Database Info

7" Touch Screen Google Android Device

Good Afternoon Everyone.
I appologise if I am not allowed to post this here but I thought XDA-Developers would be a great place to come for this.
I am thinking of retailing a Google Android 7" Touch Screen Device.
I am still waiting for some more information and some tests to come back to me but I have got the basic specification and some pictures of the device and I was wondering if I can get some thoughts back from other members here.
I have currently setup a survey at: http://www.dhcd.co.uk/surveys/AndroidTouchDevice.aspx
If some of you could take a look and leave you thoughts that would be great.
I am currently talking with the factory because I beleieve that the Ram needs doubling, the processor needs increasing and the Storage capacity needs improving alot other than that I personally think its a great device but would love some feedback on it.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Max

More like pentuple the RAM. Current Android phones have about 512 MB of RAM [and that's phones not tablets], and processors of 1GHZ.

Actually, i looked at this device at ebay yesterday while looking for an ebook reader. Looks nice but having around 384-512MB RAM would definitely help with web browsing. The CPU could be a bit faster but even as it is it should be able to handle ebooks and www well enough. A few MHz more would be nice extra for games and media but it's not that critical in my opinion.
What don't like is the proprietary connector. It would be much better if there was a standard miniUSB for recharging and copying files over to the device.
I don't have any complaints about storage memory - 4GB might not be much today but it's more than enough for your apps and SDHC card slot means almost unlimited storage space for everything else. So i'd say leave the internal memory as it is.
The overall design looks nice. I especially like the fact that it isn't a straight ipad clone. Okay, ipad may look nice but its knock-offs rarely do.
However it seems that someone didn't think the screen size trough. 800x480 screen is too narrow for this device size and leaves ugly thick black borders at the sides. having a 800x600 screen put into that thing would be really sweet It would also greatly improve ebook reading experience in portrait mode (a few more words per line).
The stated price seems fair, especially if it would remain the same after upgrades (sorry, chose "High price" in survey by mistake ).
From what i read, these devices run android 1.6. It would be really great if they got 2.x upgrade along with upgraded specs since more and more apps require android 2.
Anyway, for now i'm sticking with my old TC1100 tabletPC as books and pdf docs reader but if you manage to get this device upgraded it might be a nice lightweight alternative to the full-featured tabletPC.

Thanks for the feedback all very helpful.
I am taking what is said back to the factory and hopefully I can get the device upgraded.
Regards,
Max

Yeah I think if you bump up the specs as suggested above (ROM memory especially), you'll probably move some at the price you mentioned in the survey. However, I think you'll need to be sure to play up the fact that your device does have the real Android on it...there's Chinese/Taiwanese "KiRF" (knockoff) hardware out there that looks like a full featured device, but is running a home-brew Android look-alike OS, with far less features...don't want yours getting confused with those

[Q] Something I don't get...

Hey Everybody,
Before I get to the meat of this sandwich, I'd just like to say thanks to all the devs (both this site's makers and the contributing kind) who so graciously share their intellectual property. You guys F'in Rule!
I have a question that has been bothering me for a while now and even more so now that higher and higher-end phones keep emerging. Besides HTC, whom I am a huge fan of, I can't fathom why most phone developing companies build such sophisticated handsets and then only stick 512mb of RAM in them. I keep reading all these spec sheets (I read just about everyone I can get my hands on) and when it comes to the memory, each has only this seemingly minuscule amount. Am I missing something? How can you build a mobile device that has dual-core 1.2ghz processors, (forgive me for saying it) "Retina" type screens, soon to be 3D technology and only put this small amount of memory it? Is 512mb more than adequate? Would it kill them to put a full gig? I use a Dinc and have somewhere north of 140 apps (and this is after I deleted at least 20) and I was using (and still am to a lesser degree) a combination of App Categories, Smart Shortcuts. Multicon and maybe 10-15 widgets (google search X2, 2 news types, calendar, small HTC scrolling people widget, dictionary.com, powerstrip, plus the individual wifi & gps widgets X2 each). Before I deleted said apps and changed my widget use, I had a constant warning in my notification bar that read "Insufficient Memory." In checking my phone's file managers, neither my sd card nor the 8gigs of internal storage were even close to full. Can you see where I'm going with this? I feel like Jack Nicholson in the church scene at the end of Witches Of Eastwick... "is it a mistake!? Or did they do it to us, on purpose?! Cause I want to know!!" (I clearly know it is done on purpose, it's just an illustration) So to simply say it, Why the standard of 512mb and is this really enough?
P.S. Sorry for the Dennis Miller-like rant.

The complete answer is long...... so the short answer is --- the motherboard on a smart phone has to have many of the same things as a computer. MB/VDO/Sound/modem/rom/ram/memory (both internal and external) + music, camera ...etc.
Originally, voltage and power were the real limiting factors plus physical size, as time went on (from-2001-2009) things got smaller and smaller and faster and lower voltage. It has taken until 2008 -2009 to reach the technology to have 1 gig ram, but since development leads market (when we see it) by 18 months we do not see until 2011, some of the new phones this year will have 1gig ram.
That, and most things that need a lot of ram are games, and most people do not use the phone for that. Plus, more ram more processing more power usage then mad customers claiming their phone battery sux. Also, there were not many apps that need a lot of ram, so build for the need, as the need increases then the phone will be updated accordingly. go to remember we at XDA are 1% of the users not the 99% most do not care about knowing whether their phone is really working right or not, just as long as they can have it do the useless things they want it to do.......... bottom line, until marketing sees improving the tech side of the phone will improve sales it doesn't happen. That's how it works...sorry to say

I hear everything that you are saying and it all makes perfect sense. Just out of curiosity, what, other than games, would use a heavy amount of RAM on a phone? I don't really play many games, I have a couple but mainly stick to Angry Birds if the occasion actually calls for one. To clarify what little I know about RAM, it is the memory a device/comp uses in order to read/store bits of info for quick use at a later time. Would it not help the phone's overall general processing, like switching between apps and the like, to have a great deal more of it?

You can tryout "system panel" at the apps store, this will graph out the usage of the ram and so you where the memory and cpu resources are going. This will probably answer your curiosity better. But, yes more is always better...... I have 32 gigs on my desktop (LOL) yeah i am a junkie but wow program are so fast now.
I don't play game either but there are some of the role playing games that are real memory hogs Neocore is a game we use to test the phone for speed. Just like a computer, the 2 things that will make a difference....... more ram better video card. Or, in this case vdo-chip. That is why (imho) the dual cores are coming 1 core for video and one for everything else.

Do you still have unlmtd data, and whats your next phone.

Im curious. Do you still have unlimited data? What are your plans about keeping it? Whats your next phone?
I switched to the 6GB share plan, and I'm either getting an iPhone 5, or a Droid DNA.

Seriously?..... I guess we should each have our own thread when we decide to get a new phone.
Each day that passes, I look more and more forward to getting away from the redundancy and boringness of these Tbolt forums.

Well I'm loving my TB its on liquid ics 3.2 I think over fast and the next fone should be the Droid DNA or Samsung note 3
Sent from my Thunderbolt using xda app-developers app

Why in the hell would you switch from unlimited to 6GB? You do realize that higher phones will pull more data, higher quality video streams, and so on right? What used to be 4GB on the TB will turn into 8GB on the DNA or other similar phones.
Anyway I bought the DNA and gave it a trial run, found out it really wasnt for me and didnt suit my needs so I'm back on the TB. The only thing I want in a new phone is a bigger screen now. The TB fills every other category on my wish list perfectly.

At this point I'm probably going to wait until I really see something I like come out. The Droid DNA had a lot of potential, but it's major shortfalls (16GB only, no uSD slot, non-removable battery) are hard to ignore. It's tough to justify the GS3 now that it's already 6 months old, so I think I'm going to wait and see what 2013 brings to the table. While I'm fine with the large phone size (although I think phablets like the Note are too large), I do wish one of the big Android manufacturers would put out a top tier phone in a smaller form factor. There's no way my wife could comfortably use the DNA or GS3 (the Tbolt is about her hand's limit), but it seems there's no top tier phone in the low 4" sizes anymore.

I still have unlimited. Next phone? I won't know that for 6 month but it will have 64GB or an SD slot. I have 64 Gig SDXC in my tbolt now.

Why would you want 64GB? Isnt that like 30,000 songs? At least 100 movies? Half the apps in the app store? You should probably get over your memory requirements since removable batteries and stuff are a thing of the past. Phones are moving into the cloud, designed for wireless charging, ultra light weight and portability. To achieve this you need to be able to just cram everything in there any way you can, which makes it less likely for access.

RunNgun42 said:
Why would you want 64GB? Isnt that like 30,000 songs? At least 100 movies? Half the apps in the app store? You should probably get over your memory requirements since removable batteries and stuff are a thing of the past. Phones are moving into the cloud, designed for wireless charging, ultra light weight and portability. To achieve this you need to be able to just cram everything in there any way you can, which makes it less likely for access.
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I was once asked why anyone would want 1MB (yes megabyte) of RAM in a computer. The "cloud" is finicky, not always available, and not to be trusted if you care anything about privacy. Memory is cheap and light. ($42 retail less than 1g for my 64GB). I'm willing to bet the trend toward no removable battery or memory is money (i.e. cost of manufacture and support) not ability of the designers to execute. The trends seems to be LARGER phones (bigger screens bigger batteries).

Buy a used phone and keep your unlimited data. eBay, swappa, etc. I've bought my wife and I each a galaxy nexus for around $220 each. You won't regret it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

Keeping the tbolt and bought a tablet to use along side my bolt with tethering on...
Sent from my ThunderBolt using xda app-developers app

tburns said:
Keeping the tbolt and bought a tablet to use along side my bolt with tethering on...
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Me, too. I just got a Lenovo A1107 for $120 (as a carputer) and have a 10.1" Samsung Tablet for around the house. The Bolt can stay as a telephone and mobile hotspot.
Verizon sucks, though.

nonews said:
I was once asked why anyone would want 1MB (yes megabyte) of RAM in a computer. The "cloud" is finicky, not always available, and not to be trusted if you care anything about privacy. Memory is cheap and light. ($42 retail less than 1g for my 64GB). I'm willing to bet the trend toward no removable battery or memory is money (i.e. cost of manufacture and support) not ability of the designers to execute. The trends seems to be LARGER phones (bigger screens bigger batteries).
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You knew 1MB would never suffice for a computer because you could foresee the advancements in technology requiring more space in the future. So what advancements do you see in cell-phone technology requiring 64gb, 128gb, screw it a full terabyte if storage? You might as well tell me that I'm foolish for feeling 160mph is fast enough in my car, because one day we might all be cruising at 250mph through the neighborhood. Movies arent getting any longer, songs are getting any bigger. There is no practical reason for a feature length film to be more than a couple of gigabytes since the screen size will always be less than 7".
It is precisely because phones are getting bigger that the engineering involved is getting more difficult. Special considerations have to be made when designing a battery that can be removed. It is MUCH easier for a designer if he doesnt have to worry about this. Imagine if cell-phone had removable 4G chips, video processors and ram. Do you really think the design could still be kept as portable as something like the Iphone, DNA, or SGS3? Of course not, you'd end up with a phone as big as a laptop trying to accommodate this.

RunNgun42 said:
You knew 1MB would never suffice for a computer because you could foresee the advancements in technology requiring more space in the future. So what advancements do you see in cell-phone technology requiring 64gb, 128gb, screw it a full terabyte if storage? You might as well tell me that I'm foolish for feeling 160mph is fast enough in my car, because one day we might all be cruising at 250mph through the neighborhood. Movies arent getting any longer, songs are getting any bigger. There is no practical reason for a feature length film to be more than a couple of gigabytes since the screen size will always be less than 7".
It is precisely because phones are getting bigger that the engineering involved is getting more difficult. Special considerations have to be made when designing a battery that can be removed. It is MUCH easier for a designer if he doesnt have to worry about this. Imagine if cell-phone had removable 4G chips, video processors and ram. Do you really think the design could still be kept as portable as something like the Iphone, DNA, or SGS3? Of course not, you'd end up with a phone as big as a laptop trying to accommodate this.
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Bad assumption, straw man and non sequitur
I had no special knowledge for what computer memory would be used. I only know, looking BACK at computer technology, that EVERY time someone has suggested “No one will ever need more than _____” we blew right past that without a pause. People are pretty clever in using all of a given resource. For myself I am just under 32GB used on my SD right now so 64GB I don’t have to worry about filling given my current usage model. (Which is why I stated that I could live with a 64GB fixed memory phone?) Even so 128GB devices are practically a given and 1TB is not much of a stretch. This trend will probably continue until we can fit no more into 1cm^2. What will use all of this storage? I don’t know. People are very clever in using all of a given resource however.
Does online storage and fast wireless mitigate the need for large local storage? Yes. Does it fully replace the need? No. Are data caps and overage charges making replacing local storage harder? Probably.
As for video I think your assumption of 7” is incorrect. Phones already have outputs (HDMI or the like) to drive large screens. What will those screens be in the future in size and frame rate be? HD, 2K 4K 8K? 24,30,48,60 FPS? I fully expect video files to grow.
Audio – I don’t see it changing much but perhaps bandwidth and storage will favor lossless CODECs.
Your car analogy is weak. Automobiles already operate close to the human ability to perform in many areas, portable devices… not so much. I would like to go 800 miles on a tank of gas.
I really disagree with you regarding designing for bigger vs smaller phones. A larger phone, dominated by say the display should offer more opportunity to fit things in. Of course if the wider and taller phone actually has less volume than previous phones then it would be more challenging and if it has to weigh less even with a larger volume then it may be really tough. Removable storage and batteries ARE harder to design as I said before and I fully understand that the extra cost of design and manufacture of removable storage and batteries favors the design of non-removable storage and batteries. No one mentioned changing SOC or coms or radios but that is another straw man.

Before I go on, I'm just curious, what does your 32gb of cellphone storage consist of?

The key word here is "right now."
Right now 64 GB might seem like a top end tier for mobile storage. But the DNA is 1080p resolution with more phones to likely follow suit. The files will be larger, and data consumption will increase.
Carrier networks are no longer in the unlimited era. Caps, throttling, and insanely annoying persistent wifi alerts rule the day. If carriers insist on treating network bandwidth like gold from Ft. Knox, then I'm going to want to carry more, and cloud less.
16 gigs of storage becomes 11 after OS and bloat. 11 gigs is pretty pedestrian on a device that can hold apps, movies, and songs. How long have we had iPods with more than 11 gigs in storage?
SGS 3 had it right. So does the Note 2. If I want locked down drudgery I'd buy an iPhone.
I love HTC, but they need to get somebody else making decisions over there. Carrier exclusive phones? Fail. No SD Card or removable battery? Sigh.
I'm considering a Nexus 4, but that's only because it has budget pricing, and I can use it with pre-paid service. (Read: I'm cheap)
Duely blundered from my thunderdolt.

RunNgun42 said:
Before I go on, I'm just curious, what does your 32gb of cellphone storage consist of?
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25.6GB of audio
1.1G of nandroids (each about 1Gig)
2G Ti backups, app data, app cache and system stuff
I could live with 32GB if I had to for a while at least.

If you have a few Roms you like and have nandroids of, they're almost a gig a piece.
I hate how new phones are stopping at 16 gigs with no sd slot. It's not enough memory for me, nandroids and app backups are necessary and use a lot of space.

I'm the last person I ever thought would be advocating for less storage space. Believe me I'm with you when it comes to the ignorance of people who always thought ABC/XYZ was enough. I guess a better way to justify the design of something like the Droid DNA is that it at least gets the job done. I watch tons of movies, listen to tons of music, and keep my phone docked in a cradle on my desk to surf at work all day long. I just found alternatives to storage limitation that just so happen to be the direction the industry is trying to push us in. I recognized that I dont need to have 10 movies on my device at any given moment because it's not like I'll ever really be watching them. At least not often enough to justify a need for storage to keep them. I uploaded my entire song library to Google Play which was a huge boon because now I have it with me on any device anywhere I go. I dont keep more than 1 nandroid of my device because my previous build is the only thing worth keeping. When I flash a new rom I simply keep a failsafe, and I only store about 2-3 roms on my device as redundant failsafes for each other in the event things really go sour or I just get really bored.
If this is the tradeoff necessary to have a beautiful 5" display with wireless charging and weighs light as a feather, then I consider this a win. If the alternative is a larger, heavier, more expensive phone to accommodate the best of both worlds (tons of storage and tons of power) then I consider that a loss. I will gladly take form over function since the function can be made up for in other areas that actually add quite a bit of newfound convenience. To me, this whole idea of clinging to old phone standards of sd-cards and removable batteries is just oldschool thinking. It reminds me of the business tycoon still using his monochrome blackberry thinking he's the ****, and that all these kids just dont "get it" with their fancy colors and lack of technical needs. Or the supposedly tech savvy laptop pro who buys the heaviest most impossible to carry device with a 17" screen, optical disc drive, and 10 USB ports for that 1 time he actually needs it. Everything you use your storage for is just for an emergency. 25gb of music, multiple nandroids, etc. They're all just "what if" scenarios that probably see the light of day once every few months. Sacrificing the entire build of a phone for this off-chance scenario is just very backwards thinking imo.

You dont have to believe me but the dna gets excellent battery life for a phone with a 1080p and the lack of an sd card is irrelevant since it is otg capable meaning an external hard drive can be used. The sad part is that a new one x phone is right around the corner.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

RunNgun42 said:
I'm the last person I ever thought would be advocating for less storage space. ....
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I glad you found a usage model with which you are happy. I prefer another.

do we need all this in a phone!?

with the launch of Nexus 5 i saw many people switch over to it..
Reasons may be many,the one which seems most evident is its configuration!
which makes me think that when Google launches a "nexus" product with such hardware does it mean that quad cores or octa cores or the massive 2 gigs of memory are really required??
do we actually need that kind of hardware for daily purposes?
Or is it just a market hype or an induced inflation that is being generated by the multinational corps?
one releases a quad... and then the other is ready to pack 8 cores...
i don't posses much of technical knowledge but do we really need all those krait cores and those exynos!
60 years back we sent people on moon with a computer that had 64kb of memory..
now don't get me wrong I am not against the technology its just that all this advanced tech is being put to the same use,which is quite capable of being handled by far less powerful machines.

When it comes to octo cores I really don't feel it's necessary for everyday use. The software is always trying use the least amount of cores possible to maximize battery life anyway. The RAM on the other hand I think is an absolute must. I remember when buying this phone thinking that 1gb of RAM (or whatever the actual usable RAM is, 787mb) was going to be great, oh how I was wrong. Just look at the multi tasking ability (or inability) on this device and that should answer the question of whether we need more RAM.
Sent from my Evita

i agree with you that RAM is a must but my point is even with all those high end specs, what you actually use the phone for has not changed over the years....
there is nothing "exceptional" people are doing with 3 gigs or RAM and 8 cores.
and everyone here must be well acquainted to the good old Nokia days and their Symbian or BB OS (or those java OS's that ran on most mobiles) at that point of time when 'Processor' and what 'GPU' and what 'Pixel density' your phone was actually never a matter of discussion or a way in which those products were advertised.
Now i don't advocate Nokia for keeping their loyal customers ignorant of the specs but it was only when "ANDROID" emerged that 'specs' started becoming a matter of concern.
because Android being a universal OS that could be ported to any device,created kinda a platform for all the companies to battle out each other with increasing specs!
now when a developer phone is launched with such hardware config it silently somehow creates a standard for all the later devices to be more advanced or atleast in par. its like a snowball effect!
and PS M not being like a child who craves for not getting those expensive toys :laugh: but as a consumer who is deluded into believing that all of these specs do matter and can somehow bring a drastic change in the way we utilize these devices.
and secondly these corporations are just giving us the technology and i feel that even they are skeptical about how to put it to use!

I agree with timmaaa, more RAM would be great to have, as the constant reloading of browser tabs (and other apps) every time you try to multi-task on this device is annoying, to say the least. Yes, the aggressive memory management is a part of the issue. But the fundamental lack of RAM is at least partially to blame.
The number of cores on the other hand, seems like one of those near-useless specs that manufacturers just flaunt for marketing purposes to those that don't really have the knowledge to even know what it means ("Look at this awesome 43 MP camera phone!"). Many folks assume more cores is better, but this is actually seldom the case.
However, a fundamentally faster/newer CPU is always going to be a welcome upgrade (similar to the RAM). A faster, smoother, and more responsive device is always going to be desirable. And as fast as smartphones and other computers have become, it always seems the software developers just add more and more bloat to the OS and apps. I know Google is talking about "one Android version" for all devices, including low end ones. But I really don't believe the hype. Consumers are always going to hunger for more features and more eye candy, and the desire for faster and faster CPUs is not going to end anytime soon.
Do we "need" this type of computing power? Heavens no. But we will "want" it nonetheless!

redpoint73 said:
I agree with timmaaa, more RAM would be great to have, as the constant reloading of browser tabs (and other apps) every time you try to multi-task on this device is annoying, to say the least. Yes, the aggressive memory management is a part of the issue. But the fundamental lack of RAM is at least partially to blame.
The number of cores on the other hand, seems like one of those near-useless specs that manufacturers just flaunt for marketing purposes to those that don't really have the knowledge to even know what it means ("Look at this awesome 43 MP camera phone!"). Many folks assume more cores is better, but this is actually seldom the case.
However, a fundamentally faster/newer CPU is always going to be a welcome upgrade (similar to the RAM). A faster, smoother, and more responsive device is always going to be desirable. And as fast as smartphones and other computers have become, it always seems the software developers just add more and more bloat to the OS and apps. I know Google is talking about "one Android version" for all devices, including low end ones. But I really don't believe the hype. Consumers are always going to hunger for more features and more eye candy, and the desire for faster and faster CPUs is not going to end anytime soon.
Do we "need" this type of computing power? Heavens no. But we will "want" it nonetheless!
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i totally agree about the one android version hype i dont think it will materialize ever.
for all the manufacturers who are just pilling up cores and claiming that their phones are 'the best' please develop something that I can take to my 70 year old granny and really blow her mind :laugh: who knows nothing about the hardware.
I know its a poor joke but think about it there is really nothing that the most high end device does which probably can be considered to be state of the art or a miracle to those people who especially no nothing about the chip inside!
i had this thought when i saw an old fellow asking for a dual core long back and his need were just texting,calls and alarms,hell he dint even have internet on his device but still the market forces persuaded him that he needs a dual core.
but then i thought even a person who has a fair technical know how about it purchases a dual core,even he doesn't use it for firing missiles(again a poor joke) but you get the point technology if its not utilized to its potential,is useless.
and forget its use,the sad part is its creating this hype of high end devices!
little off topic apple introduces 64 bit correct me if m wrong all the apps are 32 bits how will they make use of the 64 bit architecture.
its like having an Ultra HD when you don't even have a service provider that offers HD transmission!
and this is not pertaining to any device or a software upgrade issue as it may likely sound!

RAM: 2GB vs 1GB in 2014

Before you ask: yes, I have Googled, and found several threads about this very question, but they were all dated 2012. It's been two years since then and we all know how mobile technology marches on, so I think it deserves asking again.
I'm hunting for phablets, and I've finally settled to two models that are almost the same except for the RAM. The newer one has a few improvement here and there that I don't really care about (some more resolution, some more internal storage and so on) - but it also has two gigs of RAM instead of one.
The difference in terms of money is considerable; one would cost me €130, the other one close to €200. The second one is the cheapest phablet I've found with two gigs of RAM, too.
I'm not a crazy multitasker who keeps a hundred apps open, and in fact I usually close those I'm not using for love of tidiness, but I'd still like to keep a few open without them getting reloaded every time. Say, the browser with a tab or two, Facebook, Whatsapp and a couple more. Is a gig enough to do that today?
I'm entirely uninterested in mobile gaming, by the way, so any RAM benefits for games are irrelevant.