One thing that interests me about this tablet is that it takes SDHC cards. I have a Kindle Fire which is a nice tablet, but I tend to be out of WiFi range a lot and the 8GB onboard storage is tough given that I have a lot of movies and MP3s.

What other low-cost tablets are out there that take expansion cards?

Thanks in advance.

wootbegood wrote:Why does woot's editing bot change the commonly used acronym for "what-the-fxxx" to "what's the features?" ... Is it a punishment for not using the preview function when writing a comment?

Because it can...

bmw66x wrote:Is this thing up-gradable to any more current OS? Like Gingerbread, Honeycomb, or Ice Cream Sandwich?

No. It's too slow for any upgrade. It was originally released with 2.0 and Velocity Micro released a 2.2 upgrade last year. The new 2.2 release is very unstable and being a discontinued product, forget about any upgrade.

Yautja wrote:Total carp...
I've had one that my GF gave me.
She meant well, but ugh...
I cannot do ANYTHING on this POS...

Next time you can pick out some shoes for her. These are about as functional as the tablet she got you:

promisedplanet wrote:One thing that interests me about this tablet is that it takes SDHC cards. I have a Kindle Fire which is a nice tablet, but I tend to be out of WiFi range a lot and the 8GB onboard storage is tough given that I have a lot of movies and MP3s.

What other low-cost tablets are out there that take expansion cards?

Thanks in advance.

Watch out. This tablet has a MIPS CPU. It means that although Android apps should be all Java-based, most of them are not and distribute a native library only for ARM-based systems.
In few words: even using the Amazon Appstore marketplace (or even installing applications by yourself), you will find that 70% of the applications WILL NOT INSTALL.
Out of those remaining app that install, probably half of them are usable... the others crashes or are too slow to run.

On the other hand, this tablet is a great e-book reader. It consumes very little power and you can go for a whole week without recharging.

Fabr1zi0 wrote:Watch out. This tablet has a MIPS CPU. It means that although Android apps should be all Java-based, most of them are not and distribute a native library only for ARM-based systems.
In few words: even using the Amazon Appstore marketplace (or even installing applications by yourself), you will find that 70% of the applications WILL NOT INSTALL.
Out of those remaining app that install, probably half of them are usable... the others crashes or are too slow to run.

On the other hand, this tablet is a great e-book reader. It consumes very little power and you can go for a whole week without recharging.

Thanks for the advice. In addition to e-books, though, I also am interested in music and movies.

I assume the music player is adequate (unless it has some problem with playing music off the SDHC card?), but I've seen conflicting information in Wooters' posts about its abilities as a video player. I'm talking about full-length movies in MP4 format etc..

WARNING! !

This particular tablet has very limited apps. Velocity did not purchase the android market license for the Cruz tablets. You cannot purchase the license yourself. You cannot use any apps that are android market specific.

Now other than all the negative parts, as a tablet it works very well. It's cheaper than a Kindle and you can buy Amazon/kindle books for it. I also watch movies on mine.

Anything that costs less than a tank of gas is a bargain.

If I purchase this, it will be for reading comics in the CBR/CBZ format. I see a few of you have used the for that purpose; I'd like to know what you think, and what apps you used to read them.

thered1 wrote:My dad wants an ereader for his birthday (but not e-ink). Are there any products on par with this price-wise that perform any better?

He seems perfectly content with his Macbook and smartphone for mobile computing.
I just don't see how this isn't worth it if you don't give a carp about angry birds and don't have time to watch videos anyway.

This is not "on PAR" exactly price wise, bit it will give you a much better experience as an ereader for $135. It's 1024x600 resolution IPS display. It's your Dad, he's worth the extra cash. Think of how many times he has been there for you. Go ahead and spend the extra $85 - he's worth it.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/cert-pre-owned-nook-color-barnes-noble/1100666155

thered1 wrote:My dad wants an ereader for his birthday (but not e-ink). Are there any products on par with this price-wise that perform any better?

He seems perfectly content with his Macbook and smartphone for mobile computing.
I just don't see how this isn't worth it if you don't give a carp about angry birds and don't have time to watch videos anyway.

The iTomic IEBR7C 7" eBook Reader
is good for someone looking for only an ereader. They're on sale at Walmart for $29.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/iTomic-IEBR7C-7-eBook-Reader/19887947

Important information for those looking to buy this.

You are buying a device with a MIPS CPU. Most other Androids use an ARM CPU. Beacuse this is a MIPS CPU device you must keep several things in mind:

A.) You cannot get the Android Market app because it depends on libraries that are for an ARM only system.

B) No Upgrading to Andriod 3.0 as it is for ARM CPUs only.

C.) No hacking the OS, again most hacks are built around the ARM CPU version of Android.

Ok ok just a couple of things!

I have a T301 which is similar but not the same to the T103. T103 somehow has more RAM (512 vs 256) but has lower specs otherwise. First off:

Any non-phone device not running at least Android 3.0 is guaranteed to NOT come with Google Play/Android Market. They didn't allow for it back then. So this is another device that doesn't come with it.

If the T103 is anything like the T301, the boot loader might be UNLOCKED meaning it's SUPER EASY to root if that's the case. Just do some quick research online about that. This would mean you COULD put Android Market on it.

Finally: The fact that it doesn't come with Android Market might be fine anyway because in the case of the T301 I couldn't install over 1/2 of the apps I've downloaded before. They'd just fail trying to install.

So yeah if these two are alike, the T103 might be just $50 of frustration. It'll be good to read stuff on and that's about it. Or a $50 touch screen clock with a few apps.

The heck with the Velocity. I just wanna say I sure do miss the cleverly written stories. Guess Woot! thinks its customers are a bunch of illiterates.

It's very tempting as something to experiment with, but I'm running into a major hurdle. No one seems to be doing any custom ROM work for it. I was hoping to find a minimalist style ROM which may improve the usability. I find quite a bit of talk about it but no actual complete ROMs to try.

I've probably been spoiled by my gtablet though as it has a very decent processor just horrible OS so I've had a lot of fun trying different ROMs on it. But the poor screen and horrible battery life have gotten on my nerves.. plus now the lcd panel seems to have shifted so that it's a tiny bit crooked but enough to be annoying.

It sounds like this one may not be worth the money/time though, so I'll just continue to be on the lookout for another inexpensive tablet to fool around with. I don't have nearly enough use to justify the $300-500+ pricing but <$150 gets to be more tempting.

Stay away from this tablet if you are under any illusions that you are going to upgrade the ROM. I just spent the last half hour on http://forum.xda-developers.com and there appears to be ZERO development for this model. The 301 on the other hand does appear to have some limited support by the ROM community.

While the hardware appears to be fine for a good e-book reader do yourself a favor, save up an additional $150 and get yourself a Kindle Fire.

sdkammer wrote:OK...so seriously...someone please explain how this could not be worth fifty bucks?

I thought the same thing when I bought a $60 Velocity Micro Tablet running Froyo (on Woot a few weeks ago). I ultimately got absolutely nothing for my money.

It could not launch a web browser and load a page fully without crashing.

It was slow as balls. And I don't just mean a few seconds of waiting to perform major operations. I mean that it was so slow to respond to you when you tapped on the screen that you couldn't actually tell whether you'd tapped a button successfully or maybe missed it slightly. This made it murder to use even for very simple things.

App selection was nil. No Android market. It offered about 10 apps via a custom Velocity app store. At least 3 of them were YouTube, which still makes me scratch my head. Anyway, none of them would download. Crash. Every. Time. I could find my way to the Amazon app store but the same thing happened there.

So... no apps. Slower than trying to run Hulu Plus on your grandmother's indignant wooter bag, and it couldn't even load a stinking web browser.

I returned it and got my money back, thank goodness. The two or three hours I wasted trying to get something useful out of this piece of crap are never coming back though.

Does this have a webcam?

New format sux...big time...go back to the original and demote the foolish fool that thought of this.

This is an AWFUL tablet - i purchased one and returned it as fast as i could. dont let the price fool you. It is refurbished, so it may work for a few days, weeks, hours....but it WILL stop working. My sister got hers at Christmas and it worked fine for about 3 months, and now it is a paperweight.

Tyross wrote:This is all you need to know:

Processor: 800MHz
RAM: 512MB

All the speed and power of a 14 year old computer! Based on these stats, this is slow as molasses in January.

my phone has 512mb ram and is only 1ghz...? cant really compare them like that.

Pyst wrote:Does anyone know if this can be rooted? Will this support Honeycomb at least? I'm guessing this isn't powerful enough to run ICS but I don't know for sure.

There seems to be some community support for this device. ROMS are a little scarce. Check out SlateDroid for more details. http://www.slatedroid.com/forum/135-velocity-cruz-tablet/

dhawk00 wrote:my phone has 512mb ram and is only 1ghz...? cant really compare them like that.

I agree. I got one to use for reading ebooks while I'm on a bike at the gym or while I'm on the go. So far I've been using my iPhone for that, and it works fine, but the screen is so small. If you look at that video, you are paying way more to get the better tablet. To me, new tablets are still not worth the money they cost and I will not buy one at those prices until they get faster. $50 for something that does all that this does is actually a great price. Even if you used it just as a digital picture frame it is close to being worth it. And this does way more than that. I'm mostly buying this to keep myself from spending a lot more money on one that I know I will still not be happy with.

Velocity is right. 7 MILLI-seconds to the first sucker buys the tablet! Wow. That's like impulse buying on steroids.

That's quite an improvement over the Demon-Dialers from the bad-ole-days.

As a general query to the tech guys at Woot: "Whats the fastest anybody has grabbed the first woot item?"

Can my 7 year old play Angry Birds and such on it, so I can have my FLIPPING PHONE BACK?? Shazbot...nevermind...

momof4kinder wrote:Can my 7 year old play Angry Birds and such on it, so I can have my FLIPPING PHONE BACK?? Shazbot...nevermind...

Several posts have already indicated that you cannot play Angry Birds on this tablet.

sharkync wrote:Anything that costs less than a tank of gas is a bargain.

Sadly, this is not true.

Actually, this is about the new alternative Amazon (formerly woot).

Goodbye.

Change is not always for the better.

Horrible new look.

Never used to sign out, and checked site almost every day.

Woot is now gone from my bookmark toolbar.

For such bad reviews $50+5 is still to high. I am looking for a cheap one like this for a countertop music player. Does this thing have the google voice commands? I hate searching through 16Gig of music to find a specific song.

As an E-Reader isn't Resolution: 800 x 480 too low to read text, especially for older people?

Will this load the 'Fox19 Storm Tracker Weather'?

/Why is my comment window scrunched to one side?
//View a single deal a day site, scroll down past two other deals (*!?) to find no details, two more clicks to get the specs. Hurray for ad revenue.

ThunderThighs wrote:FYI: I've confirmed with HQ that the Velocity Micro we are selling has 1GB of "built-in storage".

Thanks for double checking that the built-in storage really is 1GB. I believe Woot's words & specs before I trust a product manufacturer.

The "Support" section of Velocity Micro Cruz T100 Series Tablet "Knowledge Base" (FAQ or Frequently Asked Questions section) web site confirms it really has 1GB of built-in storage at the web link below:

http://cruzsupport.velocitymicro.com/link/portal/5462/5758/Article/782/What-are-the-specs-on-the-Cruz-Tablet-T100-series

Sounds like Velocity Micro Cruz T103 Tablet "Product" section is wrong when it says the T103 has 2GB of built-in storage at the web link below & the manufacturer needs to correct their mistake:

http://www.velocitymicro.com/T100.php

Do you guys think this would be good for a toy for my toddlers to play with? Are there any working kid's apps that anyone knows about? It's cheaper than a LeapPad (although obviously not as durable).

Any idea if this would work well as a Sonos controller? It's running a new enough version of Android to meet the minimum requirements...

Can you guys just give up and create tablet.woot.com?

Jstabum wrote:dont like the new layout. is this new???? refurbished???? used. Come on who's writting these descriptions. Woot your blowing it....

If you take the time to read about the product you will see it is a referb.

This tablet is utterly useless.
You can't download any games
The default browser which is Google Chrome crashe's seconds after it loads ( i have 3 and it does it on everyone)
If you try to contact woot to return it, you'll never hear from them.

I bought these last time they came around and got burned don't waste your money.

sdkammer wrote:OK...so seriously...someone please explain how this could not be worth fifty bucks?

Simple. It is a $50 chunk of plastic that will sit and do NOTHING you want or expect of it.

This was on Woot @ $60 just a few weeks ago. I got it ... and after much frustration it is now returned (I hope you dont get my unit).

The manufacturer provides minimal support.

It is not capable of using the Android Market Place (most say it is because of the processor).

It is slower (less than responsive)than acceptable for any usage. Seriously - you question if it detected your touch)

Because of the Market Place limitiation you cannot load all applications. It is a hit or miss if the app you want will run. The Manufacturers website has a limited list of apps that will and will not run.

promisedplanet wrote:One thing that interests me about this tablet is that it takes SDHC cards. I have a Kindle Fire which is a nice tablet, but I tend to be out of WiFi range a lot and the 8GB onboard storage is tough given that I have a lot of movies and MP3s.

What other low-cost tablets are out there that take expansion cards?

Thanks in advance.

I tried to play music and movies on the Cruz. Stutter and Shudder. Nothing played smoothly. The Cruz didnt support several of the alternative players I tried (they just would not install)

For the extra $$ I recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad A1. New Egg currently has it for $190. Much more than this tablet - but the Lenovo actually works. Same price point as the Fire. Cheaper than the Galaxy 7"

I bought 3 of these during the last offering.. none of the web browsers worked.. They would begin the load, and then drop to the home screen.

Like a previous person stated, they are good for raising your blood pressure.

and thats about it...

But when I give them as gifts,, I am going to give them to people I don't really like...