acer or viewsonic - your views please

[Fzero]

Hey Pandorians, I would value your knowledge and opinions before I part with my monies


Looking to treat myself, it is trick or treat night after all, and I'm indecisive as to which of the following two android tablets to get.


I looked at a fair few of those Chinese imports and a couple jextabs but in the end put off by reviews about build quality.


So, I'm down to one of these, I'd love the new Sony one but I'm looking not mush more than couple hundred quid.


Acer a500


32GB one, it's 10.1" screen


http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/tablets/366970/acer-iconia-tab-a500


That link has the specs on it


This is the widescreen for films.


Viewpad 10e


4GB one, it's 9.7" screen


http://www.viewsoniceurope.com/uk/products/ce/specs.php?n=ViewPad%2010e


this has the screen size better for web and games I think


The Acer is more expensive new, but a few on eBay for around 200.


I've only used the ipad and old 7inch android tabs back on version 1.x and a bit concerned about how 'everything else' looks on it, besides films. Would emulators get skewed aspect ratio on these but perhaps look better on the viewpad?


also the viewpad is newer so the technology might be better?


the viewpad has DDR3... that making much odds, I don't know, over to you..


Any thoughts, warnings, owners?


cheers

 

[Fzero]

..reading that pcpro review, I hadn't really thought about how that large Acer might be a bit uncomfortable when playing games on it.


I will be looking to get one of those stick on joysticks for playing games, and when it's sat on my lap might be OK.


Pretty much will be used at home always.


Still not sure.


Another thing is upgrades to new android versions, and official marketplace, can't see anywhere if the viewpad allows that to be installed, I wouldn't want to be stuck with a custom one, like the archos tabs

 

[Batou456]

Is there some reason you're particularly focused on these two?  Lenovo, Toshiba, Dell, and other reputable companies are also in the market.


Just FYI:


The indicated Viewpad is a Gingerbread (v2.3) tablet with a Cortex A8.


The indicated Acer is Honeycomb (v3.x) running a Tegra 2 which has a Cortex A9 dual core.  


Ice Cream Sandwich (v4.x) just launched recently and we should be seeing products with it shortly.

 

[johnnyfamiliar]

well im not really a tablet fan, but i use an acer netbook and it out powers every other computer i own and comes with some nice customer support. dont know if that helps

 

[DaMummy]

i vote for viewsonic gTablet. if i was in the market for a tablet, and i didnt pick up a touchpad during firesale, the gTablet would easily be my choice. probably because its virtually open source

 

[Fzero]

My main reason for narrowing down to these two models was price... I wanted to keep it closer to the £200 mark, most others I checked were much more, or were real budget and resistive screen.


I think the Acer is the better option then, and I'll probably pick one up off eBay. Save over £100 from retail price

 

[Phelsumania]

hey i have one of those cheep chinese tablets and it is pretty awsome as far as tablets go (guess ive been lucky so far), the only bad thing was that i had to replace the battery very shortly after purchacing, but 2ghz cpu, 2gb ram, 320gb hdd and ubuntu (origionally on windows 7 proffesional but it sucked on a tablet) does everything i would want from a tablet. however i never use it anymore since i got my hands on a pandora. the panda will do anything and more the tablet could do. Other than your gonna loose access to android apps, however a good smart phone with android will beat most talets anyway. HTC HD2 runs android apps and emus flawlessly and quickly even the dreamcast emu has reached speeds far beyond what i could have imagined


also slightly off topic and not trying to hijack this thread just 1 quick reply will surfice if someone knows the answer. But what is the differences in all the android builds? ive had every version sinsce1.6 (i think) and have upgraded with every version. And from gingerbread to honeycombe then to sandwich i have not noticed the slightes bit of difference in performance except slight changes in layout each time but barely noticable and now the OC ability is now restricted from 1.4 to 1.2 since the latest release (however i did change to a nexus nand build so i dunno if it now restricts me to what the nexus would oc to?)

 

[Fzero]

I'll tell you what i know about the Android OS build versions


They all have silly food related code names ... so an old version 1.6 or whatever was called Cupcake


Then you had Eclair


Then you had v2.2 which was called Froyo [FROzen YOghurt], which was the first version to support Flash


Then you had v2.3 which was called Gingerbread, which had a few improvements, i think mainly to battery life


Those versions were all aimed at Android smartphones, with the typical 4.3" screen


Then at same time as Gingerbread was the current version on smartphones, you had v3.x which was called Honeycomb, Honeycomb was the first version to be aimed at tablet devices as apose to smartphones


Right now you have Ice Cream Sandwich, v4.x


This is [and i believe going forward] aimed at both smartphones and tablets


Far as i know, Google wont be releasing any more device specific versions, and all versions going forward will work and look nice on both your 4.3" smartphone and your larger screened tablets.


thats my understanding of it all anyway.


As for my tablet choice


I lost out on a bid for the Iconia A500, and most others were reaching up to around 300 once p&p covered.


I decided not to get the Viewpad 10e as it isnt officially verified by Google which means you dont get the official Market, instead it comes bundled with 1Mobile store, which is still nice but just doesnt have all the apps available in Market.


I wanted an verified tablet, one that will run the official YT app and Maps etc, as well as the proper Market app.


So, ive decided to get one of the China ones in the end, I hope it works as well as al lthe YT reviews i watched on it, it looked decent to me, it also has better specs than the Viewpad ... and it also has the IPS screen, which is important to me, as i will often have it resting flat on my coffee table as i play games on it and wouldnt want to have to sit in a sweet spot so i can view it well.


I opted for the the MID M12


Its not as slim, but that said it aint too bulky either really, and the screen looks nice.


It comes with Android v2.2 [Froyo] so supports Flash 10.2 but isnt specifically optimised for tablets like the > 3.0 versions.


Still, it will do me, and may be upgradable in time?


Another thing i heard Phel, is that the newer versions which are aimed for tablets, so Honeycomb and Ice Cream, each have on-screen buttons for [back] [home] [menu] ... where most smartphones have these as physical soft keys, some tablets do not, they are pure screen with a small rim, so thats why they included these common buttons onto the screen within the OS, whereas it was never the case with the previous versions.


...my guess is in near future tablets will mostly be just a plain smooth screen with not much else around it, certainly no physical buttons, besides a power and wolume maybe.


I'll let you guys know how th M12 is IMO once i got it