should work well on today's high spec WinMo devices. I can only find a few users commenting on it here on XDA, and they are spread between devices. Furthermore, comments seem inconclusive. For example: it runs well, but the camera is always on, or it runs, but slows down my device, or it locks up my device.
I'd like to collect experiences for users or VZOChat across devices in one thread. I'd like to hear both from those of you who tried and gave it up, and those of you who use it regularly.
Thanks!

G Tablet Review at Anandtech

Sorry for the repeat post. Did a search, but nothing showed up.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4054/first-look-viewsonic-gtablet-and-tegra-2-performance-preview
Nice speed results on the Tegra, even without dual core functionality on some tests.
Other post is here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=866760
Nothing that hasn't been said before. Tegra2 is fast. Build quality good but not flashing. TnT software is laggy and screen is junk.
I think its safe to say that with a little more work, they will sort out the issues with it. All in all it seems to be pretty new tech with the software still in its infantile stages. The benchmarks speak for themselves, specially when they also test the Galaxy Tab which is suposed to be top dog for Android tabs... I do wish the G-tab had its screen though. Super Amoled screen is fantastic. If the Notion Ink Adam ends up being junk, I will prob end up with this. Just because XDA owns all.

ZDnet Article: Is Honeycomb Android's Vista?

There is an article published on ZDnet website comparing the Android Honeycomb OS with Microsoft's Windows Vista OS. I am not an Android expert but going through the article, I find it totally biased and the writer failed to explain or give any proper technical example.
You guys can better comment on it as you understand it better, Also how do you experienced the Honeycomb OS as there has been development going on on this OS
ZDnet Article: Is Ho9neycomb Android's Vista?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/is-honeycomb-androids-vista/2229
I have a feeling it may anger me to read that article and compel me to email the author to clear up inaccuracies or poor analogies, so I'm going to abstain.
Brandon
Yes poorly written article. His statement that win 7 is just like vista only with a few tweaks is naive'. If that were so, then how do you do a few tweaks and reduce the operating load size by 50%........ he just talking ****. Honeycomb essentially is gingerbread with the graphic controller able to convert to 10 or 12" screens gingerbread was only designed to recognize 7" screen as the largest.
The next version update may go parallel (2.4/3.1) or may not it may just be 3.1. Doesn't really matter
Like I said just a lot of gossip in the article with nothing to back it up.
Agreed. Complete hogwash from the start.
Sent from my ZX81 using a 24v Battery.
The thing is a defensive fluff piece for Honeycomb. The comparison between Vista and 7 makes sense though a lot more changed in 7 than what is mentioned.
He goes on to defend Honeycomb and considers it great, he just doesn't like the Xoom.
The Xoom is too heavy, too expensive, and too unfinished. When people ask me what to buy I tell them to check out the alternatives from others like Acer, Asus, LG, Samsung, and Sony. Unfortunately the taint of problems with the first Honeycomb tablet have rubbed off on the operating system itself.
Honeycomb has a few rough edges but it also has a lot to love.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He does have a somewhat valid point. But again, fluff piece.
Yeah, I didn't think it was that bad of an article. His main point was that the reviews of Honeycomb have hurt its perception, so that regardless of the updates that come out for it, customers already have a preconceived notion of it as a failure. I don't think it was meant to be a technical article; it was meant to show the power of perception and the necessity for ice cream to be a success from the get-go. Let's face it, Honeycomb wasn't completely finished when it came out, hence the mediocre reviews. Ice cream should be, it will be awesome, and it will be a success.
having a pc that "runs" on Vista... I can get the analogy (even if I can't spell it....), but it is just typical media, in that he disparrages his own headline, as it is intended as a "hook".

Retrospective thoughts on Product Reviews

Like I'm sure many of you did, I read a TON of reviews before buying the Infinity. I mean I read and re-read almost every english site out there that had gotten their hands on a pre-release version a month or so before the device came out (and videos too!). All of these glowing reviews seemed to reassure me that I was making the right decision and amped up my excitement and expectations. But when I got the tablet I was really disappointed about the speed, stuttering, and lagging both while browsing and the device itself. I've upgraded to .26 and have been VERY happy with it since. I'm not complaining about the device or asking how to make it better. I love my tablet and can't wait to rock some custom roms!
My point is that everyone here noticed the problems almost immediately after opening the box. Lately I've been thinking about the inconsistency between the reviews and the initial release of the product and was wondering if anyone else noticed this and is now either more skeptical of review sites, or (especially after some of the debacles with Asus Device Tracker, the Unlock Tool Serial Issue, etc) if there is more going on behind the scenes with Asus.
I remember reading reviews for Motherboards a few years ago and while ASUS has always been one of the top players it seems that other entrants are doing just as good if not better. Other users were noticing the same trend in innovation and frankly quality. I applaud Asus for venturing out into new product lines, but I get this nagging feeling that they're really not doing the best they can and I'm surprised no reviewer called them out on it. I used to be a huge brand champion for them, but I might be slowly losing it....
Just something I've been thinking about and decided to share.
I know exactly how you feel. I have noticed absolutely raving reviews for hardware that was less than overwhelming out of the box before, but the past few year, the number of times I've noticed significant discrepancies between the reviews and the actual buyer's user experience far more often, it seems.
I'd imagine that either the manufacturer is buying off the reviewer (I know several hardware companies only make their products available for review on the explicit notice that only positive aspects are to be referenced, or that the review overall must at least be positive), or that they send off devices that have been pulled inside out by the engineers and have been tweaked to hell (and back), even as far as swapping out components. This isn't so hard to do when you haven't even settled on an actual end-product design.
I know that there's alsways a negative bias on the user forums (like XDA, for example), but the positive review bias is putting me off even more.
Excellent thread.
I wonder about this too, take the Prime...that device was virtually broken out of the box. How could any reviewer not mention the constant ANRs with the web browsing, slowness when installing anything and broken bluetooth?
My Infinity has been great right out of the box. So, no, it doesn't have any impact on my perspective since most of the reviews are in-line with my experience.
The Prime is altogether different, though. It had some clear problems that were broken at the hardware level, so it seemed like someone should have called it out much more quickly.
I would expect the manufacturer to more closely QA a unit they knew was going to be a hardware review unit, so minor flaws that are due to poor QA (a dead pixel/light bleed/etc) I would NOT expect to be called out by most reviewers. But a design defect as glaring and fundamental as WiFi and GPS iisues the Prime had? Not so much.
I expressed the same thoughts back in February with respect to the original prime:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=22396949&postcount=7
Good thread!
The reviews for me add a lot of confusion as I'm sure happens to most.
As a long time home PC builder I got mad at Asus years back because of
some serious issues with their motherboards. So I've always just stepped
over the brand until recently. Asus seems to have changed or maybe it's
just hardware advancements that have become common.
We have a couple of other tablets and I've always thought they we're a hassle
to use in most cases. I've wanted a 10.1 tablet for a couple of years, yet wanted
to wait for some vast hardware improvement. That's where the TF700 comes into play.
I bought this thing for the inside first, quality second, reviews third Asus name last.
I dunno what will happen maybe Android 4.1 will give all the tablets wings...
Thats OK said:
The reviews for me add a lot of confusion as I'm sure happens to most.
As a long time home PC builder I got mad at Asus years back because of
some serious issues with their motherboards. So I've always just stepped
over the brand until recently. Asus seems to have changed or maybe it's
just hardware advancements that have become common.
We have a couple of other tablets and I've always thought they we're a hassle
to use in most cases. I've wanted a 10.1 tablet for a couple of years, yet wanted
to wait for some vast hardware improvement. That's where the TF700 comes into play.
I bought this thing for the inside first, quality second, reviews third Asus name last.
I dunno what will happen maybe Android 4.1 will give all the tablets wings...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That won't happen until CM18 - Redbull
But you hit on exactly what I was getting at with the motherboards. Innovation and quality are not always the same thing. I ended up with a Gigabyte board and was very happy btw.
To be honest I think that consumers in general are ok with sub-par build quality though. As long as something works and isn't absolutely terrible most people are cool with it. Basically as consumers we allow companies to get away with it because we still buy the products. It's a vicious cycle.
To be honest I think that consumers in general are ok with sub-par build quality though. As long as something works and isn't absolutely terrible most people are cool with it. Basically as consumers we allow companies to get away with it because we still buy the products. It's a vicious cycle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also think that consumers (Americans in particular, myself included) tend to be incredibly price conscious and this has been further exacerbated by both the world economy and the pace of technology. So, the past decade or so, this has really accelerated.
As you note, nowadays, poor build quality is not preferred but it is highly tolerated... probably because the item was viewed as a "good deal" and we know we're just going to buy a new one and literally scrap the old one in just a year or two. We are not buying things with the intent to keep them for years or call a "repairman" if they break, like people did with TV sets in the 50s and 60s.
I have a Moto Droid 1 that was just released from it's 2 year contract in Jan and I've known people who have upgraded phones four or five times since I've owned mine. It's nuts. I'm finally going to replace it because the volume button broke but I found myself half wishing it wasn't so sturdy when I see everyone with their shiny new phones. It's hard not to fall into the rampant consumerism that helps fuel this negative quality trend.
wolfman87 said:
That won't happen until CM18 - Redbull
But you hit on exactly what I was getting at with the motherboards. Innovation and quality are not always the same thing. I ended up with a Gigabyte board and was very happy btw.
To be honest I think that consumers in general are ok with sub-par build quality though. As long as something works and isn't absolutely terrible most people are cool with it. Basically as consumers we allow companies to get away with it because we still buy the products. It's a vicious cycle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Chuckle OL
"CM18 Redbull"
You may have actually tagged a future version!
Gadget reviews on the Internet are on the whole quite poor. There are a lot of factors that most users here could add to.
- they're all tied into an endless consumer release cycle that has to gear up every few months or year depending on the vendor. In that sense they're part of a big ball of constant marketing, hype and desire that people and places like here feed into (I'm guilty!)
- the explosion of 24hr tech coverage on the Internet has all these gadget sites competing for page views, advertising and even access from the very companies they're assessing.
- the gadget "journalists" are constantly switching to new devices, never living with it before they are pressured to judge it for an article that will likely never be updated but always searchable on the net. How many tablet reviews have you seen where someone is paging through home pages as they state how fast or slow a device is? Useless.
-it's true you see more negatives on XDA as far as quality control, but you also see more unfounded hype for new or unreleased devices because people want the next new thing or to feel like their emotional or financial purchase is worthwhile. I trust net reviewers when they uniformly say a device is mediocre (ie Note 10.1) because you know it had to be bad if it sucked in the brief amount of time they gave it. I don't trust their praise until I know for myself it's decent (Nexus 7, Infinity) because there are all sorts of issues they won't be around to see (Prime).

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