Amazon's Superpad3/Flytouch X220 16GB - A new User's Review (RePosted)

[EvilEd209]

Being the noob I am to this forum, I originally posted this to the Flytouch 2 forum when it really belongs int he Flytouch 3 forum. If a mod could move it and delete this one, that would be great, but I wanted to keep everyone posted on the latest. So here is the old post:

[FONT=&quot]Well, I did a ton of research here and in other forums (and saw a ton of YouTube Reviews) and I finally pulled the trigger today and made my purchase of a Superpad 3/ Flytouch 2 Android 2.2 Tablet PC with 16GB Storage and 512 RAM from Amazon.com. Here is the link to the item that I purchased:

Amazon.com: New 10.2" Superpad3/Flytouch X220 16GB 1GHz Froyo Android 2.2 ePad Tablet PC with 512mb ram GPS + BONUS LEATHER CASE HDMI+RJ45 PRIORITY SHIPPING With Signature Confirmation From USA SELLER: Electronics

My plan is to give anyone who is looking at buying one of these models from Amazon a step by step account of what my experience was like from purchase, to rooting, to updating the firmware, to the apps that install and their overall performance. My hope is that I can consolidate all of the good advice I have found here and elsewhere on this particular Android Tablet into one place to better assist the community.

For starters I am going into this knowing that this particular model is flooded with dozens of knock off and clones, and the one that I purchased does not have the highest battery capacity of the iBex Version, which is said to be the authentic version. However, in my searching I was not able to find a single US-based seller of these iBex Models with the 8000 mah batteries. I found a couple of chinesse based wholesalers of this model with the large battery like aliexpress.com and chinnagrabber.com, however I was really a little hesitant to send my money overseas without some sort of protection from fraud. If these guys decided to rip me off, send me a clone or worse, nothing at all, how would I get my money back? Chinnagrabber actually seemed like a good bet at first, what with PayPal's logo right on their website, however after I called PayPal to verify their claim to being a 2010 Preferred Seller, the people over at PayPal could not confirm that. This worried me.

So in the ended as I could not find a US-Based wholesaler of these products, I decided to buy mine from Amazon.com. At least if I get ripped off somehow and they send me a bad product, I can fight these guys and get my money back. Anyone who had success buying from the Chinese wholesalers, please share your experiences with me! As if this one is a good tablet, I might buy another!

So on Saturday morning June 25th, 2011 I made my purchase from Amazon.com. I also picked up an 8GB miniSD card, as I will need one for the firmware upgrade and any side loading of apps I may need to do. Less then one hour after my purchase I received a tracking number from the seller and a delivery estimated date of Tuesday, June 28th! That was lightning fast!

So, as soon as I get it, I will snaps some pics and let you know what my first test drive of this unit is like! [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Day Two - 6/27/2011[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Just a quick update. I checked my Amazon account today to confirm shipment and my estimated arrival date has moved from the 28th to July 1st. I guess this is to be expected, after all shipping was only $9.00 and it is shipping from California to Pennsylvania. So I am a little bummed that I will not see it tomorrow but not overly upset either. I'll post pics when it arrives! [/FONT]

So now it looks like the supplier on Amazon called Supersale.99 just now shipped my package. I was on my way to write a complaint that it took 4 days to process my order, however there is something on the site that says it can take from 6 - 10 days to process an order. I'm not so happy about that, but still have positive feelings on this purchase!

Also, can one of the mods who reads this move this thread over to the Flytouch 3 section of the GOME Tablets? Thanks a bunch!

Ed

FROM brodie54
I'm guessing yours, like mine, is coming from China after all. Mine said it would be coming from California, but actually came from Hong Kong, via air mail. Still mine came in 7 days purchase on ebay to opening the package at my desk. Mine is some sort of clone...from what others have said it is the lowest of the clones, but I am so far happy with my purchase. It does exactly what it said and the screen is nearly as responsive as my ipod touch! Good luck. Keep us posted!

Thanks for that. My hope is that it will do what it says. I do not have unrealistic goals with this thing, but I do not want to spend $230 + (with the SD card upgrade) on a pile of crap I can not use. I will keep everyone posted. It should be here today or tomorrow. Hopefully!

Ed

 

[EvilEd209]

I wanted to let everyone know that me wife emailed my and told me that my tablet has arrived! I will play with it this July 4th weekend and let you all know what I find!

Thanks,

Ed

 

[EvilEd209]

So when I got home from work on July 1st, my tablet had arrived! My wife had taken it out of the box and started charging it up for me. I will post some pics of the box, as I know you guys really like to see that, but I can tell you now that it is a knock off. A good one but a knock off none the less. The box was basically white with a pic of the tablet and some icons on the front, the words "Superpad III" on the one side and a look and the ports on the other.

The first thing I will say in my first review is that this is NOT the tablet that I ordered. I ordered the 16GB tablet and the company sent me the 8GB tablet. They sent me an email right away letting me know about the mistake and offered to either refund me the $12 difference from the 8GB to the 16GB (no, I'd rather have the table I paid for), or to ship me out a new one. I chose the latter. In their response to me they told me it would "take some time" to get the tablet I ordered to me. This does not make me feel too good, and I keep asking them to send me an MRL (merchandise Return Label) as I do not feel I should have to pay for the shipping. They do not seem to understand. So my hope is that this company does not try to pull a fast one on me by sending me the wrong tablet. I will keep you all posted on that, but, on to the review of the 8GB version of this tablet.

So, the very first thing I deiced to do with this tablet was look at the spec, and it is a DISCO10 model (pics coming) with the Android OS 2.2 (20110529) Kernel Version 2.6.32.9, and Build FRF85B. So so far so good. Next I fired up the WiFi and it connected to my NetGear Wireless pretty fast. I have been every room in my house and the basement and I have not had a problem. The upstairs bathroom only got one bar but still connected an ran. I never dropped signal. The Dolphin HD browser came in pre-installed so that was nice, and browsing has been pretty good. I even went to a few sights I thought would bog it down with some flash and while it took some time to load, it loaded and was readable. So aces there! I was not expecting lightning fast and I am happy with the browsing capabilities of this device.

Next up the device came with the YouTube app pre-installed and it worked perfectly. I was not able to cause it to error out unless I was really far away from my WiFi where I had only one bar, then some of the HD videos would lock up on me. But laying in bed on the second floor where the WiFi is on the first, I could watch videos all night long on YouTube. So the Flash is very impressive!

So at that point I was pretty happy. I next decided to go to the android market and start seeing what apps work and did not work. Now, this device could only see the free apps in the market, and not all of the free ones were available, Google Sky being absent from the list most notable. I sort of knew that going in and there is a fix for it, found here in the forum, you just need to root your device. Since I am sending this one back, I decided not to do that for now. So, as it stands I can only review the free apps available. But all in all, all of the apps worked great. The Kindle Apps rocks and I have a few good free books already on here, the Adobe PDF reader did exactly what I needed it to do. Some of the high graphics or multi-layered PDFs take some time to load, so know that going in, but they do read. Heck, even all of the games I got played well. The kids loved AntSmashed and Angry Birds, and ChessFree works like a dream.

The battery life on this device is something I am still working with. I can tell you it is much better to just leave it turned on then to power it down, as the startup process eats up almost 15% of the battery life. And the devices seems to shut down the WiFi when it is in sleep mode so that is good. If you leave the WiFi on and run it you will more then likely eat up all of the battery in a few hours. Maybe this is where those 8000 mah batteries shine in the iBex models. Myself, I don't really hop online all that often so when I needed to, I would turn the WiFi on, do what I needed to do, and then turn it off to conserve battery life. I also lowered the brightness of the screen to 50%. So with the way I have been using it, I take it off of the charger in the morning and I still have some battery life left in the evening. Also, a side note, the cord on the charger is REALLY short! So if you want to charge it and still use it, like I do, then get yourself an extension cord!

So overall in the first few days of owning this tablet I am pretty happy with it. I am still concerned that this company is not going to send me the correct 16Gb tablet and I am going to have to fight them to get the right one or get this one for free, but that is not the tablet's fault. I only had one game, Dungeon something or other, that locked up the device, but if you look at the list of games that work on it, it will tell you that.

Next up is to test the GPS and drop in the SD card and use it some. When and if I get the Tablet I paid for I will try updating the firmware and rooting the device to see what else I can unlock from this. But overall, a good buy so far!

 

[tbod]

...
The first thing I will say in my first review is that this is NOT the tablet that I ordered. I ordered the 16GB tablet and the company sent me the 8GB tablet. They sent me an email right away letting me know about the mistake and offered to either refund me the $12 difference from the 8GB to the 16GB (no, I'd rather have the table I paid for), or to ship me out a new one. I chose the latter. In their response to me they told me it would "take some time" to get the tablet I ordered to me. This does not make me feel too good, and I keep asking them to send me an MRL (merchandise Return Label) as I do not feel I should have to pay for the shipping.
...

Hi,

I don't know where you are but in the UK there is a thing called the Unsolicited Goods Act which, basically, says you do not have to pay for goods you didn't order and it is illegal for the company to chase you for payment.

You have two choices: notify the company of their mistake and if they don't collect the goods or provide you with a means to return the goods within 30 days they are yours to keep or [and this doesn't apply in your case] keep quiet about it and if they don't contact you within six months they are all yours.

Clearly, you would have to cancel your order with the company and cancel the cheque / tell the card company not to make the payment etc. and tell them to collect the goods.


I ordered some technical manuals a few years back and when they sent me twice what I ordered I wrote to them, they never collected / paid for return shipping so my mate got nearly

 

[EvilEd209]

I am located in the United States and we have similar laws here as well. I planed on giving the company a week to respond to me before I go to Amazon and fight the charges and get my money back. Judging by the broken English I received in the emails from the company, I do not think that English is their first language and that this might be a trick they pull on a few customers who are not educated enough to know that they got fooled.

We will see, if I do not hear from them by Friday with a valid tracking number, I am go to Amazon and getting my money back.

Thanks for the advice though!

Ed

 

[mixterz]

can you post pics of the tablet?

many companies operate from the states and basically buy and ship the tablets from china for you so one should be careful and check for reviews of the site first,
i got my tablet from chinagrabber there was no problems at all.

 

[EvilEd209]

I will post a series of pics tonight when I get the chance. I am glad to hear that you had a good experience with Chinnagrabber.com I wanted to buy from them, I really did. I was just too worried I would be throwing my $230 away and not really sure what I was getting or if I would be able to get my money back if something went wrong.

Thanks,

Ed

 

[EvilEd209]

Just a quick update here. I have run out of things I can test on this device that does not involve rooting it. Overall, I am still very happy with it. None of the GSP apps on the android market are appearing so I am not even sure I can test that aspect of it without rooting this one, and since I have to send it back that seems pointless. The battery life is still something I am concerned about now. The last few days I have left it on the charger over night, leaving it on, and unplugged it and tossed it into my bag as I am going out the door to work. By lunchtime when I go to use it on my break it is down to 50% or less battery life and by the time I get home at 5:30 or so, it needs to go back on the charger. I knew going into this that the battery on this one was not the 8000 mah battery of the iBex models, so I am trying to come up with a good work around.

I have to send it back this morning and provide Super.99 (the Amazon Seller) with a tracking number before they will send out my 16GB version of the tablet (the one I paid for). Again, I do not hold it agist the tablet but his has been a real pain in the butt getting the device I order. I do not know if this is atypical behavior out of this company of if I am just a fluke. In either case I will be without it until my new one arrives. When that one arrives (assuming it is the right model this time) I will go ahead and flash that one with Tim's 4E ROM, Root it and fix the android market stuff on to preform further testing.

On a side note, since I had already added personal information to this device, I was a bit uncomfortable sending it back to them without some sort of cleaning. I uninstalled all of the apps I had added and then reset it to the factory default ROM. You need to power the device down, hold the power, menu (I think, which ever of the two menu or home that is closet to the power button) and the back button on the front of the device for three seconds. It then loads the default OS. That worked perfectly.

So, when the new one arrives, I will mount the SD card and continue with my review!

 

[arueder]

Just a quick update here. I have run out of things I can test on this device that does not involve rooting it. Overall, I am still very happy with it. None of the GSP apps on the android market are appearing so I am not even sure I can test that aspect of it without rooting this one, and since I have to send it back that seems pointless. The battery life is still something I am concerned about now. The last few days I have left it on the charger over night, leaving it on, and unplugged it and tossed it into my bag as I am going out the door to work. By lunchtime when I go to use it on my break it is down to 50% or less battery life and by the time I get home at 5:30 or so, it needs to go back on the charger. I knew going into this that the battery on this one was not the 8000 mah battery of the iBex models, so I am trying to come up with a good work around.

I have to send it back this morning and provide Super.99 (the Amazon Seller) with a tracking number before they will send out my 16GB version of the tablet (the one I paid for). Again, I do not hold it agist the tablet but his has been a real pain in the butt getting the device I order. I do not know if this is atypical behavior out of this company of if I am just a fluke. In either case I will be without it until my new one arrives. When that one arrives (assuming it is the right model this time) I will go ahead and flash that one with Tim's 4E ROM, Root it and fix the android market stuff on to preform further testing.

On a side note, since I had already added personal information to this device, I was a bit uncomfortable sending it back to them without some sort of cleaning. I uninstalled all of the apps I had added and then reset it to the factory default ROM. You need to power the device down, hold the power, menu (I think, which ever of the two menu or home that is closet to the power button) and the back button on the front of the device for three seconds. It then loads the default OS. That worked perfectly.

So, when the new one arrives, I will mount the SD card and continue with my review!

Now that I read your review I do feel better about purchasing one of these tablets. However I too am getting mine from supersale.99 so I hope I don't also have issues with him. Quick question, since you sound familiar with this device, rooting it, and installing a custom ROM, could you point me in the right direction so I can do this to mine when I get it? I already own a rooted Android phone, buy what i'm nervous about is the fact that an android phone is from a known manufacturer whereas this tablet is some sort of clone. I just don't want to brick the thing.


Once rooted.....rooted forever!

 

[EvilEd209]

Sure I can point you in the right direction. First would be flashing the ROM, or updating the Operating System to the latest version.

Instructions for how to do that can be found here, in this forum. First are the Official ROMs:

http://androidforums.com/gome-flyto...ouch-3-firmware-update-official-releases.html

Now, there is a second category of the ROM you could consider, and that is the hacked, or refined ROM. Tims is by far the most famous in the Flytouch 3 area:

Hybrid ROM (rooted)

Which ever ROM you decided to use (I will be using Tim's 4E ROM) the process for updating the ROM is all the same. Here is a link to a YouTube video, showing the process being done:

YouTube - ‪Installing Froyo firmware on Flytouch 2‬‏

To ROOT this device take a few steps, but is totally doable. Here is the link in this forum on how to do so:

http://androidforums.com/flytouch-3-all-things-root/296714-guide-how-root-flytouch-3-a.html

And a video on YouTube of the process:

YouTube - ‪How To Root Flytouch 3 Superpad 2: Android 2.2‬‏

The only other Hack I am looking into doing right away when my new one arrives is freeing up the Android Market. This is a well documented issue with this particular Android Tablet. The fix requires a Rooted device. Here is the link to that process as well:

[Hack] Unlblocking Market Apps (Market 2.3.6) - xda-developers

Other then that I am really debating cracking the case on this device and upgrading the battery, but that is not going to be right now. As it stands, after these three hacks I would be perfectly happy with the performance of this device, assuming all of these do what they say they can do.

I really hope that helps you out. Please, let me know what your experience is like. I would love to know if Supersale.99 does this to all of its customers!



Ed

 

[EvilEd209]

Also, arueder, you had mentioned your concerned for 'bricking' the device, or doing so much damage to it that it is now unusable. From what i can tell, this is pretty difficult to do, however this device does have a handy dandy factory reset feature. An, in case of emergency, break glass sort of thing. So, as long as the device will still turn on, you can always reset it back to the factory original settings.

Here is a video on how to do this reset:

YouTube - ‪How to reset the SuperPad Flytouch 2 Google Android OS 10 inch‬‏

Now, this is where something like Titanium Backup will come in handy as you can then perform your backups and get right back to where you were before the terrible event that killed your OS.

I know that this works, as I reset the device I just sent back, as it had personal information on it I did not feel like sharing.

I hope that this helps you out. Please, let me know what you think of your device, and any issue that you might have.



Ed

 

[dart16]

Also, arueder, you had mentioned your concerned for 'bricking' the device, or doing so much damage to it that it is now unusable. From what i can tell, this is pretty difficult to do, however this device does have a handy dandy factory reset feature. An, in case of emergency, break glass sort of thing. So, as long as the device will still turn on, you can always reset it back to the factory original settings.

Here is a video on how to do this reset:

YouTube - ‪How to reset the SuperPad Flytouch 2 Google Android OS 10 inch‬‏

Now, this is where something like Titanium Backup will come in handy as you can then perform your backups and get right back to where you were before the terrible event that killed your OS.

I know that this works, as I reset the device I just sent back, as it had personal information on it I did not feel like sharing.

I hope that this helps you out. Please, let me know what you think of your device, and any issue that you might have.



Ed

You should note, however, that this process will only work if the bootloader remains intact. If you flash an in-correct bootloader or the existing one becomes corrupted the tablet may not know what to do when you switch it on so it wont read any data from anywhere. Bootloader files are called bootloader-discovery . Best not to mess with them!

 

[EvilEd209]

Good safety tip there Dart16! I greatly appreciate it!

 

[arueder]

Also, arueder, you had mentioned your concerned for 'bricking' the device, or doing so much damage to it that it is now unusable. From what i can tell, this is pretty difficult to do, however this device does have a handy dandy factory reset feature. An, in case of emergency, break glass sort of thing. So, as long as the device will still turn on, you can always reset it back to the factory original settings.

Here is a video on how to do this reset:

YouTube - ‪How to reset the SuperPad Flytouch 2 Google Android OS 10 inch‬‏

Now, this is where something like Titanium Backup will come in handy as you can then perform your backups and get right back to where you were before the terrible event that killed your OS.

I know that this works, as I reset the device I just sent back, as it had personal information on it I did not feel like sharing.

I hope that this helps you out. Please, let me know what you think of your device, and any issue that you might have.



Ed

Thanks so much! You are an absolute wealth of information! As far as my current experience with supersale.99 goes...:

Ordered the tablet on July 3rd. I figured because of the upcoming holiday it wouldn't get processed until later in the week anyway. To my surprise, i received an e-mail stating the lable had been printed on July 4th. The tablet shipped out the morning of the 5th. Today (Jul 8th 8:32 CDT), it has left the Hazelwood, Mo processing facility on its way to my area. So I should have it hopefully by tomorrow. I will try and get something posted as far as a review is concerned when I get this thing in my hands.

I see you went after the 16GB version. I decided on the 4GB version (I wanted to spend as little as possible at this point). Do the steps and files you mentioned earlier still apply? Everything I have read thus far on these tablets point to yes so feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

Link to the tablet I ordered:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052U25OM

 

[EvilEd209]

As far as the size of the device is concerned, the 4GB versus the 16GB, or even the 32GB one, to the best of my knowledge the only difference between the two is the SD card (the storage) that actually soldered into the motherboard of the device. Otherwise, the hardware and performance of the device is exactly identical. I decided to go for the 16GB one because I have a ton of large pdf files I intend to store on it and the extra few GB will help out here. In the end it is what you can afford. But remember, the OS will take up about 2Gb, so you will be short 2GB from the get go.

I have read quite a few threads in multiple forums of those who have opened up their Flytouch 3 and de-soldered (is that a word?) the smaller SD card and tossed in a larger 32GB one in for it. I have also read about those guys who have upgraded the RAM, the poop speakers that come with the device (I had no real complaints on that from, but I had low expectations on that one anyway), and the batteries. I think that is much more then I intended to do with my device.

Ed

 

[arueder]

As far as the size of the device is concerned, the 4GB versus the 16GB, or even the 32GB one, to the best of my knowledge the only difference between the two is the SD card (the storage) that actually soldered into the motherboard of the device. Otherwise, the hardware and performance of the device is exactly identical. I decided to go for the 16GB one because I have a ton of large pdf files I intend to store on it and the extra few GB will help out here. In the end it is what you can afford. But remember, the OS will take up about 2Gb, so you will be short 2GB from the get go.

I have read quite a few threads in multiple forums of those who have opened up their Flytouch 3 and de-soldered (is that a word?) the smaller SD card and tossed in a larger 32GB one in for it. I have also read about those guys who have upgraded the RAM, the poop speakers that come with the device (I had no real complaints on that from, but I had low expectations on that one anyway), and the batteries. I think that is much more then I intended to do with my device.

Ed

Yeah I don't think I will be cracking mine open either. As long as I can root it and play around with some custom software for it i'll be happy.

 

[dart16]

As far as the size of the device is concerned, the 4GB versus the 16GB, or even the 32GB one, to the best of my knowledge the only difference between the two is the SD card (the storage) that actually soldered into the motherboard of the device.

I have read quite a few threads in multiple forums of those who have opened up their Flytouch 3 and de-soldered (is that a word?) the smaller SD card and tossed in a larger 32GB one in for it.

Don't need to de-solder it....it is actually a tf card in a socket, covered in a piece of sticky tape to stop it self-removing itself

 

[EvilEd209]

Don't need to de-solder it....it is actually a tf card in a socket, covered in a piece of sticky tape to stop it self-removing itself

Oh, I did not know that. That is awesome! Question for you then. My guess is that the ROM is stored on there correct? So if I removed the old one and replaced it with a 32GB one for example, how would the OS get on to the new one?

Thanks,

Ed

 

[arueder]

Don't need to de-solder it....it is actually a tf card in a socket, covered in a piece of sticky tape to stop it self-removing itself

hhmmm.....

 

[arueder]

Oh, I did not know that. That is awesome! Question for you then. My guess is that the ROM is stored on there correct? So if I removed the old one and replaced it with a 32GB one for example, how would the OS get on to the new one?

Thanks,

Ed

I would put 2 TF cards into adaptors, stick them into the computer and copy everything from one TF card to the other.

 

[dart16]

Oh, I did not know that. That is awesome! Question for you then. My guess is that the ROM is stored on there correct? So if I removed the old one and replaced it with a 32GB one for example, how would the OS get on to the new one?

Thanks,

Ed

You just have to flash a new firmware. Place the firmware files on a tf card, it will re-partition the card into 4GB for the system and (I assume) the remainder into a separate partition, it will place the system on the 4GB partition and switch off.....easy-peasy!

 

[arueder]

You just have to flash a new firmware. Place the firmware files on a tf card, it will re-partition the card into 4GB for the system and (I assume) the remainder into a separate partition, it will place the system on the 4GB partition and switch off.....easy-peasy!

Given me much to think about!

 

[dart16]

hhmmm.....

Why hhmmm? The DISCO and DISCO10 builds have internal tf slots, the SAWEE and derivatives have NAND flash soldered in.....

 

[dart16]

I would put 2 TF cards into adaptors, stick them into the computer and copy everything from one TF card to the other.

You will discover a problem doing that... There is an issue with market and partitions greater than 4GB - that's why the firmware partitions the larger card!!!

you could do it manually - partition the card and copy the files over.... or you could just re-flash the firmware and it does it for you.

 

[arueder]

You will discover a problem doing that... There is an issue with market and partitions greater than 4GB - that's why the firmware partitions the larger card!!!

you could do it manually - partition the card and copy the files over.... or you could just re-flash the firmware and it does it for you.

Reflash would be the easier process. All good things to those who wait i suppose.

I just can't wait to get my hands on it.