Viewsonic g-Tablet

[Aikouka]

EDIT: Deal is dead, so the title has been changed.

-------------------

I was looking at Slickdeals earlier and I noticed that they have the g-Tablet for ~$280 (+$5 shipping). Tablets seem to have been pretty popular around here these days and given that this tablet normally costs $100 more (on Amazon at least), I thought some of you might be interested.

http://www.woot.com/

From what I read, it seems the biggest drawback to this (that can't be fixed) is the screen has somewhat poor viewing angles. Supposedly, the stock software isn't very good, but I saw a few comments about that not being hard to "fix" with a little trip to XDA .

I'm kind of tempted as I've been considering buying an old Android phone just for kicks, but $80-100 for an old phone that's probably half as speedy as the Tegra 2 in this tablet might make the ~3x cost worthwhile.

 

[Bateluer]

The G-Tablet does seem to get a lot of dev love from XDA. The Tap 'n' Tap UI that Viewsonic puts on it is worse than Blur, from what people post about it.

 

[Aikouka]

The G-Tablet does seem to get a lot of dev love from XDA. The Tap 'n' Tap UI that Viewsonic puts on it is worse than Blur, from what people post about it.

Well, to be honest, it looks like a decent machine for the price... especially since people are only paying $30-80 less for the Nook Color, which is certainly worse spec-wise. It pretty much looks like a Xoom with a worse screen and no HDMI out for about half of the entry price for the upcoming WiFi model.

 

[vshah]

i owned one for about a week. rooted and with some roms on it, it was a nice tablet, but heavy, and the screen is indeed crappy. i returned it and got a nook color.

 

[Aikouka]

i owned one for about a week. rooted and with some roms on it, it was a nice tablet, but heavy, and the screen is indeed crappy. i returned it and got a nook color.

Since you've actually used both, do you think the Nook Color is still a better option at this price point?

 

[Raduque]

Yeah, I saw that too.
If I had $285 to spare, I'd buy it.

 

[ultimatebob]

I've found that most things on Woot are cheap for a reason. Most of the crap that I've bought from there (Roomba, Digital Camera, LCD TV, Zune, Valentine's Day flowers that arrived dead, etc) end up sitting around the house unused simply because they don't work all that well.

In other words, I can safely assume that the g-Tablet is a low quality iPad knockoff simply because Woot was able to buy them so cheaply in volume. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I have a history of past bad impulse purchases that says that I'm right.

 

[richierich1212]

Ipad knockoff? lol

 

[vshah]

Since you've actually used both, do you think the Nook Color is still a better option at this price point?

i do. i prefer the size, the screen is undeniably nicer, and it still plays any game i've thrown at it. battery life is also much better.

i found my nook used on craigslist for $170, so that might skew things a bit.

 

[ponyo]

TigerDirect/Circuit City has this for $299 with free shipping Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EPV7TK/sr=8-1/qid=1301679371/ref=olp_product_details?t=slickdeals&tag=slickdeals&ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1301679371&sr=8-1&seller=

 

[ivan2]

The screen is shit. Software problem can be fixed by root and adwex but nothing can fix that shitty screen. I'm going to ditch it.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Screen is really, really bad. Got to see a gTab and a Xoom in the same day. Neither have a screen as nice as my Nook Color (for colors, contrast, etc) but the gTab was pretty much unusable.

 

[PuppettMaster001]

Screen is really, really bad. Got to see a gTab and a Xoom in the same day. Neither have a screen as nice as my Nook Color (for colors, contrast, etc) but the gTab was pretty much unusable.

I have had mine since Christmas and there are definitely better screens out there but mine has been more than useable. You can increase the viewing angles tremendously by rotating the tablet 270 degrees (upside down). I was thinking about selling mine for the upcoming Terminator.

 

[Mopetar]

The screen is shit. Software problem can be fixed by root and adwex but nothing can fix that shitty screen. I'm going to ditch it.

I had a friend recently pick one up from Woot and I pretty much agree that the screen is a killer. He's tried a few different ROMs for it, but it's still limited to Android 2.x so it still feels a little clunky. I haven't had a chance to play around with a Xoom yet, so I don't know how much Honeycomb will improve things, but considering no one here knows when the source will be released it's a moot point for now.