Brian's First Tablet Computer

I bought a used Viewsonic gTablet last week as an experiment. My thought was to putter around with a cheap, intro level tablet to see how I would actually use it (as opposed to how the manufacturers' marketing teams think I would use it).

This particular model has a 10" screen, 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal flash storage, running Android 2.2. The previous owner included an external USB keyboard & carrying case which I'm employing currently to write this review.

So far, I'm pleasantly impressed.

This older version of Android is causing me some minor issues. The gTablet has USB ports but they're only for running external user interface devices like mice and keyboards, not mounting flash drives. I'd love to install some extra applications but Android Marketplace doesn't like my tablet and refuses me access. The web browser can't handle anything more than simple web sites. The wifi connectivity is a little feable (about half the range my laptop has) but is reliable enough when you're inside it's happy range. And what kind of operating system ships without a notepad application? I could also wish for a VPN client of some kind so I could reach the office network but that might be overreaching.

The gTablet has a MicroSD slot which can be used for document storage but not applications. I've ordered a 32GB card but in the interim, I stole the 8GB card from my Blackberry so I could import a tonne o' files. It's not overly fast, but it'll do.

All that said, the video is delightful: photos and movies are crisp, colorful, bright and smooth flowing. The touch surface is perhaps a little too sensitive as I find myself selecting items by accident. Likewise the placement of app buttons along the side are easily touched when most inconvenient, flipping me into other applications or the desktop when least expected.

So what am I using it for? As expected, I'm using it as a quick-booting portable web browser. I love the desktop weather and news apps which update automagically when in wifi range. I have loaded a bunch of mp3 files onto it but I haven't used it yet as a music player beyond my initial tests; I do intend to listen to some conference proceedings I have on mp3 before this week is out though.

This afternoon, I happily shipped all of my little memo pad docs from my Blackberry Storm into Evernote, the last preparation step for the retirement of my Blackberry within a week. Some of those notes date back to my early Palm Pilot days, updated when appropriate over the years. Now they live in the cloud somewhere, synchronized to my laptop, now to my gTablet and soon to my new Android phone (as soon as I buy it).

I doubt I will ever get QuickOffice or Documents To Go for my tablet: it's just too cumbersome to update spreadsheets or documents and so much easier on my laptop. Then again, perhaps I will just to get a viewer so I can at least look at those same documents at convenience rather than having to power up my laptop (I already have a PDF viewer installed).

So what's my favorite killer app for the tablet? EBooks. At the moment, I have about 50 ebooks on the beast, in both PDF and epub formats. I've finished reading eight over the past weekend, more than I've read in such a short period in many years. Having so much material at my finger tips without lugging tonnes of dead tree with me has been such a dramatic improvement, at least for the non-fiction I prefer to read. I suspect my feelings will be somewhat different when it comes to fiction but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

In all, I'm very happy with this intro model of tablet. While there are features which I'll definitely look for in my next, more powerful tablet purchase, this basic model has surprised me by meeting about 85% of my requirements. I may be holding onto this particular machine for a while before committing to purchasing a newer, more powerful system.