7' Cruz Tablet at Warehouse Stationery for $199

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#546344 17-Nov-2011 10:13

The reason I thought it was a go was because the advert says it plays youtube... but then I guess so does my phone and it won't play the videos on tv3 on demand.

tchart

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#546366 17-Nov-2011 10:40

IlDuce: The reason I thought it was a go was because the advert says it plays youtube... but then I guess so does my phone and it won't play the videos on tv3 on demand.

Theres "an app for that" - so it wont play embedded youtube or flash videos. My Vodafone 845 had Youtube as well but you had to use the app to view any Youtube content.

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#546370 17-Nov-2011 10:43

Here are the box shots. They didnt have one out on display though (in fact all there tablets were just boxes)

tchart

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#546389 17-Nov-2011 11:10

Zoom of specs

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#546398 17-Nov-2011 11:26

So that makes it the Cruz T301 model. With no extra 4GB/8GB SD cards. Less RAM. More built in storage.

Looking at the Telecom V9 pdf manual, it cannot support flash either.

The manual for the T301 says that Android 2.2 is major advance over 2.0, but it will not be able to play youtube (even though its advertised as being able to do so), etc, unless the aforementioned skyfire is downloaded and installed. Than it *may* work.

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#546421 17-Nov-2011 11:59

IlDuce: So that makes it the Cruz T301 model. With no extra 4GB/8GB SD cards. Less RAM. More built in storage.

Looking at the Telecom V9 pdf manual, it cannot support flash either.

The manual for the T301 says that Android 2.2 is major advance over 2.0, but it will not be able to play youtube (even though its advertised as being able to do so), etc, unless the aforementioned skyfire is downloaded and installed. Than it *may* work.

Correct, the V9 cant run Flash (wrong CPU type) but has the Youtube app for watching Youtube. When I got the V9 it was a choice of the ZTE V9 or the Huawei S7. The S7 does support flash but the build quality is not as good as the V9 - so I opted not to go for the Flash support (as I found no real use for it on my Android phone)

The Cruz will have the Youtube app like the V9 but no embedded Youtube or Flash support.

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#546479 17-Nov-2011 13:47

You might want to amend the thread title slightly. Don't know how many people are in the market for a 7 foot tablet!

Edit: then again if you could get it for $199..........

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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#546501 17-Nov-2011 14:14

Dingbatt: You might want to amend the thread title slightly. Don't know how many people are in the market for a 7 foot tablet!

Edit: then again if you could get it for $199..........

Yep, typo on my part, but the "edit" doesnt let you change the title. A 7 foot tablet would be sweet.

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#546605 17-Nov-2011 18:02

I bought one this afternoon (Cruz tablet).

I plan to take it to a friends shortly who can download the 107MB Android upgrade from 2.0 to 2.2.

Not much point doing anything before this as it will be wiped. Then I can do as manual says and get skyfire.

In the box is tablet, soft case, tablet stand, USB cable, AC/USB charger, manual, and 4GB SanDisk SD card.

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#546631 17-Nov-2011 19:03

Just a quick overview rather than a full review - but this is it:

No official market, youtube not installed by default but you can download it from the cruz market.

Quite a bit of lag (but it's to be expected of a slow processor and only 256mb ram)

Screen is much better than on the super cheap tablets but you'll still struggle to see it in well lit rooms or outside.

Unsure of battery life yet but it says on the box 6 hours of video - that's pretty good.

has got Kindle app and office viewers installed by default.

Speakers not very loud.

As an e-reader or video viewer it's an OK device

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#546633 17-Nov-2011 19:09

If you want to get the market going you could follow these instructions - can't confirm if working yet as I have loaned out the tablet but if someone wants to try and report back..... as always at your own risk

http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/17518-android-market-and-google-apps-on-the-t301-with-froyo-now-possible/

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#546786 18-Nov-2011 10:15

Wow what a steep learning curve for me.

I purchased this after finding out the V9 also cannot play flash. I thought that all I need to do is download skyfire and I should be ok.

However what I didn't know, is that I would not have access to the android marketplace... which is where skyfire is. It took a lot of searching (over an hour) as the web is full of people complaining about the same problem with no idea why.

It seems that no Cruz tablets are on the approved list, but the V9 is on the list.

So now I need to locate a copy of skyfire I can download outside the android marketplace, or I just bought an expensive paperweight. On the first page of google searching I found a site that has it, however I do not know how worried I have to be about viruses, etc, on these things?

tchart

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#546798 18-Nov-2011 10:40

Im pretty sure this was mentioned in the thread that it doesnt have the official Market.

There is a difference between an Android Device and a Google sanctioned Android device. The Cruz is in the former camp. The latter gives you the official Google apps and of course the market place.

This is one of the things I dont like about the Android ecosystem. There has been cases of other cheap tablets having to pull the market place app (via updated firwmare) much to the annoyance of the people who bought them.

The V9 is blessed by Google so it has the Market.

There are other markets like AppBrain. Try downloading that. Alterntively just google for SkyFire APK.

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#546805 18-Nov-2011 10:57

tchart: Im pretty sure this was mentioned in the thread that it doesnt have the official Market.

There is a difference between an Android Device and a Google?sanctioned Android device. The Cruz is in the former camp. The latter gives you the official Google apps and of course the market place.

This is one of the things I dont like about the Android ecosystem.?There has been cases of other cheap tablets having to pull the market place app (via updated firwmare) much to the annoyance of the people who bought them.

The V9 is blessed by Google so it has the Market.

There are other markets like AppBrain. Try downloading that. Alterntively just google for SkyFire APK.?

Now in hindsight I can go back and read that, but yesterday I simply did not know what the market meant.

Additionally the unit shown in the Warehouse Stationery catalogue IS different to the unit they are selling. Which meant I had read up on all the wrong specs before making the purchase.

AppBrain... I can find the apps I need, but when I click download there is no action.

The browser crashed around a dozen times last night, with no warning why, and again with no knowledge in this area I was not sure if one MUST download and install apps directly to device, or whether one could download on PC and copy to SD card, but in the end last night I gave up with all the crashing and decided to try download on PC, which I can now see does not work (or at least on every site I have visited so far).

tchart

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#547751 21-Nov-2011 10:38

IlDuce, Im interested to hear how you are getting on now? Any better/worse?

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