China Tablets to recommend

[kyleongwl]

get a creative tablet..8G at S$359...(OS2.2) Works well for me

 

[3xistence]

dropad. google it. dealextreme have. processor and ram same as galaxy tab.

 

[innovativeint]

How about Singapore Dollars $139 Android 2.2 China Pad?

To get that price, we must at least order 20pcs.

If my side can hit 100pcs per order, I think $99 should not be problem too (no promise)

My side will do all the dirty work behind to ensure they reach singapore without damage.

Express your interest pple in here and i keep u all guys updated...

 

[jetpack1976]

For China pads, it is not so straight forward like seeing the specs and deciding. Went to check out many vendors in HK last round. On the box says one thing, open up and try another different story.

Build quality is borderline horrible. You can only hope it works. HOwever, based on the price, it is worth the risk. Skip the creative tablet. The build quality might be better but the whole experience is about the same as the china pads.

More reputable pads in China is the Zenithpad which is available in Europe under their brand and they are also OEM for some Europe carriers. Another popular choice is Herotab which is also quite good.

Resolution, touch and battery life would be disappointing. You better don't compare to ipad. If you take this pad and want an ipad experience. Forget it.

My personal opinion is better google around and make sure that a custom rom is available for the model you are looking to get. If no custom rom, stock rom is terrible. Most do not support Android Market. You need a custom rom to root and install Android Market.

By the way, less feature is better. Do not go or those with 3G or GPS inbuilt. It will just eat up your battery life and prove useless. WIFI is useable at best. If you check aound, most people tend to open up their APADS to install additional antenna (i.e. solder a copper wire).

Now, if you are willing to go through all the hassle and check properly, then you might get a usable pad at just a fraction of the price. However, I would still recommend a hands on experience with the pad before jumping in.

All in all, I would still recommmend either Zenithpad, WOWW Pad or Herotab. Played with those and found them alright but their price is not as low as you wish. They begin somewhere about $280.00 to $350.00 (Sing Dollar) depending on your configurations. These are found to be useable. If you are looking for those really cheap pads, you better like googling for answers and have a solder at home ready to do some DIY. I just opened up my APAD which I bought for S$180.00 in HK. It is borderline useable but my charger went busted. I bought another charger in singapore costing $35.00 (Universal Type) but it also went busted. Therefore, I gave up and opened up the APAD to try and change the battery to a standard iphone voltage battery. I bet the battery would cost about $30.00 to $50.00.

Before that, the battery life is only less then one hour. I bought the pad just to see if I really needed one and the answer was no. For those people sitting on the fence would think they need a pad but not sure how useful is a pad to them, can try and throw $200 to buy one. If you are very certain you need a pad for work or for some productivity and not just for the Market games, then please avoid the China Pads. Not worth the hassle.

If you are those who like to custom rom and modify things, buy the china pads, trust me you will spend many nights trying to solve niggling problems like, rooting, changing battery, opening it up, extending battery life etc.

If you can get it to work properly, congratulations, you can show it to your friends that you managed to buy a tablet at just a fraction of the cost of the ipad and yet functionally it is comparable to the ipad.

If not, then just throw $200.00 bucks down the drain and swear you will never buy another cheap china imitation. Ha Ha...

Good luck.

 

[innovativeint]

hi jetpack,

what is custom and stock rom?

My side is playing around with an android TV box (with google browser, youtube, internet radio, etc) sort of like smart tv but not so smart yet lolx.... there is firmware button for update which we frequently get from a taiwan manufacturer then i happen to get another firware from a china factory website and install and it works..

it this the kind stock rom or custom rom that you mean?

 

[jetpack1976]

hi jetpack,

what is custom and stock rom?

My side is playing around with an android TV box (with google browser, youtube, internet radio, etc) sort of like smart tv but not so smart yet lolx.... there is firmware button for update which we frequently get from a taiwan manufacturer then i happen to get another firware from a china factory website and install and it works..

it this the kind stock rom or custom rom that you mean?

Hi Innovativeint,

Stock ROM is basically what I classify as whatever the manufacturer update you with. As you are aware, unless you buy from a reputable manufacturer, there is no such thing as an software update.

The big grip about Android is the ability to install onto the SD card instead of the internal memory. To solve this, you need root access and thus, you need to root the device and install a custom rom. Although, 2.2 solved this by allowing you to move the application to SD card but this feature is only available if the original developer allows you to do so. If not, you cannot move it to SD card. There are also many other reasons why people want to "root" but we cannot discuss the other topic here as it is not allowed (think Playstation 3).

Most of the complaints I have towards China pads are among the low end i.e. $150.00 to $200.00 region. These pads have their own perculiar problems and issues. If you are buying the higher end range of the china pad, then you should have no or limited issues. One sticky point is Android Market access. Not all pads have Android Market access. They have android china market access not the actual Android Market. You need custom rom to solve this issue.

The rom you have is still a phone rom. Android 2.2 is for phones and not pads. There are many things you need to turn off to enhance battery life. Most power sucking features are the LCD, WIFI radio, GPS and most importantly the cellular radio. The pad keeps hunting for cellular connection when there isn't even a sim card. I needed the custom rom to have root access to delete the telephone.apk. Once deleted, my battery life improved greatly.

Stock rom also auto launches many applications at start which eats up available ram. Even if you use task killer, it will just re-launch itself. I use the root access to delete those programs that are not needed forever. Based on my pad of 512mb ram, i can achieve about 420mb to 460mb ram available at start. After normal usage, ram is idling at around 230 to 280mb available with various programs running at the background. Avaliable ram would great affect how responsive your pad is.

If you have no issues with your stock rom, leave it. If you really want to know why people love Android and not ios, then jump into the Android community and see how you can modify the set. I have tweaked the sensitivity of the LCD screen to the volume control, to the keyboard layout (using Honeycomb 3.0 keyboard), to other interesting stuff people have put onto the web. I love some of their changes. Some even tweaked the networking apk and I found that my wireless signal has improved and became more stable after changing the apk.

Thus, my advice still remains. If you want to buy a cheap Android pad, make sure custom rom is available and you can get great support from the Android community about how to modify and squeeze every last drop out of your pad.

 

[innovativeint]

hi jetpack,

too late, my 2 samples of china pad juz in about 8.30pm ago.

you are right about the china android market, seems like even if i manually key in the market address, it does not allow me to install at all. This is bad but there is something that impress me, this baby can watch movie online like those media players which are selling hot and it support usb 3g dongle E1750 but i have not test as the dongle is in office. it can play youtube without problem but the flash player is evaluation copy. I will ask from factory if they can provide the rom that allow to download from google market.

My another sample works like a champ becoz they use standard rom i guess

 

[jetpack1976]

hi jetpack,

too late, my 2 samples of china pad juz in about 8.30pm ago.

you are right about the china android market, seems like even if i manually key in the market address, it does not allow me to install at all. This is bad but there is something that impress me, this baby can watch movie online like those media players which are selling hot and it support usb 3g dongle E1750 but i have not test as the dongle is in office. it can play youtube without problem but the flash player is evaluation copy. I will ask from factory if they can provide the rom that allow to download from google market.

My another sample works like a champ becoz they use standard rom i guess

Glad to hear that you are willing to jump into the China Pad arena. To start off, you can visit slatedroid.com. You must first try to identify what sort of pad you have bought. Most are classified by their CPU. There are too many manufacturers around thus nobody is interested in who is the actual manufacutrer or OEM.

Remember, it is not useful to know the manufacturer if you have bought the lower end pads. The CPU would generically identify what sort of pad you have.

Once you have identified the pad, you can begin to google around and see what are the avaiable options to root the pad. For example, I have bought the A8 IMX515 Freescale(CPU) pad. If you cannot identify the pad, you cannot ask for assistance.

I will be taking some snapshots of my opened China Pad for you to see the interior. Most of the pads are similar. You will be able to understand certain problems when you see the interior. These china manufacturers really love sctoch tapes. They seem to just keep taping the wires here and there. There is no R&D, deisgn layout and any thoughts about heat distribution etc. These people see a dangling wire, they just tape it up. Battery is mounted using double sided tape. Ha .Ha.

For your Android Market solution, you really must root and install custom rom before you can have access. If you are running Android 2.2 then you are still safe. If you are running Android 2.1, then you are at a disadvantage because, there will never be any Android update to 2.2 unless you are lucky.

One thing i forgot to comment. From my own experience and from other people comments, it is not uncommon that the pad would reset itself without any notification. It will just factory reset itself. Do not ask me why, your applications would just disappear one day. It happened to my 4 to 5 times already. Make sure you do not store important information in it. As for your USB 3G dongle. Good Luck. So far, everybody comment on the web using various methods have failed. The box and instructions say it can support 3G dongle but what they never tell you is that only certain 3g dongles are supported. Many people have tried, some with success on certain dongles but mostly failed to get the pad to recognise the dongle.

Do feedback and let me know your experience with the china pad. Be careful with your charger. Mine just blew up literally with smoke during one charging session. There have been comments about this. Do not leave it charging overnight or unguarded. See your charger for the voltage and amp requirement. If you really like using the pad, consider buying another charger from SLS made by a more reputable china manufacturer.

Enjoy your new pad!

 

[zonetechs]

interested in this if the price is good.

How about Singapore Dollars $139 Android 2.2 China Pad?

To get that price, we must at least order 20pcs.

If my side can hit 100pcs per order, I think $99 should not be problem too (no promise)

My side will do all the dirty work behind to ensure they reach singapore without damage.

Express your interest pple in here and i keep u all guys updated...

 

[innovativeint]

hi jetpack,

i have tried the 10inch model (Can download from google market) with Starhub 3G huawei E1750 and it works.. as for 7inch model (China google market), have not play with it much.. I prefer bigger screen so play more with it.

Everything on the 10inch are well, except it need battery capacity calibarate with andriod to show the correct capacity, at the moment when it is full, it shows 88% and never hit 100 %.

Second thing is, the storage capacity is indicated wrong on the system info. Have open up the device, the soldering and all are neat and clean.

The nand flash is correct too, using 4pcs of samsung nand flash Samsung DDR2 K4T1G164QF-BCE7 but this is the part i am puzzled. spec says 512mb ddr and 4GB storage but i cannot find the 512mb.

Another thing that shock me, there is an internal mico sd card slot near the to infomic processor. Have reading card in normal computer , there is uimage..etc...check the capacity of the card, it is less than 200mb. At first i thought the card got problem, i copy the files to a 8GB mico sd card and the system refuse to boot. Conclusion, this card is for storing Android OS. Think is the root you mention abt.

Still exploring, so far i am happi with it, will find some help online to solve, battery capacity calibration and indicate correct storage capacity.

Full HD playback smooth and good......

 

[innovativeint]

interested in this if the price is good.

What price is good price??? and quality you looking for?

 

[damienloh]

This is good info. Thanks for sharing.
Think will skip China pad then.

 

[innovativeint]

This is good info. Thanks for sharing.
Think will skip China pad then.

China pad not that bad mate, depends on if the factory use SMT line to do the mainboard and also depends if they know android Operating system as good as jetpack.

jetpack has do wonders with them and I just following behind....After follow wht he post, things is getting more and more interesting.

Below is the photo of what you expect to see inside, i guess it will look almost the same for "branded" one selling to us at high price? lolx

 

[innovativeint]

4GB storage mystery solved

Good news ! 4GB storage mystery solved.

Factory engineer reverted with the following:

1. In normal windows system, if we format at 4GB sd card or thumbdrive, we usually left with about 3.75gb with fat32.In android, it follows the same theory


With my understanding for windows, I assume the following

Internal Memory (C:\) 2350mb
Data storage (D:\) 938.66mb
RAM DDR2 512mb
Total 3800.66mb

Jetpack, do correct me if my assumption is wrong.

At first i do not believe what they say and I open up the casing and I found 4pcs of k4t1g164qf-bce7 samsung nand flash

then i google it and found pdf from samsung telling us how to tell the density, http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/dram/downloads/ddr2_product_guide_apr_10.pdf

 

[innovativeint]

Good news ! 4GB storage mystery solved.

Factory engineer reverted with the following:

1. In normal windows system, if we format at 4GB sd card or thumbdrive, we usually left with about 3.75gb with fat32.In android, it follows the same theory


With my understanding for windows, I assume the following

Internal Memory (C:\) 2350mb
Data storage (D:\) 938.66mb
RAM DDR2 512mb
Total 3800.66mb

Jetpack, do correct me if my assumption is wrong.

At first i do not believe what they say and I open up the casing and I found 4pcs of k4t1g164qf-bce7 samsung nand flash

then i google it and found pdf from samsung telling us how to tell the density, http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/dram/downloads/ddr2_product_guide_apr_10.pdf

Sorry sorry typo, should be

Internal Memory (C:\) 938.66mb
Data storage (D:\) 2350mb
RAM DDR2 512mb
Total 3800.66mb

 

[innovativeint]

Factory also admitted that the battery level at their end also stops at 88%..and they checking with processor cum main board market if this can be solved.

Then i go google android market and found "battery calibration" tools but dam i do not have root permission (in windows means administrator right)

For more info can refer to here https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&feature=search_result

 

[jetpack1976]

Factory also admitted that the battery level at their end also stops at 88%..and they checking with processor cum main board market if this can be solved.

Then i go google android market and found "battery calibration" tools but dam i do not have root permission (in windows means administrator right)

For more info can refer to here https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&feature=search_result

Hi,

Great to see another borther jumping into the bandwagon of china pads. The battery calibration basically just deletes the file. Try to explain to you. I have tried this so called battery re-calibration method. My battery also shows the battery max out at 80 to 90%. It will never reach full. Better yet, I plug in the charger, show 80% to 90%, pull it out, immediately drop to 70%.

I have tried the battery calibration method. This method was suggested by many other people playing with their pads with different results.

Android has a battery charging file which it uses for a reference. When the pad was made, the pad recognises the battery as 0% then when the battery circuit board cuts the power after full charge, the Android OS will capture a certain reading or state of the battery as fully charged. This is a reference point which it will then reflect on the battery meter as 50% or 70% or 100%.

Overtime, Android will pick up more data whenever you charge the battery. It is like a mini database. Problem arises over time as well as we never use the battery till 0% before charging. So the data becomes a little off. You tend to charge say at 50% or at 40%. This figure is just a speculation by the OS given the voltage reading from the battery. Thus, there is a common problem that people tend to complain that over some time, the battery drops very fast or depletes faster after some usage. This could be the OS not charging the battery completely or thinking it is fully charged when it is not.

Now, back to the pad. The battery calibration method is to have user root access and to delete the battery calibration file when your pad is almost completely flat out of battery. Thus, this is to "return" the battery condition back to factory and when you fully charge it over 10 hours, Android will capture the new battery information and recreate the battery file as a first charge basis.

Most importantly, Does It Work? ...Yes and No. I tried it, slight imrpovement. The battery meter did not drop so drastically but still canot reach 100%. Some people commented that it completely solved their problems after doing it a couple of times. So, this is a method cooked up by somebody trying to tweak their pad. It is one of the possible solution but not THE solution.

Frankly speaking, I still think it is the crappy battery with the crappy crcuit board that is controlling the battery giving problems. That is the main reason why I opened my pad and tried to replace the battery. Now I stuck. Battery cost about $48.00 with the need to repalce another charge costing $35.00. Total cost $83.00. Now thinking is it worth it? Maybe I will try to buy another pad when I next visit HK. Not sure what to do. The only good thing about buying the pad is I learnt alot about Android 2.2 in the process.

I think you should just forget about the battery recalibration method. If you really want to try it, you need to root the pad. No other way. In theory, the method is sound and logical. However, reality often is not.

Thus, as per my original post, if you are happy using your very cheap pad, just leave it. The next person who bought a $800 pad will be better then yours but trust me, you can update and change every 6 months and by the 2nd pad you buy, it would be better then his 1 year old $800 pad.

By the time, you are bored with your pad, start rooting and you will find it gives a new lease of life.

 

[mcylo]

I have an Apad from China. Bought from dealextreme.

Dont bother with those Apad from China. Buying one is as good as throwing $$ into the sea. I regret buying it.

 

[dessq123]

Save up and buy decent brand IMHO. Getting china brand is as good as tying ur hand to a grenade.