I saw this also it sais on the site it has android market wich i didnt think was on any tablets. I wonder if this is a big mistake on there part or if it is true. If it does have market acces it might be worth looking into.
Just called my local Kmart. They did not get any in. Told me to call back on Thursday when the truck comes in again. I was a little surprised since it was in the Sunday circular. Maybe they are mistaken. I think I will make a trip out to Kmart after dinner just for giggles to see if they really have one.
I'm really interested in this as well.. Something that will be good for accessing apps on the market and watching vids on youtube and such, without having to actually commit to a 2yr contract for a new phone :P I'm cheap like that! Well actually, I may be moving overseas soon, and don't want to be hassled with a phone contract I'm just wondering how good of a quality that screen is.
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Straight scoop
Ok.....I'm actually local to where Augen is based, so I picked up the phone and called them...Here's the straight scoop.
1. The price is KMart's introductory sale price ( Just as with the ebook reader, the intro price was $89, and is now $99. ) at $149.
2. All initial shipments have been delivered to KMarts distributions centers.
3. Not all KMarts will be receiving them apparently ( I confirmed this by calling a few local KMarts ).
4. This is but the first of a whole line of Android Tablet offerings they plan on introducing.
5. I could not get confirmation if the screen was resistive or capacitive from the person at Augen I spoke to. I will inquire more tomorrow and report back.
6. Augen will apparently be setting up a sort of developer's program for ISV's who wish to develop solutions that specifically leverage their offerings. More on this to come, it's still preliminary.
7. If all goes well...I'll post up an unboxing later in the week and a review to follow.
Update: I forgot to mention that they are also targeting to release an Android touch screen netbook ( probably in the 10-11" form factor ) before EOY, so stay tuned.
Last edited by marcelo_lopez; July 26th, 2010 at 08:50 PM.
Reason: Updates !
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Ok.....I'm actually local to where Augen is based, so I picked up the phone and called them...Here's the straight scoop.
1. The price is KMart's introductory sale price ( Just as with the ebook reader, the intro price was $89, and is now $99. ) at $149.
2. All initial shipments have been delivered to KMarts distributions centers.
3. Not all KMarts will be receiving them apparently ( I confirmed this by calling a few local KMarts ).
4. This is but the first of a whole line of Android Tablet offerings they plan on introducing.
5. I could not get confirmation if the screen was resistive or capacitive from the person at Augen I spoke to. I will inquire more tomorrow and report back.
6. Augen will apparently be setting up a sort of developer's program for ISV's who wish to develop solutions that specifically leverage their offerings. More on this to come, it's still preliminary.
7. If all goes well...I'll post up an unboxing later in the week and a review to follow.
Thanks for the information I have been wanting a droid tablet for months, if you ever get to talk to them again or find out i'd love to know the battery life and if you could hook up a usb keyboard through the usb that is on the tablet.
I know 2.1 is listed as the OS on these devices, but I wonder if it will be updated to Froyo at a later date, or it would be easy enough to root. It doesn't look like stock Android on the device, so I'm wondering how hard it would be to root at a later date if I chose to.
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@Ares: My understanding is that it would be upgradeable to 2.2 at "some point", but the rep wouldn't go into more detail at this time. I'll be following up on that.
@icurafu: I didn't get the name of the specific chipset from the rep, but I did leave that as something for the person to get back to me on, so I will be following up on that.
And yes, it does come with 256Mb of RAM built in. Most of the newer crop of Andy tablets have been coming with 256Mb of RAM. My primary concern is that the 800Mhz quoted for processor speed is not a combination of actual CPU and DSP processors integrated on the same chip, but rather the actual speed of the CPU. I'm not 100% worried about a resistive screen as I came from the Windows Mobile world where all we had were resistive screens. Although if these folks managed to squeeze capactive into this puppy....this would almost make it a "buy" on that basis alone in my book.
Any more questions you have, let me know and I'll try to get more info as possible. I don't want to overwhelm this person, I'm trying to develop a repoire here in case future product previews are possible.
Last edited by marcelo_lopez; July 26th, 2010 at 08:48 PM.
Reason: darned grammar police....
Just got back from the local Kmart and they did not have any in. I did talk to the electronics supervisor and she said that they are expecting some on the truck this Thursday.
I asked why they would not have any in for the Sunday sale since it was advertised in the Sunday circular and she told me that she was informed that there were some distribution problems. She was not sure if the problems were from Kmart or from Augen. I am guessing it was neither but more likely a manufacturing problem/delay in China where Augen most likely sources these things.
I'll be calling on Thursday and hopefully will be able to get one of these this week. If I do, I'll try to shoot a quick unboxing and performance appraisal.
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linkages : Excellent...let's see who's the lucky one first ! I would tend to think that the whole distribution thing is probably more towards KMart. The rep ( taking this person at their word ) said that as of last week, they had delivered the initial stock of the units to KMart's distribution centers. So while it might not have made it to the stores, KMart should've had it in their warehouses. Now to see how long it takes. Folks I spoke to at 2 KMarts said they expected it in tomorrow, and apparently I hadn't even been the first to call about this.....so go figure.
wow, you guys are awesome, nice investigating. now i must decide whether to purchase it on release day or wait for a couple reviews to make sure its not junk :| this thing looks to be a step-up from the ipad clones however
linkages : Excellent...let's see who's the lucky one first ! I would tend to think that the whole distribution thing is probably more towards KMart. The rep ( taking this person at their word ) said that as of last week, they had delivered the initial stock of the units to KMart's distribution centers. So while it might not have made it to the stores, KMart should've had it in their warehouses. Now to see how long it takes. Folks I spoke to at 2 KMarts said they expected it in tomorrow, and apparently I hadn't even been the first to call about this.....so go figure.
at least based on comments from android guys site it seems some people already have their hands on them, in fact one guy actually commented he had one in his possession but never replied to questions from people he just said
"Just picked one up in Chattanooga area. My first impression....how did this only cost $150, it seems like pretty nice hardware."
Take this with a grain of salt, as it's Wikipedia, but it looks like according to the "List of Android Devices" section, the Gentouch78 (the official model # of this tablet), the screen is a 800x480 resistive touchscreen, which I'm not actually surprised by it.. but how do these resistive screens compare to the capacitive ones?
Take this with a grain of salt, as it's Wikipedia, but it looks like according to the "List of Android Devices" section, the Gentouch78 (the official model # of this tablet), the screen is a 800x480 resistive touchscreen, which I'm not actually surprised by it.. but how do these resistive screens compare to the capacitive ones?
I wandered into the tablet area to see if it was posted. The kmart by me doesn't have them yet, there is one that has them but it's a bit of a drive. I'll wait to get one local. The girl said she has taken like 20 calls on this tablet today alone.
That is a resistive screen at its best... takes a little more pressure and a little getting used to.
guy commented on a blog and said it runs so slow, and considering the specs it should run fine on 2.1. i have my rain check ready but the info leaking out isnt good about this. its cheap but if its this bad of a machine i wont bite
Yeah, just wanted to chime in on this, if you guys get a raincheck, they will still honor the $149 price, even after this week.. (normally it's $169 according to Kmart Blog)
So I picked one up today, thinking w00t score. Overall I am not impressed yet, not to say that won't change with some tweaking. It is barely responsive with a live wallpaper running, I put a regular static image and it became usable. The resistive touchscreen does detract from the image quality a fair amount.
The processor in it is a Telechips TCC8900 Evaluation Board (model number under system info)
Kernel:
2.6.26 (Kevin@localhost #115) - whatever the kevin stuff means
Kernel:
2.6.26 (Kevin@localhost #115) - whatever the kevin stuff means
Kevin@localhost is probably the username and name of the computer the Kernel was built on. Nothing of concern to do with performance.
Can you post up more detailed specs on this device like screen res, battery life times, RAM, dimensions, weight and price you paid. I think i will add it to the list on my blog.
Edit: oh there are specs in the first post! Please post any other specs you find not already in this thread. I'm interested in battery life (real life usage) and your overall oponion on the product, whether it is worth the money compared to other device available of similar price.
Last edited by Catfish; July 27th, 2010 at 09:19 PM.
Kevin@localhost is probably the username and name of the computer the Kernel was built on. Nothing of concern to do with performance.
Can you post up more detailed specs on this device like screen res, battery life times, RAM, dimensions, weight and price you paid. I think i will add it to the list on my blog.
Edit: oh there are specs in the first post! Please post any other specs you find not already in this thread. I'm interested in battery life (real life usage) and your overall oponion on the product, whether it is worth the money compared to other device available of similar price.
I have a small little craptastic video coming.
Here is a link to the development platform it is built on: Telechips TCC8900 development platform
If I have to guess, i would say they did not deviate from the reference dev board,.
edit:/ video is going to have to wait, I do not have any of the drivers installed. I finally got quadrant on it, it would not install it from the market, I had to copy it from my phone to the sd card then put the card back int he tablet. something weird about it, the specs said 2gig internal memory, but it only is reporting 280megs.
Quadrant benchmark came back @ 272
Current clock is 600mhz
memory: 151716kB total
Free: 9040kB
Inactive: 67512kB
Last edited by liqdfire; July 27th, 2010 at 10:06 PM.
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Disappointed to see the resistive screen, but excited to see that cheap and better android tablets will soon be flooding the market. I'm gonna wait just a little bit longer.
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One really interesting feature, is that the usb chip on it will work as a usb host, and they sent a cable that will allow you to plug in usb devices into it, so add on gps etc.
The local KMart in Columbus, OH had 5 or so in stock this afternoon, so I picked one up since the price is low, and it's returnable. My feelings are mixed.
Pros:
I like the size, much more portable than a 10" but big enough to be a reasonable e-book reader, media player, and web browser. It does include the Marketplace, which worked fine for the few free apps I downloaded. Wifi worked well, I was able to get a steady connection from the parking lot of a couple of different "free wifi" coffee shops immediately after leaving Kmart. I didn't watch any video except for Youtube, which worked and looked fine. The screen is very reflective, but I had little problem reading an e-book with the Kindle app outdoors.
Cons:
Having used an iPhone for the past few years, this screen is going to require some major adjustments to get used to. Typing requires a much harder keypress, no auto-correct that I found, which led to lots of typos. The screen is also a finger print magnet, in the 15 minutes I used it I must've wiped it clear at least 3 times. The navigation buttons on the back are a pain to use, might eventually learn to use them by feel, but they're very small and close together. On the side where MicroSD and USB ports are, there is a label for HDMI, but no HDMI port. Not a big deal, but confusing. The back casing is plastic, and feels somewhat cheap, but also makes it feel very light. Navigation with Google Maps was also confusing. When I opened Maps while connected to Wifi, it immediately located me on the map, which led me to believe that it had a GPS chipset (I didn't think it did going in). However, driving around never changed my position on the map.
Overall, I'm not completely sold on it, but for $150 I'll give it a chance. There are a ton more features I want to test and provide some feedback on, still trying to learn my way around the Android OS. I also have some travel coming up and plan to take this instead of a full laptop, to give it a real usability test.
sold out here. got a rain check. should be fun to try it out. looking forward to reading more hands-on reviews. it might turned out to be just an expensive toy or cheap toy comparatively.
I'm one of the rare folks that is excited that it has a resistive screen. I use tablets like a slate...create forms for interviews and assessments, and this might fit the bill nicely!
Remember, the resistive screen allows you to write and draw on the screen. If someone can port xournal to android, it would be magic.
I've got a raincheck...and I'll be checking tomorrow.
Augen updated there netbooks section of the website. It looks like they will offer a 10 inch screen netbook running 2.1 with higher specs than the 7 inch screen netbook. The specs seem close if not the same as the tablet.
I watched a review on YouTube and the guy had a hard time with the keyboard. It kept mistyping and getting the wrong letter(s). Is there a keyboard calibration tool like on my HTC Incredible?
augen 7" 2.1
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