iPad3Gwifi

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   Kilgore Gagarin "Those who believe in telekin... July 29, 2011 9:41 pm

   19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

   A review for those new to tablets AND Android, May 27, 2011

   By Kilgore Gagarin “Those who believe in telekin… (United States) –

   This review is from: Le Pan TC 970 9.7-Inch Multi-Touch LCD Google Android Tablet PC (Personal Computers)

   Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What’s this?)

   Before I even start, I absolutely LOVE my Le Pan tablet. It’s a blast to use, has a lot of upside for the things I want to do with it, and has a definite “wow” factor with bystanders. Typical quotes are, “wow,” and “I want one” and “that is so cool!” This could be said about a lot of the better tablets (e.g., iPad) that have nice, high def, shiny screens showing video, but I appreciated the coveting looks (and I let people play with it extensively and had trouble getting it back a couple times). I have never used a tablet (well, 10 minutes goofing with an iPad in the Apple Store a year ago) and have never used anything with the Android operating system. A lot of my “cons” are probably pertinent to a lot of similar pieces of hardware, as well as shortcomings of the Android OS as it is currently implemented, rather than unique to the Le Pan. I would NOT recommend this for someone looking for a turnkey, works perfectly out of the box solution. You will need either some experience, or a strong nerd compulsion (or a little of both). You’ll have to overcome quirks of the hardware and software. First, the “bad.” The power button sucks. After four days I STILL fumble with that sucker. The fingerprints on the screen drive me nuts. I think it’s worse in a tablet with a large screen than on an Android or Iphone with smaller screens. I’m already carrying around a microfiber cleaning cloth. A definite hazard of this entire class of machine. You might want to invest in some wet-dry LCD screen wipes for when you want to get it in pristine condition before you show off in front of the boss (e.g., Audiovox Surface SURF402 Wet/Dry Screen Wipes). Think of it as detailing your tablet. Saying the speakers are “tinny” might be generous and there is absolutely no recognizable bass component. I’m ready to get a bluetooth headphone for this immediately. Can’t run Hulu to watch TV (yet) – the hardware is probably perfectly capable, but Hulu sees “Android mobile device” and just serves up an annoying message. However YouTube (included app) looks and works better than I have ever seen it. It’s heavier than I thought, but not that bad. It’s about the same weight as an iPad. I found that holding it in one hand I would cramp up after a couple of minutes. It is light enough to cradle, and propping it up on an ample paunch while in bed was ok. Sitting down with tablet on lap, no problem. Next, the “weird.” The onboard camera only shoots pictures in a mirror mode (i.e., titles of books are reversed like in a mirror). In using Skype I found that for this version of Android, video calling is not supported. Otherwise, Skype works quite nicely on this platform. In certain network environments (I’m on a University network half the time) you can easily purchase apps via the included Android Market, but downloading wouldn’t commence – probably some security feature of our network. Using my home wifi connection (DSL via AT&T) I had no problems downloading and installing Skype and some other navigation based stuff. The included browser can’t handle Ebsco databases (if that means anything to you). The browser handles most websites well, and the large screen means you don’t need to access the specially configured mobile sites, which are still a lot cleaner. I ran this on our library catalog and most of our databases with no problem, but the Ebsco ones didn’t allow any search entry. Weird. (NOTE ADDED June 2, 2011: Just installed the Opera Mobile Web Browser ver. 11 from the Apps for Android store on Amazon and the Ebsco databases work just fine). Finally, the “good.” The screen is awesome (except in daylight where it is useless). Use this indoors, not at the beach. The response time is lightning fast. Apps come up fast and operate fast. Scrolling, screen switching, etc. is ultra-smooth. In the right network environment, getting, installing, and using apps is trivial. The integration with web based Google apps is seamless. I didn’t even notice my calendar and contacts were downloaded and synchronized (and continue to be synchronized). A very cool thing I discovered this morning was that when I was out of wifi range (on my bus and train commute) I could still do my Gmail offline. The Gmail app downloads and caches your email so you can use it offline, including replying to messages. The next time you get a wifi connection, synchronization will send all pending messages, and download new ones – this was all done while sitting in my backback. The GPS is useful, but not yet a substitute for a good stand-alone unit (I’m a TomTom user). But the connection to Google Maps…

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