wolfganggold
Member
- May 11, 2011
- 95
- 4
First off, hello everyone...first post here.
Here are some observations I've made over the past week...some may be Iconia specific and some may be Honeycomb specific.
1. I plugged some headphones in and the external speakers stayed on. I tried 2 sets of headphones and they both do it...that sorta stoopid!
2. The Hero of Sparta game is NOT the full version. It's a very short demo...it looks good and shows off the graphics capability of the unit ably but I was looking forward to some more monster bashing...The other two included games, Need For Speed and Let's Golf DO seem to be full versions and also look and play great.
3. The unit is generally very fast in all things. I have noticed some slowdown in wifi when switching from one router to another but a reset fixes it. The reset hole is super small...I wish it was just a smidge bigger.
4. I've had to reset the unit several times, mostly to fix the above-mentioned wifi slowdown. I wonder if just turning off wifi and turning it back on might accomplish the same thing.
5. I've tried 4 different browsers (stock, Dolphin, Firefox, Opera) and have pretty much settled on Dolphin HD. I'm disappointed because I REALLY wanted to use Firefox but it just doesn't seem to be up to snuff. Rendering on some fonts and graphics just doesn't seem to be as crisp as all three other browsers. I also don't like how it handles tabs. Dolphin seems more like a proper browser and supports various plugins with mixed success. AdBlock doesn't seem to work at all and Xmarks works OK but doesn't seem to be able to import bookmarks that are in subfolders with 100% success.
6. The wireless card is just OK. With a strong signal it's great but at my desk at work I'm pretty far from the router and, while my laptop gets 1 to 2 bars (and sporadically disconnects, but not unusably so), the Iconia gets a maximum of 1 bar and is disconnected more often than not.
7. Multitouch is very nice and responsive...the interface in general is very snappy and I don't ever feel like I'm waiting on it excessively.
8. Battery life is acceptable though I've noticed as some others have the large drain from the non-existent cell standby. There's GOTTA be a good, non-kludgy fix forthcoming for that. I run the display at about 33% indoors and it's just fine brightness-wise...I'm sure that contributes some battery time. I get through and entire day right now, up til bedtime with moderate use and still have about 10% battery left. Granted, I'm not surfing much at work due to the weak wifi signal but I still play games here.
9. The software available is hard to find (if you're looking for HD, tablet optimized apps that is...in general, the market is sorta like drinking from a firehose) but a lot of it is fantastic. The CNN app is great as is Accuweather's Honeycomb app. USA Today's app is also very nice. I get some force closes, mostly (it seems) on apps not optimized for tablets but they're not excessive.
10. As have others, I've noticed that the device wakes up spontaneously from time to time. I won't swear to it but I don't think it was doing it until I enabled my hotmail account in the mail app a couple days in. I set up my Gmail account right away and I don't THINK it exhibited the wake up behavior then.
11. I haven't used the cameras much, and not at all for skyping but the few pics and videos I've taken seem passable and hitting the shutter button results in a picture being taken quite quickly, noticeably faster than both my phone and my el cheapo digital camera.
12. Wish List: I wish the USB slot would see NTFS devices. I wish I could charge via USB. I wish the charging cord was WAY longer. I wish the market had a dedicated tablet-optimized section.
I absolutely LOVE this thing! It has some minor flaws but I don't expect perfection from any computing device and I don't think it's realistic to do so. I can't wait for the Honeycomb 3.1 update!
Here are some observations I've made over the past week...some may be Iconia specific and some may be Honeycomb specific.
1. I plugged some headphones in and the external speakers stayed on. I tried 2 sets of headphones and they both do it...that sorta stoopid!
2. The Hero of Sparta game is NOT the full version. It's a very short demo...it looks good and shows off the graphics capability of the unit ably but I was looking forward to some more monster bashing...The other two included games, Need For Speed and Let's Golf DO seem to be full versions and also look and play great.
3. The unit is generally very fast in all things. I have noticed some slowdown in wifi when switching from one router to another but a reset fixes it. The reset hole is super small...I wish it was just a smidge bigger.
4. I've had to reset the unit several times, mostly to fix the above-mentioned wifi slowdown. I wonder if just turning off wifi and turning it back on might accomplish the same thing.
5. I've tried 4 different browsers (stock, Dolphin, Firefox, Opera) and have pretty much settled on Dolphin HD. I'm disappointed because I REALLY wanted to use Firefox but it just doesn't seem to be up to snuff. Rendering on some fonts and graphics just doesn't seem to be as crisp as all three other browsers. I also don't like how it handles tabs. Dolphin seems more like a proper browser and supports various plugins with mixed success. AdBlock doesn't seem to work at all and Xmarks works OK but doesn't seem to be able to import bookmarks that are in subfolders with 100% success.
6. The wireless card is just OK. With a strong signal it's great but at my desk at work I'm pretty far from the router and, while my laptop gets 1 to 2 bars (and sporadically disconnects, but not unusably so), the Iconia gets a maximum of 1 bar and is disconnected more often than not.
7. Multitouch is very nice and responsive...the interface in general is very snappy and I don't ever feel like I'm waiting on it excessively.
8. Battery life is acceptable though I've noticed as some others have the large drain from the non-existent cell standby. There's GOTTA be a good, non-kludgy fix forthcoming for that. I run the display at about 33% indoors and it's just fine brightness-wise...I'm sure that contributes some battery time. I get through and entire day right now, up til bedtime with moderate use and still have about 10% battery left. Granted, I'm not surfing much at work due to the weak wifi signal but I still play games here.
9. The software available is hard to find (if you're looking for HD, tablet optimized apps that is...in general, the market is sorta like drinking from a firehose
) but a lot of it is fantastic. The CNN app is great as is Accuweather's Honeycomb app. USA Today's app is also very nice. I get some force closes, mostly (it seems) on apps not optimized for tablets but they're not excessive.10. As have others, I've noticed that the device wakes up spontaneously from time to time. I won't swear to it but I don't think it was doing it until I enabled my hotmail account in the mail app a couple days in. I set up my Gmail account right away and I don't THINK it exhibited the wake up behavior then.
11. I haven't used the cameras much, and not at all for skyping but the few pics and videos I've taken seem passable and hitting the shutter button results in a picture being taken quite quickly, noticeably faster than both my phone and my el cheapo digital camera.
12. Wish List: I wish the USB slot would see NTFS devices. I wish I could charge via USB. I wish the charging cord was WAY longer. I wish the market had a dedicated tablet-optimized section.
I absolutely LOVE this thing! It has some minor flaws but I don't expect perfection from any computing device and I don't think it's realistic to do so. I can't wait for the Honeycomb 3.1 update!
