Talk about bad timing on Woot!s part -- I wasn't even aware that B&N had those Touchpad's in stock.

Jumped in to read about the GTAB, ended up buying a Touchpad. The last thing I need is another tablet, but at $115 minus 6% ebates I just could not resist. :O

Sorry Woot!

coryhamma wrote:So how does 1024x600 resolution magically become 1080P?

Is there some magical way 600 lines become 1080 lines? I thought they might "fudge it" because it has some external video output that might support 1920x1080 resolution, but alas, it does not.

It can handle 1080p output over HDMI. I've played a few movies this way.

Can this be upgraded to Honeycomb (Android 3.0) easily?

Does it have access to Google's Android Marketplace? A big problem with many tablets is that they don't have Google's blessings, thus no access to the Marketplacce. That means not being unable ti download many top apps. Amazon's Android marketplace, for example, is much smaller. You can always download apps by unofficial means, of course, but that means no automatic updating. It's pretty cumbersome. In my opinion, Google's dictatorial control over the marketplace is what's preventing it from overpowering the iPad. After all, one of the major reasons Windows overpowered Mac was the millions of cheap IBM compatible computers that also ran Windows.

BTW, the inability to access Google's marketplace is one major reason teh excellent Entourage Edge died.

Stop tempting me with this, Woot!

I have one from April Woot.
Rooted and running hacked HC Flashback 7.2.

Nice tablet.
For the money, I would recommend Asus or Acer.
A HP would be nice for $100.

These should be $100-$150 for the hassle of Viewsonic NOT supporting their products. As most previous owners have stated, custom ROM's make the tablet more enjoyable but they all have their drawbacks.

I gotta say, don't trust most of the reviews for this tablet as most of them are based on the tablet as it was when it first shipped and back then, it was awful. Yes, the viewing angles are awful and yes that's something you really never get over, so to speak, but honestly, I like it. It's as powerful as any Android tablet out there and while it doesn't run an official version of Honeycomb, the custom Honeycomb ROMs people have developed for this tablet are great.

The G-Tablet is a hacker's dream. If you're willing to put in a bit of work and install a custom ROM (and it's really not much work at all) this tablet should return the favor in spades.

Or, you could buy a $99 Touchpad. Whatever floats your boat.

I have mine rooted and put vegan-tab ginger on it. Quite simply: It's pimp yo!

sdc100 wrote:Can this be upgraded to Honeycomb (Android 3.0) easily?

Does it have access to Google's Android Marketplace? A big problem with many tablets is that they don't have Google's blessings, thus no access to the Marketplacce. That means not being unable ti download many top apps. Amazon's Android marketplace, for example, is much smaller. You can always download apps by unofficial means, of course, but that means no automatic updating. It's pretty cumbersome. In my opinion, Google's dictatorial control over the marketplace is what's preventing it from overpowering the iPad. After all, one of the major reasons Windows overpowered Mac was the millions of cheap IBM compatible computers that also ran Windows.

BTW, the inability to access Google's marketplace is one major reason teh excellent Entourage Edge died.

Like I said earlier. It took me 13 minutes to get it running on Honeycomb, with the full android market (the new one) and ALL of the google apps.

Its worth the buy.

Horrible viewing angles, poor standby battery life, awful build quality. I would be an awful person if I let anyone else waste money on this thing... Hacker-friendly or not. If you want an android tablet, go buy a Samsung Galaxy, or any ASUS tablet.

If you do decide to go with one, Cyanogen Mod worked the best for me, and offered the best compatility with Android market and most of the popular apps you are familiar with. It was stable, but not as smooth as the iPad or top-tier Android tablets.

I really screwed myself over when I bought into all of the praise the people on here and other forums like slatedroid were giving this thing.

But hey-- I know some people are on a budget.

I bought one of these in april and put a tnt rom on it and loved it, just loaded honeycomb 3.0 on it recently and it got even better,it just takes some reading and following step by step instructions online from any number of forums that make it very easy to load a new rom onto it cause the stock o.s. is a p.o.s... overall I would recommend this to anyone in a heartbeat

Like many other people are saying this is a great tablet. It's super easy to root and start loading new roms which really unlocks the potential of this tablet. The only bad thing is the viewing angles, and I mean they're pretty bad. If you can get past that this is still a great tablet for the money.

For anyone who buys this and bothers reading this post I would highly recommend getting a Skinomi TechSkin screen protector. It helps with the viewing angle problem and is a good quality protector.

toottoot wrote:

These should be $100-$150 for the hassle of Viewsonic NOT supporting their products.

One of the best customer support moments in all of history was when ViewSonic's gTab support page listed XDA-Devs (unaffiliated third-party "hacker" group) for customer support assistance.

The screen is a horrible, worthless piece of crap, rendering the tablet useless. Yes, you can buy a dock with HDMI connector. So what? You can also buy a little box the size of a pack of cigarettes that will play movies out of a USB memory stick or hard drive, or an SD card, out to composite or HDMI, for $32 on ebay. That's less than what the dock costs, AND it comes with a remote.
I have one, and I think it's a piece of garbage. I would use it as a client for my Vulkano box, except that the latest Vulkano software doesn't even work on it. Tegra, schmegra. Give me an iPad or a Nook Color any day. This is The Day the Ponies Come Back (2000).

Bought one around mothers day...mother kept it, I was not sure who it was for but definitely getting myself one now. It has no android market to begin with but with a good rom it will be a nice good tablet. :-)

mpeters13 wrote:Horrible viewing angles, poor standby battery life, awful build quality.

Poor battery life? I get 10 hours out of mine, with it overclocked to 1.4ghz.

Awful build quality? It held up to a drop from 6 feet a lot better than my old iTouch.

Screen angles? I will give you that, but its not a problem in landscape. The real downside of using a netbook screen in a tablet becomes apparent.

fragdaddy2007 wrote:Like I said earlier. It took me 13 minutes to get it running on Honeycomb, with the full android market (the new one) and ALL of the google apps.

Its worth the buy.

Which ROM did you go with?

This tablet will run Honeycomb if you want it to. its a tweakers delight indeed :-)

So you're selling an unsupported tablet for over 200 bones when Amazon has the also unsupported Touchpad for 99 bucks.


HUH?

Edit: PS. I do have one of this. I like it. And it looks like hardware support for Honeycomb is coming. But for less than half the price you can have the touchpad with what I can only imagine is an infinitely better screen. This one has a viewing angle of like 5 degrees.

aaltieri wrote:Which ROM did you go with?

Gtabcomb 3.3

roebeet wrote:Talk about bad timing on Woot!s part -- I wasn't even aware that B&N had those Touchpad's in stock.

Jumped in to read about the GTAB, ended up buying a Touchpad. The last thing I need is another tablet, but at $115 minus 6% ebates I just could not resist. :O

Sorry Woot!

New Touchpad owners should be very excited about the quote above. Sounds like @roebeet (famed Android gTablet ROM maker) will be playing around with the Touchpad soon. Only good things can come of this.

Current and future gTablet owners, go here for some great ROMs, my favorite of @roebeet's being Brilliant Corners.

http://www.slatedroid.com/forum/199-viewsonic-g-tablet-12-rom-development/

There is no reason to keep the stock Viewsonic ROM on this device. It's almost unbrickable, so read up a bit about rooting and change the rom to something else post haste. You won't be sorry that you did.

I love my gTab, it's a great device despite the poor viewing angles, after using it landscape for awhile, you don't even notice it as much.

As of this writing, the Touchpad is available at B&N, ...but it may not be the case early next morning. It's likely not everyone will be lucky enough to score a Touchpad for ultra cheap. In that case, the gTablet certainly isn't a bad consolation. I paid over $300 for mine.

Bought one earlier this year from woot!... Fantastic deal after a bit of work. Make sure you do your research before you buy, as it is worthless out of the box. Needs a new ROM, etc., to work as you would like it to.


The only con is the poor viewing angle.

I hear the buttons don't light up, and that the screen is terrible, even when you look directly at it? I'm a huge video quality freak .

I've been watching some vids with Honeycomb installed on it, and am very interested. Has anyone experimented with this? I have been looking at the more expensive tablets such as the transformer, but I may get this and put honeycomb on it while I wait for a better option to come forth.

I bought these a few woots ago.

Comments on the viewing angle in vertical are true. Not un-viewable, just not great.

The only other criticisms are:

The navigation 'buttons' are not back lit. So... while looking into the screen with dim or no room lights, it is more of a fumble to press the correct one.

Also, I realize this isn't an ipad, it is a bit uncomfortable after a while when reclining to read a book. The size and weight are listed in the description but until actually using it... well, just something to consider.

I am glad I bought it. For the price, it is a good buy.

crackedhe4d wrote:Amazon is woot, hunt around....still though new this is a basic nothing tablet that is ready for you to turn it into whatever you want. you can get the kindle app and it will be a color kindle :P

I have one. I also ordered a Touchpad. And no this will never be a reading device. The screen is horrible.

gidgiddonihah wrote:I hear the buttons don't light up, and that the screen is terrible, even when you look directly at it?

I've been watching some vids with Honeycomb installed on it, and am very interested. Has anyone experimented with this?

its not an ipad or XOOM promise..... but it is a discount if you are willing to spend 20 minutes with it. :oÞ

gidgiddonihah wrote:I hear the buttons don't light up, and that the screen is terrible, even when you look directly at it?

I've been watching some vids with Honeycomb installed on it, and am very interested. Has anyone experimented with this?

When you look directly at it its a REALLY good screen. Its a laptop screen, its quality is great. Its just not meant to be held portrait.

Read a little higher, I have had Honeycomb on mine for a while. It runs GREAT.

If not posted yet, this is the go to site for "upgrading" your gtablet.

http://viewsonic-gtablet-for-dummies.webs.com/

Personally, I found this tablet to be fairly useless spec-wise. I mean, it's great and all but if you put honeycomb or gingerbread on it there's no hardware acceleration so half the power is gimped from unlocking it from its default firmware prison. (Though, Gingerbread is coming along with hardware acceleration support if I recall correctly)

The sad truth is that there are few applications that truly utilize the power in this thing. (To warrant how heavy it is) So, while it is a nice tablet I just found myself not needing it.

I also was surprised to find out that I preferred a 7 inch screen over 10 inch. 10 inches plus the sheer weight of this sucker makes it very unappealing. I went to a rooted Nook Color and haven't looked back or needed the extra power in this tablet for any games or media players I've used.

YMMV, of course, but there are drawbacks. Particularly the screen as mentioned. You know how the 3DS screen can't be moved much without losing the 3D effect (which makes sense unlike here) Yeah, it's far more touchy here. It's an awful screen (looks great head on but at ANY angle it fails). It's just weird since Viewsonic USED to be known for great LCDs.

If you're penny-pinched or just like to play, these area good value. Add Vegan-Tab or another custom ROM and you've got a very capable machine. The screen truly does suck, though, and Viewsonic, of all people, should be ashamed of offering anything with a screen so sucky-bad-awful. Overall, probably the best buy in Android tablets right now if you can live with the dreadful screen.

nickbuol wrote:Got one of these a few months back. Put on Vegan-Tab ROM (new O/S of sorts) and it is pretty sweet. Not sure how it compares today to other offerings, but yeah. If you don't want to learn (it was very easy) how to put a new ROM on this thing, then stay away. The default interface is pure crap. If you want to spend just an hour or so reading the easy step by step instructions on how to remove and replace the default interface, then this is pretty darn good.

FYI, I paid $279.00 for it back in April from Woot.

So, how do we put on the Vegan-Tab ROM?

I bought one last time it was on here. My impression:

*The viewing angle on it is below average.
*Hardware-wise, it isn't bad at all.
*The stock OS is awful

I didn't have any use for it, so I sold it about a month after I got it here on woot.

sykotek wrote:New Touchpad owners should be very excited about the quote above. Sounds like @roebeet (famed Android gTablet ROM maker) will be playing around with the Touchpad soon. Only good things can come of this.

Current and future gTablet owners, go here for some great ROMs, my favorite of @roebeet's being Brilliant Corners.

http://www.slatedroid.com/forum/199-viewsonic-g-tablet-12-rom-development/

This doesn't mean that the GTAB is dead to me, btw. I love messing with my GTAB and I have no intention of selling it. But this Touchpad is like the deal of the year - how could I pass that up?

IF I get it (because B&N could always cancel my order, keep in mind) I will be watching Android development very closely. The first big obstacle is getting any version of Android on it without bricking the device. If there's a way to port even a non-optimized version and still be able to backout to WebOS, that will be a major milestone.

I've also been reading that WebOS itself is not necessarily dead. So we have to see how HP is going to deal with the software.

woot for sure has his sense of humour.

fragdaddy2007 wrote:Gtabcomb 3.3

The world is your oyster on this tab...

yuusou wrote:Hey quick question if I could. As a rule of thumb, should I run software update on the Touchpad once I get it or keep whatever it comes with in hopes it's easier to hack.

This is becoming a TP forum, now? Uh oh!

Honestly, no idea -- I actually know very little about the device, or if there's even a software update yet.

If my order isn't cancelled, I'll start researching. If there is an update, I would recommend holding off at least for the short-term. Hopefully a lot of developers have these devices in-flight so a lot could change in 1-2 weeks. For now, I'd just enjoy stock until we learn more.

With a bit of tweaking, this is as good as a "big" tablet gets. I tried it side-by-side with the Xoom, but eventually settled on the Galaxy Tab 7".

With a folding bluetooth keyboard and cloud computing, this is a laptop replacement. And the price is right!

roebeet wrote:This is becoming a TP forum, now? Uh oh!

Honestly, no idea -- I actually know very little about the device, or if there's even a software update yet.

If my order isn't cancelled, I'll start researching. If there is an update, I would recommend holding off at least for the short-term. Hopefully a lot of developers have these devices in-flight so a lot could change in 1-2 weeks. For now, I'd just enjoy stock until we learn more.

The only update when I got the was for touchpad/kb update...did it..then z4 off sd I don't see anymore updates coming out, not sure why viewsonic..... :-/ whoa we got major edits...hah

roebeet wrote:Talk about bad timing on Woot!s part -- I wasn't even aware that B&N had those Touchpad's in stock.

Jumped in to read about the GTAB, ended up buying a Touchpad. The last thing I need is another tablet, but at $115 minus 6% ebates I just could not resist. :O

Sorry Woot!

Thanks roebeet for the heads up on B&N

Sorry Woot!

roebeet wrote:Talk about bad timing on Woot!s part -- I wasn't even aware that B&N had those Touchpad's in stock.

Jumped in to read about the GTAB, ended up buying a Touchpad. The last thing I need is another tablet, but at $115 minus 6% ebates I just could not resist. :O

Sorry Woot!

The consumer reviews for Barnes & Noble's web site are not encouraging so protect yourself & browse what folks are saying about their online buying experiences there by checking the Reseller Ratings web link below. Looks like a much safer better experience doing business with Woot!

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Barnes_and_Noble#

BTW- interesting article about using tablets to replace netbooks uses the G-tablet as an example:

http://techcitement.com/mobile/tablets-versus-netbooks-part-ii/

I've had mine for a while (Woot $279.00) and it's been a great intro into the Android world.Faster then my wifes iPad. Easy to root and add Roms.Almost impossible to hard brick! Will run honeycomb but currently using Roebeets "Brilliant Corners" with very few issues. If you don't want to spend some time tweaking it, move on to something else.
That said just picked up 2 HP Touchpads 16GB @ Barnes & Noble. Order went through fine now have to wait and see if they actually ship.