Extreme Ryno Review

[ExtremeRyno]

Official verdict: "I love it, but..."

I'm not going to be long winded. I'm going to do this as a list of 10's.

Pros:

1. Light weight...Like...Very.
2. Seems sturdy. There aren't any weird noises when I squeeze and pinch it.
3. The backing feels fantastic. The rubbery/leathery feel of the back wins.
4. Rocking a 64GB MicroSDXC w/little issue (Format as Fat32 first)
5. Friendly with Windows 7. Kissing friendly.
6. No bleed around screen edges.
7. Screen is crisp and clear.....Need an app for that...See below under Cons.
8. Charges quickly, battery has run 9 hours, 8.5 hours, and 10 hours. About 7% or 8% drain per hour.
9. Camera was better than I expected. Very sharp images in a well lit area...
10. Video quality was decent, and the anti-shake worked well. Audio was perfect.

Cons:

1. BLOATWARE. Slows the machine DOWN. Tons of worthless apps that can't be deleted AND they all run in the background.
2. Circle Dock...Huh? Slowest piece of bloat on there....Was neat for a while, I will admit.
3. USB Mounting...It doesn't work like most other tablets. Has special protocols which need special drivers on the PC.
4. WiFi...Terrible reception. I get better connection from my NookColor. I'm one room and one wall away from wireless router and get almost zero signal.
5. Sound...Terrible speakers and sound UNLESS you use Dolby Mobile. Dolby Mobile SUCKS compared to Volume+ or Equalizer Pro.
6. Laggy response from screen...Probably due to bloatware.
7. USB location. This is on the wrong side of the tablet if you use it in portrait mode. Gets in the way if you're using a cover or stand.
8. Front camera sucks, even in decent light.
9. Can't use Sixaxis w/out root, and possibly not supported even then.
10. Mentioned the screen above...Very great looking, but when you want it bright, it doesn't get bright enough, when you want it dim, it won't go dim enough. Pick your favorite app to fix it. I like ScreenDim.

I really do love this tablet, but the BLOATWARE ruins it. Seriously, there is so much bundled garbage on this thing that it is nearly unusable when you really want some performance. The WiFi is so bad that many of the streaming apps I use can't be used. Netflix, TuneIn Radio Pro, Pandora, and a couple others (I love streaming music) get disconnected often. Jango Radio and Slacker were never even able to connect.

I'm ready to get some root access and get rid of all the garbage. Once they're gone, this tablet will be smokin' hot. Right now, it's just simmering. Can't wait for some custom ROMS to arrive, too.

 

[Greg_E]

YOu can already freeze applications in ICS, so you do not need root to stop the resource hogs. Settings --> applications, choose each application you want to freeeze and long press on it, should give you the choice to lock it. You should probably go through and free up the data space that might have been used before locking them.

 

[ExtremeRyno]

I know, but the fact that it's all there in the first place really rankles my...rankles. I've disabled everything I won't use, and it did make things speedier...But I really don't understand why Acer would bundle stuff like that in the first place. This is their top of the line tablet and it is as slow as (often slower) than my NookColor because they've thrown in so much garbage. It's going to give a lot of people the wrong impression of their tablet.

I've been keeping up with the goings-on at XDA, and seems there is a working boot unlocker and a root...But as comfortable as I was screwing around on the unbrickable NookColor that's how afraid I am of screwing around on this. Waiting for an auto-do-hicky. At the rate things are going, it probably won't be too long.

 

[Icebike]

Actually, I thought the front camera was fine. Way better than the one on my HTC One X. Its a front cam for pete sake.