Bought one last go around. Unrooted so far. Battery life and screen are good for my purposes of just watching movies/tv shows on it.

It kept deleting files I put on it. The .nomedia work around seems be fine so far, something to look into before buying. Wifi receiver is relatively weak.

Nazriel wrote:There is no GPS built in. It's purely Wi-Fi for internet etc.

So, if I used my phone as a mobile hotspot, I should be able to use this to watch movies on the road (after Netflix is available), no?

Has anyone used the Android tablets for reading Tamil magazines (Kumudam/Vikatan)? Sometime ago, I got another tablet with Honey Comb; downloaded Opera Mini and configured it; but still could not read the above magazines.

With Android 2.2, wonder if this will be able to render Tamil fonts.


TIA

Soma

dedpetls wrote:its flashing it to a different operating sytem

Correction: Rooting does not mean flashing to another operating system. It means giving full system access to the user and being able to grant said privileges to applications that may need it (such as Root Explorer).

I purchased one of these last time. Vegan-Tab works well, but ultimately the screen made it difficult to read for a significant period of time and I went to an iPad 2 instead. Maybe it's just my vision, but I got a real headache from it. You have to view it from such a specific angle and that angle is really awkward, especially if you hold it portrait when reading a book.

Youtube was also close to useless with its poor playback quality. I get the impression from the Vegan-Tab site that they don't have HD video hardware decoding and don't plan to ever get it working.

Many apps from the marketplace seemed to have some sort of layout issue since they were designed for a phone screen and not a tablet. I don't know if it was the OS or the app, but it was common for things to crash. I probably just suck at using Android.

Once Google releases the Honeycomb source, I might try using it again.

I bought this during the last woot off. It is a good little tablet, well worth the money.

I just wish I were brave enough to change to vegan or something. I do not like the one that came on it ... especially the handango. Would much rather have the market!

I have never done anything to a tablet before and am really afraid to brick it.

Besides that... I would recommend it as a good value.

EDIT: the criticisms of the viewing angles are valid. In portrait, it is not that great, not not unreadable.

I don't know much about the android platform so this might be dumb but...

Description says that it can play h.264 and 1080. Does anyone know if this could play the avchd files that all our HD cameras record? Specifically the QT videos that the canon DSLRs record?

snapz54 wrote:Please be aware! Viewsonic has all but abandoned this tablet, they are an unreliable company, you will be completely reliant on the dev community and sites like XDA developers. The community is great though, just be aware what you are getting into. viewsonic = bad customer service. If your tablet ever breaks you have NO option really.

here is a little taste of the experience:

"Sent my Gtablet to fix broken glass top, and they ended up sending it back to me without replacing it or fixing it in any way"

http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-915175.html

crApple did the same to me

TRUTH ALERT!!!!

I bought this last time. Had it opened and rooted in 30 minutes.

After playing with it for 10 minutes I had it back in the box and being returned to WOOT.

It's garbage. The screen is horrible. Horrible. Horrible.

I'm an Android guy through and through, but I'm telling you that this is not worth your time or money. Spend the extra money to get an Asus tablet or something. This is flat out a bad product.

I want a table realy bad. I dont know much about them and everyone talks about moding it and rooting it and all the other stuff but I dont know about any of this so would this table be good for me with out all that stuff?

I got mine during the last wootoff. After I flashed VEGANtab on it, it works AMAZING! I went with Vegantab as it was designed specifically for this tablet, and has relatively few bugs compared to Cyanogen. That, and hardware acceleration with the Tegra 2 allows HD video to be played on the device!

Great tablet!

mjc05 wrote:I don't know much about the android platform so this might be dumb but...

Description says that it can play h.264 and 1080. Does anyone know if this could play the avchd files that all our HD cameras record? Specifically the QT videos that the canon DSLRs record?

Biggest thing to keep in mind here is that all this talk about "1080p" is at best miunderstood marketing, and at worst outright misrepresentation of this tablet. Resolution is 1024x600. Sure it can play back 1080p content, but it isn't going to look HD.

jnbcox wrote:This thing is truly amazing, after you flash a modded ROM to it. I've got one from a previous woot and have it running Vegan-Tab. It's very comparable to other higher priced tablets now.

Unless you move it 2mm. My sister is very happy with hers, too.

pretty much taking a break tonight but I will say that the one I got from woot! a few months ago ended up on craigslist after a few weeks. I just couldn't tolerate the screen viewing angles and it was a bit too big and heavy for what I needed. When I decide to go back to a tablet I will get a 7" one like the transformer.

On the plus side it has the Nvidia Tegra which makes it one of the better game playing tablets out there.

Does anyone know if you can use Powerpoint on this tablet? Pardon my ignorance ...

dedpetls wrote:no GPS, but yes you can use google maps. its only Wifi

No biggie to me, you can share you phones GPS through Bluetooth and use your phones WiFi hotspot. I don't see why this is such a big issue with everyone.

janetverdin wrote:Does anyone know if you can use Powerpoint on this tablet? Pardon my ignorance ...

Yes you can. There are apps available (i.e. QuickOffice) that make working with your standard Microsoft Office documents very easy.

The thing force closes every 10 minutes!

my first woot purchase! hopefully many more to follow

As others have said, the worst thing about this device is the screen (yes, I know - ironic considering it's got Viewsonic as the logo). Spot-on in landscape, the screen is fine. However, the screen ANGLES are bad, in particular when you move it back (ie. watching it on an angle when it's on a table) - it only can go back about 10 degrees before it becomes unreadable.

Some people don't mind this, others do - but please be aware of that hardware limitation. As for the software, a lot of people (myself included) dislike stock but one good thing about the device is how easy it is to change it. There are quick a few mods out there and many UI options to choose from.

The comments about Viewsonic themselves are also true - they have flat-out abandoned this product, so be aware of that. The last firmware update (that wasn't pulled) was released in January and the support area was changed in April, and not for the better. I keep hoping that they will surprise me with a new firmware update, but as the weeks drag on that seems less and less likely. Luckily we have a sister tablet called the Notion Ink Adam where development is still going on, and GTAB devs can use that for future mods, potentially.

Great Tablet! Ditch the stock OS, switch over to V-Tab-7 or Cyan and this thing rocks!

dedpetls wrote:its flashing it to a different operating sytem

Er... not quite.

Rooting it is just gaining access to run things as the "root" (superuser) account. In other words, it lets you do things with software that the phone manufacturer maybe didn't intend, like install or copy/back up things they don't officially sanction.

Modding is installing another OS build. In the case of these devices, it's always the same OS -- Android -- but another version and with different features available. Again, that can include features the original manufacturer may not have sanctioned. The major draw to modding a device like this is that it doesn't come with the Android Market out of the box, so modding it lets you install any Android app you want, not just the ones ViewSonic likes.

This tablet looks nice, but its missing a few key features:
- no GPS or cell location for map location.
- no back camera for taking pictures.
- no Google android market.
- no HDMI out.

This falls short of what is acceptable for me.

ugrasse2 wrote:Biggest thing to keep in mind here is that all this talk about "1080p" is at best miunderstood marketing, and at worst outright misrepresentation of this tablet. Resolution is 1024x600. Sure it can play back 1080p content, but it isn't going to look HD.

With this dock that has HDMI out you should be able to output to a higher resolution device.

So its not totally untrue.

BTW, the Gtablet is the same as the Malata Zpadt2 so any accessories you see for that should work fine on the gtab.

Nostrom0 wrote:Since this lacks a cellular modem, does it have a GPS receiver? Will Google Maps run on it?

It doesn't have a hardware GPS, but can use your position from wifi networks. If you are good with hardware, there is a spot on the motherboard to solder your own chip onto and it works great with android as seen here.

Can I tether this to my phone for internet service?

bought one in March, rooted, CWM, Vegan-tab, and I think tnt-lite. either way I love mine and these changes take little knowledge about tablets becasue of so much information about how to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27oDBi-x760

was the best video, it made more sense than the forums.

LIKE zOMG!!!!!!

Guys I just TOTALLY called my GF and told her how much she would love a tablet computer and I did such a good job of it that she ordered us BOTH one a few seconds ago!

(apologies for the excitement. You understand, though, right?)

victorianoel wrote:I want a table realy bad. I dont know much about them and everyone talks about moding it and rooting it and all the other stuff but I dont know about any of this so would this table be good for me with out all that stuff?

Try this out. Very inexpensive. Decent durability.

jnbcox wrote:This thing is truly amazing, after you flash a modded ROM to it. I've got one from a previous woot and have it running Vegan-Tab. It's very comparable to other higher priced tablets now.

Ditto. Got this from the previous woot. The stock ROM is barely usable but after you've rooted it with VEGAN, it's FREAK'N AWESOME!!! I consider myself a quasi-techie but the rooting is very easy to do. Just follow the instructions on this link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=874258

I also have an iPad at work and for this price, you can't beat it. The hardware is much better than the iPad and it's geared such that it can handle the next versions of the Android OS. It is very well supported by the Android developer community. It can't quite stream Netflix yet but the flip side is that it can play all Flash based videos online unlike the iPad. The viewing angle is lacking but I got use to it after a while. You can get a free app a day from Amazon and after rooting it, you can make full use of the Android Market place. Downloads are lightning fast and you can even overclock the OS to make it even faster.
Couple of cool apps:
1. Dropbox works great on it as well as the Kindle app.
2. The free Bible (KJV version) is great and even has a built-in audio version.

If you're on the fence like I was, you won't regret getting it.

Specs. don't say GPS, but I bet if you have external, you can use Bluetooth to connect to it.

I'm a little confused over "G-market". ?? Is that ACTUALLY Google "MARKET"? Or some other market substitute. Although some, like SlideMe and Amazon aren't bad, it's good to have the REAL one too.

I bought one the first time Woot had these things. I like it but....

you basically have to root it to use it, not a big deal

no real market until you root it

screen viewing angle/quality is a turn off, main negative

hard buttons are in the way and accidentally get pressed

the 4 android buttons are not back-lit and impossible to use or see in the dark since you never know where they are, so the people who make the root roms make onscreen buttons.

you can install the NetFlix app but still not compatible at this time :'( one day maybe?

Looks like a great deal. But contrary to the marketing info, the gTablet definitely does NOT display a 1080p picture. It'll play videos recorded at 1080p (1920×1080 pixels) and throw away the extra data without stuttering, but the physical display resolution is 1024x600 -- slightly under 720p and about 1/4 of the 1080p spec. I'm sure it looks sharp, but 1080p it ain't.

NickMich wrote:Yes you can. There are apps available (i.e. QuickOffice) that make working with your standard Microsoft Office documents very easy.

Thanks for the info

dedpetls wrote:Can you watch netflix on yours? I have yet to root, but have been contimplating if I can get netflix to work?

If you flash Cyanogenmod7 (Gingerbread) on this and find the Netflix app named "com.netflix.mediaclient-3.apk" (on Mediafire), you'll have Netflix. Any other version of the Netflix app won't work, and you won't find one in the market.

Source: DroidLife

mykidstaxi wrote:ok, I'm admitting to being techno ignorant....what does it mean to "root" it??

http://www.techterms.com/definition/root

basically you gain administrative prilalages to tinker with teh system that the manufactures try to prevent you doing. like the difference between a normal user on you computer and an admin if you use windows. some ROMs do not require rooting the device.

Spiky wrote:Try this out. Very inexpensive. Decent durability.

Why did you send me to an Ikea website?

I have one of these--and the viewing angle is terrible--amongst the worse I have ever seen--certainly worse than most monitors. I have no idea how viewsonic achieved such poor performance. But, that said--I immeadiately chged to one of the 2.2 android releases--just go to the XDA website, then installed a couple of ereaders and videoplayers--and you have got a great tablet for the money (if this cost maybe $250 dollars...)Great for playing videos and books. But, comparing it to an ipad either first or second--the ipad is clearly superior product. So, think about the price--if it was 20 dollars cheaper then go for it, but otherwise think carefully about getting an ipad or another excellent choice is the nook colour.

Can this run Java applications (like Yahoo games)? Does it require an app to do it? Free or paid??

Nostrom0 wrote:Since this lacks a cellular modem, does it have a GPS receiver? Will Google Maps run on it?

With a Bluetooth GPS and a couple programs off the market, this thing makes an awesome GPS. Haven't found much it doesn't do well. Spend a little time on xda-developers forums and you can make it do pretty much anything you could want.