Say what you will about the Apple iPad tablet computer, it certainly has livened up the market for your computer. Each manufacturer would seem to be falling over themselves to hang onto Apple's coat tails and the resulting mess of design, operating systems, hardware specifications, and prices will be thoroughly confusing for consumers. Is it a phone? It is a PC? Is the feed for next year's boot car sales? While it is entertaining to see if you're one of these brave souls spending real money on these products, it helps to have a bit of friendly advice.
ViewSonic has jumped in with two tablet devices-a 7in mega-based Android smartphone 2.2 (Froyo) and dual 10in boot tablet without phone capabilities peer here. This comes with the latest Windows 7 Home Premium OS installed-but in Android page that you are attached with the rather long-in-the-tooth-version 1.6. Both run from a 16 GB solid-state disk (SSD).
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In the box provided ViewPad 10 with a charger to 3200mAh li-polymer battery plus two CDs containing the drivers and user's Guide. A quick start poster explains the basic features such as three hardware buttons next to the screen but confusing, who also talks about the 3 G mobile connectivity, which is not enabled in this model (despite the have a 3 G SIM slot at the top). It has 150 Mbps 802 .11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, though.
ViewPad 10 is pretty comprehensive, with its 14.5 mm thickness accommodating twin USB ports, headphones, a Mini-VGA port, microSD card slot and power connector at one end of the device. It is approximately 150 g heavier than the iPad, which makes it less comfortable to hold for long periods.
Brushed aluminum back of the device are classic, but the loud creaks our sample, when we held it near the end with ports something spoiled the quality feel. There is a cooling vent on the back, plus the ventilation ducts to the two tiny speakers. There is another vent on the top edge to the fan, radiator, 1.66 GHz Intel Atom CPU N455-it is definitely noticeable, but not too annoying.
Power, home page and Enter buttons are located next to the screen with three small blue status LEDs above it. Android started in 17 seconds, and even Windows took only 36 seconds to load from the cold. Of two Android provides by far the best touch screen user experience, with a huge keyboard and snappy response. But it still believe it is a small phone, so that the menus are huge and you tend to get stuck together with the mobile versions of Web sites.
The coolest app is Aldiko e-book reader, even though the screen 16: 9 aspect ratio does not work well for books. Others, such as the camera (ViewPad 10 includes a front-facing 1.3 megapixel model) and web TV apps, not take advantage of the screen resolution, either, to make them pretty pointless.
You will not have access to Google's Android market, only a third-party App Store with a rather uninspiring collection of apps. E-mail and web browsing in General, you should work well, even though there is no Flash support-annoying, because this is one of the leading reasons to choose an Android device to more than one running Apple's iOS 4. You cannot access files on the Windows partition when running Android, so any shared files must be stored on a microSD card (not supplied).
Windows 7 is a different kettle of fish. The problem is that its touch features, while good, is the timing for a keyboard-centric OS, and is better suited for stylus use-making it fiddly to use with your fingers on the screen as small as this. You get used to it after a while, but it is always a little hit-and-miss. The on screen keyboard is in order, but forget about handwriting recognition, unless you have a particularly pointy finger. The major attractions are, of course, knowledge, and that you can connect a USB device, and run any Windows program, which matches the hardware specifications. But with only around 3 GB of free space on the SSD, soon to be you to resort to a microSD card for file storage.
Video performance not stellar, but 720 p HD picture clip looping gave us the 2.5 hours of battery life. Screen 1024 at 600 is bright, and viewing angles are not too bad from the pages or at the top, but the show from the bottom up on more than about 45 degrees from the vertical (with the device flat on a desk in front of you, for example) is nigh-on impossible, due to the fact that the busiest in the brightness and contrast. Of course, you can get round this by turning things upside down, but it is still an irritation. The aspect ratio, also makes the most of the apps look rather odd in portrait mode.
We are not overly impressed ViewPad 10. Not so much because of hardware which is decent, if not outstanding-but because Windows 7 in touch mode on a small monitor is a great disappointment. We were surprised to find the Android experience much more compelling, in spite of its limitations. With a more Tablet PC-oriented version of Android, ViewPad 10 can be a different story entirely. But now to this price will fight to attract buyers away from iPad.
£ 428.99 Inc. VAT
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