I just bought this tablet (and thought I got a good deal at. $350) and am using it to tap out this message. The stock OS, however, is truly awful. If you have some time on Android phones, you'll miss having access to the market, instead having the Handango market, which is pretty Sirius GPP. Instead, I rooted the device and installed a ROM called TapNTap Lite which removes a good deal of the crap from the stock ROM and adds Android market, ROM Manager and a few other nice tweaks.

I own this device and once you root and load a better ROM (I use VEGAn) it is smokin'! Outperforms (max)ipads and xooms in many ways. Full support for USB, HDMI out and will take a 64GB micro-SDHC card.

If I didn't already have two I would be on this like stink on ... well, you know.

Try browsing the Web or installing an app, though, and things start to fall apart. To ViewSonic's credit, the manufacturer went to great lengths to ensure that the Web browser would be worthy of the G Tablet's 10-inch screen, presenting pages in a standard format instead of the mobile format that most Android tablets load by default. In many situations these pages look great, delivering sites like NYTimes.com in their full glory and supporting the capability to use pinch gestures to zoom in and out of content, similar to the iPad. In other instances, such as Google's own Web-based Gmail and Reader apps, pages are sometimes frozen and useless. Without Flash support (though we're told it's coming soon), sites such as Pandora, YouTube, and CNET TV don't work at all.

Now, you may be thinking, "Why not just download the apps for these services?" Well, we tried. That's the second heartbreak with the G Tablet--the official Android Market for apps isn't here (not to mention core Android apps such as Gmail, Maps, Navigation, Places, YouTube, and Voice Search). Instead, ViewSonic deftly works around the issue by providing a link to Handango's online Android app download store. Using the storefront, you can browse, download, and install many third-party apps, including Pandora, Qik, Fring, and Yelp. Unfortunately, none of these high-profile apps worked properly on the G Tablet. Pandora failed to launch, Qik crashed, Fring let out a burst of crackles, and Yelp couldn't get a lock on our location (due in part to the G Tablet's lack of GPS or Wi-Fi triangulation). In short, don't expect your favorite apps to be supported.

If there's a silver lining, it's this--video playback rocks. Chalk it up to Nvidia's smokin' Tegra 2 processor or ViewSonic figuring that people want to use a 10-inch screen for watching videos, but the G Tablet loads most video formats with ease and supports resolutions of up to 1080p. We threw everything at the G Tablet, including MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, H.264, and MOV, and they all worked quickly and without a hitch. That said, the tablet is still missing Adobe Flash support (yes, it's coming), which means much of the Web's video content isn't going to work. We've laid this same complaint against the Apple iPad; however, with the selection of iTunes media and streaming-video apps Apple has on offer, we think it's fair to say most iPad users aren't feeling the pinch on content.

ViewSonic rates the G Tablet's battery life at 8 to 10 hours of mixed use. From our initial use, we think that number is probably in the ballpark, though the arrival of Adobe Flash support will likely take its toll. We'll update this review with official results from CNET Labs once they're available.

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Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/viewsonic-g-tablet/4505-3126_7-34431221-2.html#ixzz1HOfdyro7

Current owners - can this tablet tether to an android-based smartphone to add 3g/4g support?

hustlertwo wrote:Is anyone really interested in taking pictures with a 1.3 megapixel camera these days?

True, but would a camera to take pictures be the main reason for buying a tablet?

Wagnbat wrote:Was almost tempted. Then the "G-Market" instead of the Android market killed it for me.

You can easily get the full market but it takes a few minutes of tweaking

hustlertwo wrote:Is anyone really interested in taking pictures with a 1.3 megapixel camera these days?

Pixel count is not nearly as important as lens quality. A 2 megapixel camera with a quality lens can take a much better picture than an 8 megapixel camera with a cheap phone-quality lens.

Wagnbat wrote:Was almost tempted. Then the "G-Market" instead of the Android market killed it for me.

If you install a different ROM, you can use the normal Android market, no problem.

arctiki wrote:Current owners - can this tablet tether to an android-based smartphone to add 3g/4g support?

Yes.

Good deal. But the downfall is its usually not a wise choice to buy first gen of anything. Better to buy something with honeycomb stock with the actual android market. Will wait about a year before i dive into the tablet pool. And at that point ill invest in a nice android device. Besides my phone that is.

Anyone know if you could use this as a remote for a home theater pc over wifi somehow?

So my question is, how does this compare to a Pandigital Novel that's been rooted into a tablet? PDF files on the Pandigital are VERY slow, internet DRAGS, and trying organize pictures into photo albums (into the order I want) is near impossible... would this solve my problems?

promyst wrote:Download any free PDF reader off the Android market and you can read them just fine.

Only problem is it doesn't have Market access out of the box...

tcrisafulli wrote:Anyone know if you could use this as a remote for a home theater pc over wifi somehow?

That depends entirely on your setup.

alexmg2420 wrote:Only problem is it doesn't have Market access out of the box...

The stock market has a PDF reader

Will Android with Flash be able view streaming Netflix movies?

I shouldn't buy it, because I hate cheap-ass screens with ridiculously few pixels spread over ridiculously many inches -- my N900 is 800x480 at 3.5", my U820 is 1280x800 at 5.6", and this splits the difference at 1024x600 at... wait, it's like TWICE THE SIZE of my U820 with HALF THE PIXELS!

Seriously, I would pay $400 for this with about a 7-8" screen or 1280x800/1366x768 in those 10 inches -- I'd break $500, probably $600 for a 1280x800 7". But nobody wants to make high-resolution tablets for nerds like me!

But it's cheap, and it's Tegra2, and I'm afraid that means I'm gonna buy it anyway. I hate myself.

ctonline wrote:Will Android with Flash be able view streaming Netflix movies?

No, Netflix uses Silverlight, not Flash.

Does it support Ogg/Vorbis audio? If not, that would be a deal-breaker for me.

I was looking at various tablets in the Verizon store today, and had a few thoughts.

Big issues for me: I love the "instant on." I like the idea of whipping out my tablet and surfing almost immediately.

Screen size: actually, it's hard to make up my mind. The screen on my iPod touch is annoyingly small for surfing, but this and the iPad won't even fit in a cargo pants pocket. Maaaybe a large coat pocket. I like a big screen, but I want to be able to have my hands free as well.

PRICE!!! These things are too darn expensive for me right now. This Woot price is tempting, but this won't do everything the iPad or Xoom does. The Samsung Galaxy Tab was interesting too.

Thickness: If anything, the iPad is so thin that I wonder if that makes it somewhat fragile. I certainly wouldn't mind something a bit thicker.

3G vs. wifi: I'm lucky to live where public wifi and vendors wifi is so common that I would rarely need anything else. But that's just me.

My verdict: This has a lot of positives, but some major negatives that other Wooters have posted about. I'm going to wait for the market to settle, and prices to drop.

LFenske wrote:Does it support Ogg/Vorbis audio? If not, that would be a deal-breaker for me.

Yes.

TheQuicksilver wrote:No, Netflix uses Silverlight, not Flash.

Any comparable current Tablet that will be able to view Netflix streaming movie?

Looks like a good buy but I was just given an iPad 2. I think these will sell out.

Any owners have experience with the *very* recently released Amazon App Store (since this doesn't have Android Marketplace out of the box)?

If I hadn't bought my Nook Color, I'd buy this at this price assuming that the development community will have a smooth running Honeycomb OS before long.

Would it be worth buying to use as a Kindle/Nook with the bonus of being able to surf the web with a real browser & play some real games?
It is obviously not an iPad Deuce.

ctonline wrote:Any comparable current Tablet that will be able to view Netflix streaming movie?

iPad. Android devices don't have Silverlight support.

tcrisafulli wrote:Anyone know if you could use this as a remote for a home theater pc over wifi somehow?

Yep! There are a variety of App remotes to be paired up with software out there (VLC is one) Also, there are remote desktop utilities as well.

BanhiDancer wrote:So my question is, how does this compare to a Pandigital Novel that's been rooted into a tablet? PDF files on the Pandigital are VERY slow, internet DRAGS, and trying organize pictures into photo albums (into the order I want) is near impossible... would this solve my problems?

I had a Pandigital also, this tablet will blow a Pandigital Novel out of the water. The dual core in this tablet alone makes it much, much faster. I run tons of apps at the same time and it never slows down, the only site that is slow is watching NBC (The Office) in HD, then there is terrible lag, but other sites with HD video run great. I also use a ton of PDFs and they open super fast. To sum it up, Yes this will solve your problems.

This is one of the most versatile media devices, handily beating the iPad (which has the agenda of promoting Apple formats). This plays WMV, AVI and MOV, among many other formats. As Mac folks know, Apple products usually don't offer native support for WMV/WMA or AVI, despite the fact that AVI is by far the most popular container for home users. Indeed, even third party support for AVI is spotty because it has so many variants.

The only major formats it seems to omit are RM/RMVB (RealMedia, very popular in Asia) and MKV, which is ironic since this plays 1080p. I don't know these omissions for a fact, however.

I own one and it is really nice and the battery practically lasts forever. When I left Singapore while using it for the entire duration of the flight I landed in the US with 61% battery life remaining.

Though the downside to the tablet is the Stock OS, tt is very awkward, slow and poorly designed. Also 3rd party apps are blocked so installing a custom rom is a must.

So if you buy it immediately root it, install clockworkmod then install one of the many roms found on xda-developers.com.

There is a very active mod community on XDA so there are a lot of roms to choose from all offering better Tegra 2 support and various UI improvements. Some even offer full Google App syncing support with full access to the Android Market. Link:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=844

I might pick one up for a spare at this price and don't let the stock UI stop you from buying one too as it is easy to replace.

tcrisafulli wrote:Anyone know if you could use this as a remote for a home theater pc over wifi somehow?

I am controlling a TiVo, a WDTvLive and a Roku box with mine. I'm using free apps from the android market. Remember, this doesn't have the market as it comes out of the box.

This is a great price for a great tablet. Speedy dual core Tegra, like Motorola Xoom, for less than $280? I bought this last month for much more and it's so worth it. I'm about to buy another one, my kids are fighting over the only one we have. A must buy!

pupyluvr wrote:Would it be worth buying to use as a Kindle/Nook with the bonus of being able to surf the web with a real browser & play some real games?
It is obviously not an iPad Deuce.

Oh but it is! JK, it stacks up in most cases, but out of the box you need to tweak it to how you like it. I use the Kindle app with it and I find reading off the screen to be pretty good, not as good as eInk of course but I can stand reading from the screen with extended lengths of time.

Okay, how hard will this thing be to "root" (whatever that means) for someone who doesn't even know what you mean by "rooting" this (I'm not totally clueless, I just don't know anything about modding or Android OS). And equally importantly, will it cost me anything to mod it?

Is there a kindle app for it?

Or since I'm lazy should I just wait for iPads to get cheap?

Had one of these back in december. Paid $360 then for it. After rooting it, it was a lot of fun to play with. But as I am about to describe why...it went back.

Here's the problem,

The screen viewing angles suck...a lot. Top down view only.

The camera is only useful for skype...it has no auto focus...can't scan bar codes. Or qr codes.

Even at the great price here on woot. You will likely see a xoom or one of the other tablets that are about to hit and you will regret your purchase. I know many of the newest tablets will be $400-$600. For that money u get: gps/2 cameras that focus/same tegra2 chipset/and a much better screen like xoom has. Skip the tablets that require contracts. Use tether app with your phone.

I literally just received a Shanzai tablet (Herotab M10) yesterday, for which I paid roughly the same as this tablet (slightly more if you count the 16GB microSD). Had I known there was going to be a Tegra tablet coming I definitely would have held off...grrr

Wagnbat wrote:Was almost tempted. Then the "G-Market" instead of the Android market killed it for me.

These aren't that hard to root and put a custom rom on. 2-3 hours of work and you can use whatever market you want.

I'd be tempted to go for one but I just bought and rooted a NookColor a few days ago... It's smaller, slower, has less onboard flash, runs Eclair/2.1 but has much better screen quality. Plus the Nook eBook interface still functions so I'm thinking it's a wash!

BanhiDancer wrote:So my question is, how does this compare to a Pandigital Novel that's been rooted into a tablet? PDF files on the Pandigital are VERY slow, internet DRAGS, and trying organize pictures into photo albums (into the order I want) is near impossible... would this solve my problems?

Pandigital Novel = ARM11 533MHz
ViewSonic gTablet = Cortex A9 1GHz x2

The gTablet'll kick its ass.