I'm in! I just picked up an Iconia 16GB yesterday at Best Buy. I am resisting temptation to root just yet as I see no real need to do so. I want to wait a bit, make sure it keeps working well, and see what happens in the community.
With my other Android tablets being the cheaper PDN White and ZT-180 with resistive screens, this is what I knew an Android tablet could be. I also have the original iPad that I use daily, and this has been my yard stick for tablets. With the PDN and the ZT-180, they would sit on the shelf as I was always partial to the iPad. There was no comparison really. It was like a driving a 10 year old dodge neon as opposed to a newer BMW 3 series. The hacking and learning was fun, but using the Tablet and being productive was what it was all about in the end. Now, with the Iconia, this is completely a different story
. I have already surrendered the iPad to my wife and son and will probably only use it if I want to watch Netflix. While this is still a .0 product (Honeycomb), it performs very well. The Tegra 2 platform is the real deal. I have no complaints about the screen, response, and build quality of this product, it is very nice. I must admit, the fit and finish is still lagging behind the iPad just a bit. We are now talking about a Subaru Legacy vs a 3 series perhaps if the Iconia were to go up against the iPad 2.
So, in my opinion, if you see reviews slamming the Iconia or Honeycomb in general because of build quality or from a platform/technology standpoint, they are full of S&#!
These people are clearly Apple fan boys or work for folks that are paid to shoot it down. You can clearly see how Honeycomb is a good OS for tablets and also how the Taiwan hardware is going to rock the scene. There are some things that Apple iOS does better, but there are also some things that Honeycomb does better and it is only going to get better. Bottom line, I think Apple knows that their domination is now short lived and they will just be another top tier player in tablets like in the phone market over the next year or so.
Overall, this product rocks. It doesn't hardly even get warm after hours of use. That extra few ounces of weight that some may complain about with the Iconia seems to work as a great heat sink. As far as longevity goes, this may give this tablet a leg up over other lighter Honeycomb tablets that have more plastic in their casing. So far, the battery lasts about 10 hours as advertised and charges back up in a couple hours (rough estimates). So far, not many complaints on this tablet, I am really enjoying it. All of the apps that I have used thus far are working, but I have only tried a dozen or so and most of them have been through market as advertised tablet apps.
Now, here are my gripes thus far:
With my other Android tablets being the cheaper PDN White and ZT-180 with resistive screens, this is what I knew an Android tablet could be. I also have the original iPad that I use daily, and this has been my yard stick for tablets. With the PDN and the ZT-180, they would sit on the shelf as I was always partial to the iPad. There was no comparison really. It was like a driving a 10 year old dodge neon as opposed to a newer BMW 3 series. The hacking and learning was fun, but using the Tablet and being productive was what it was all about in the end. Now, with the Iconia, this is completely a different story
So, in my opinion, if you see reviews slamming the Iconia or Honeycomb in general because of build quality or from a platform/technology standpoint, they are full of S&#!
Overall, this product rocks. It doesn't hardly even get warm after hours of use. That extra few ounces of weight that some may complain about with the Iconia seems to work as a great heat sink. As far as longevity goes, this may give this tablet a leg up over other lighter Honeycomb tablets that have more plastic in their casing. So far, the battery lasts about 10 hours as advertised and charges back up in a couple hours (rough estimates). So far, not many complaints on this tablet, I am really enjoying it. All of the apps that I have used thus far are working, but I have only tried a dozen or so and most of them have been through market as advertised tablet apps.
Now, here are my gripes thus far:
- Power cord is way too short.
- No ear buds included. Not a problem for me since I had tons of these and other headphones laying around, but they really should throw in some cheap ones at least.
- I get an FC when I am in market now and then. It seems like it is when I come back to it from another app. Go back in and all is fine even if I do the same thing.
- [biggest concern]Some H.264/AAC movies from a web site that play fine on my wife's Galaxy phone or on the iPhone, don't play well at all on this device. Video is choppy if it plays at all. Either the streaming is not working properly or there is some sort of up-conversion or something going on that just isn't right. Any suggestions here are welcome.
- New browser is Honeycomb is much nicer, but it seems to favor defaulting to the mobile sites instead of the classic sites. Like the Dolphin browser, it should allow you to set your User Agent so you can make it do what you want. I am giving Firefox mobile and Dolphin spins as well and am not sure which one I will use most of the time. Any recommendations on others are welcome (I don't care for Opera for some reason).
- Battery charge percent seems to lag behind on the lock screen and even after you log back in momentarily. I left and came back to check on the charging and it was still at 32% like when I last left it. I thought there was something wrong at first, but after a few seconds, some event occurred and it updated to 93% showing me that it does indeed charge quickly.
- This one is more of a concern than a gripe about Android in general. If Google allows Honeycomb to mature and provides quality and efficient support for vendors and developers, I think we are looking at a winner. With AT&T and others coming on board, it would seem that this is the future and all will be well. However, I do have a slight fear that Google wants to move to the Chrome OS in the future and management won't give Android its due diligence, i.e. at some point there will be a conflict of interest between the two.
- [rant] still no f*&^%$g Netflix, even with Honeycomb...there must be a good reason for this, i.e. Apple has an agreement with Netflix. Otherwise I am sure Google and Netflix would have figured out the DRM concerns and had this thing licked by now. Netflix had an agreement with the MS on the Xbox and this is why you didn't see Netflix in the Playstation or Wii right away. Even after they got access to Netflix, they had to run off of a DVD until the contract with MS expired. The thing with playing Blue-ray on Linux is BS too. This one especially pisses me off because this is aiding and abetting an MS monopoly.
