Telecom V9 Tablet - Opinions?

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tdgeek

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#87539 31-Jul-2011 21:44

HI all

I may get one of these as a spare tablet for wife to keep in car if she needs email, etc, and for young kids to play with. Its not an iPad, but the price is right. How does it rate for browsing, Youtube, email, etc ?

Im used to the iPhone and iPad, but I just want to see what others think as a well priced tablet.

Cheers

heavenlywild

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#500127 31-Jul-2011 23:28

I would avoid as it does not run 3.0. This means the OS is not optimized for this tablet. It's awfully slow and clunky.

NonprayingMantis

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#500129 1-Aug-2011 00:06

for a techy person - not so good

for non-techy wife and kid to email, surf etc, it's fine.

scuwp

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#500146 1-Aug-2011 08:12

Has a play with one...wasn't impressed. Slow and clunky.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

tdgeek

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#500150 1-Aug-2011 08:24

scuwp: Has a play with one...wasn't impressed. Slow and clunky.

I understand slow, this means a browser page is slow to come up. Clunky? What does that mean?

tdgeek

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#500165 1-Aug-2011 08:53

My point is, yes its not an iPad ar a similar $1000 tablet, so off course it will not be as good, but is it quite usable as a budget $400 tablet?

oxnsox

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#500173 1-Aug-2011 09:11

...and at a push it's a phone too....

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heavenlywild

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#500186 1-Aug-2011 09:24

tdgeek:
scuwp: Has a play with one...wasn't impressed. Slow and clunky.

I understand slow, this means a browser page is slow to come up. Clunky? What does that mean?

Basically means the OS is not designed for a tablet and so it's not easy to get around as a tablet running Android 3.0.

If you are spending that much money, I would spend a bit more for a proper tablet.

vinnieg

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#500240 1-Aug-2011 11:14

tdgeek: My point is, yes its not an iPad ar a similar $1000 tablet, so off course it will not be as good, but is it quite usable as a budget $400 tablet?

If you could manage to push it up to $570(incl shipping/gst) you could get an Asus Transformer? Which has been getting amazing ratings

Has international warranty(service centres in NZ) and is very fluid with the Gingerbread 3.2 update
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004U78J1G/ref=s9_simh_gw_p147_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1MTDMMBHP0A9VE8QPCB5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

Linuxluver

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#500251 1-Aug-2011 11:43

tdgeek: HI all

I may get one of these as a spare tablet for wife to keep in car if she needs email, etc, and for young kids to play with. Its not an iPad, but the price is right. How does it rate for browsing, Youtube, email, etc ?

Im used to the iPhone and iPad, but I just want to see what others think as a well priced tablet.

Cheers

I've used several tablets that had various versions of Android on them and they were actually pretty good.

Some were poorly optimised for the (often) limited hardware and I found I could go to a site like "slatedroid.com"
and get enhanced firmware that helped the device to run better than stock.

The key item is how much RAM is in the device. Anything less than 256MB will almost require the use of swapping to the sdcard so the operation of the device can be made smoother...and you can't usually do that without rooting the device.

I don't know the specs of the Telecom device. It will be a re-badged something and may well have a community of hackers around it busy tweeking to get the very best out of it.

The Eken M001 was like that...and could be made to run *MUCH* better than the stock firmware allowed.

Update: The bottom line is that yuo're the one who decides whether it's "good enough"...so have a good play with it if you can.

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Jimmyoo0

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#500258 1-Aug-2011 11:51

I was looking at getting one of these. There is a cyanogen mod rom thats been made for this which is 2.3 on the sweeddroid forum i think. You can get them much cheeper on ebay (Aus) than geting it through telecom, like about half the price the only diffenence is it is 900 Mhz so wont work on tellecom only Vodafone and 2deg.

Lifejockey

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#500275 1-Aug-2011 12:28

I have a v9, originally an Optus Australia version. Upgraded to 2.2, unlocked and rooted. Removed all the Optus rubbish and other useless apps. It cost au$99 from Dick Smith. It is now on Vodafone prepay and works wonderfully well. Does all I need it to do.

Android 2.1 was slow and the upgrade to 2.2 made it a very very good unit for the price. The battery is amazing.. 2 full days of high use as an ereader, movie player, GPS and phone. I mostly use wifi for internet browsing as 3g data in NZ is awfully expensive but when needed Vodafone 3g is fast and handy.

You do need to get the right apps from the market to make it sing. Mobo Player for movies, FBreader for ebooks, GPS lock Free, Tunein Radio for internet radio (Brilliant), Backcountry navigator for gps hiking etc etc.

Highly recommended for a person who wants a tablet that is cheap and can be mucked about with if you have some technical skills and/or can read instructions posted on many websites/forums.

The touch screen is good, sharp bright and clear. The touch works nicely but not up to the standard of more expensive capacitive screens.

All in all I'm happy.

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HotDogBreath

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#500474 1-Aug-2011 17:35

As a sub $400 tablet goes based on what your after, it will do the trick.

The main issues I have with it is as follows.

Low internal memory (Can't install apps to the SD card under 2.1)
Resistive screen
Poor secondary coverage

But it will handle browsing, youtube & e-mail accounts with ease.

These days I only use mine as a tool (I.e., Wifi analyzer and a PDF reader for manuals). The I-Pad does all the hard work now.