Honeycomb: The good and the bad

[briman4031]

I'm actually thrilled with this update. It has taken an antiquated tablet and brought it up to par. Now I feel GREAT about my $160 woot investment. However, I have noticed a few issues with the update that others have mentioned.

1. Playing Youtube videos in the FB app and elsewhere outside of the Youtube app.
2. The Wifi connection does disconnect when unattended. Changing settings doesn't affect this much.

Other than these things... I have been thrilled with the update. I love the new Kindle app, and especially the new browser.

 

[Deandec]

KUDO's to Vizio for post sale support for their Tablet....

 

[Philtablet]

I switched browsers after the update. Opera uploads fast and I am able to seach around for aps for other sites. How is the FB ap working for people these days? So far no problem with the deletion of Net Flicks. Anyone else delete some of the bloatware introduced via the update?

 

[Hedgehog000]

The bad -hbo go and maxgo don't work, font too small, loss of external buttons and wasted screen space for the on panel ones.

The good - sd card seems to work properly

Unsure - speed and battery life. Gps seems more responsive



So far it's a meh for me.

Sent from my VTAB1008 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[james23p]

The Good!

Speed Speed and more speed the Vtab is a lot more responsive and smooth.
Browser is a ton better and now I am no longer defaulted to the mobile sites. The font size for me is not bad I prefer the layout.
SD Card yes a major flaw in a 4GB system is now fixed so we can have up to a 32gb sd card and the 4GB the Vtab came with. It does seem some apps can not be moved but most of mine can. I would recommend a Class 10 card for the speed of download.
I prefer the on screen buttons I find they are responsive than bevel buttons were touchy at best.
Plus the keyboard is more accurate and cursed is more precise.
Also it seems with the HC update that Bluetooth keyboards now work.

Things others are having trouble with that I am not:
My Win7 64 bit system see's my SD card/Vtab with no problems.
My WiFi connection is more stable now than before.

Bad:
Videos in the browser tend to have no picture just sound unless I use the full screen option. Yes when I hit the full screen the video plays perfectly. Not sure why this is any ideas.
My MLB at bat no longer plays the video highlights. Everything else works great the Gameday and Gameday audio are perfect as does the score updates etc. Just the videos I have read this is an issue with HC and MLB at Bat I am calling MLB tomorrow to confirm.


All in all I love the HC update it has made my Vtab perfect so much so I bought one for everyone in the family!!!

Jim

PS Except my daughter she wanted a lenovo Ideapad A1 for graduation from college so I got her one this weekend(she got a car last year so smaller gift this year) Not a bad tablet, she really likes it for the more stock android look. It runs 2.3 I wonder if Lenovo is going to update to HC or ICS. But the Vizio's screen blows it out of the water. But her's has 16GB and the same speed processor and memory. It is smaller 7 inch vs 8 inch I think the Vizio beats it hands down but she likes it and thats all that counts.

 

[alucard9114]

Remember to side load adobe flash after update.will fix flash video problems.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[james23p]

I saw this in another thread so the flash update is compatable with the HC update? I guess I need to do a search and find the thread so I can update with the correct flash veresion.

Jim

 

[mjduff]

How do you "side load"?

 

[Conspirator]

You download the APK file of the program same as you would an EXE on a PC. Once you load the APK file on the tablet, use a file manager program (Astro, Android Assistant, ETC...) to locate file and click to install. It allows you to install apps blocked by the market, but does not promise that they will work.

 

[Nimble1]

Well, after playing with the HC upgrade fro a few days, I like it. So far only one app that needed to be reloaded. And I am used to the small size of the icons now I guess..LOL.
I finally figured out how to set up my Embarqmail using the mail client but I'm not sure if HC helped with that or not. Overall I am really pleased with the HC upgrade and my Vizio.

 

[10amla]

Honeycomb 2 weeks and change

First a bit of background, I've used and supported PC's for 30 years, as a programmer and support person, however this is my first Android device.

I eagerly awaited the release of HC for the VTAB, I knew that the HW buttons were going to disappear, but was ok with that. I use Go Launcher Ex as a replacement for the stock launcher. I felt no need to root, I still had lots of space on the internal storage with config file changes for a mapping program and no phone to tether with.

The good:
HC was much faster
The soft buttons seem to work better than the HW buttons
While lossing the screen real estate for the soft buttons was a minus, the additional functionality of the status bar was a real plus. Easy access to changing network mode (WIFI, Airplane), notifications, input selection was very useful. The stretch mode, not so much.
I had File Manager on GB, but mostly used ES File Explorer, I now use File Manager HD almost exclusively
The MSNBC app now works
I found this quite by accident, with the soft buttons the VTAB will orient itself "updisde down" in both portrait and landscape.
Having access to the SD card for both programs and data oviates the need for config file changes to point to data on the SD card.
Synching to the VTAB with Window Media Player.


The Sorta Bad
I had to do the factory reset after the "SD card/Internal storage swap" to clear the internal storage.
I had set my data files(music & pics) in a directory structure to mimic my pc. I had to change that to accomodate File Manager HD's stortcuts.
I tried Go Launcher HD, in fact again last night, and it looks like it WILL be my replacement for Go Launcher EX when the wallpaper works, it has screen transition effects and themes. But it looks quite promising.
I'd installed the Vizio drivers on my PC, so I had to manually reinstall the MTP drivers with with USB conflicts. That's not Vizio's problem.

Any time you get a software upgrade, especially an OS upgrade, there will be an adjustment. In some cases there are bugs, in some cases you just need to learn some different ways of doing the same thing.

So it's been 2 and a half weeks of reconfiguration, re-installation and adding a bunch of music but I have a really usable tablet that I'm quite happy with.

 

[HilltopStudios]

Any time you get a software upgrade, especially an OS upgrade, there will be an adjustment. In some cases there are bugs, in some cases you just need to learn some different ways of doing the same thing.

Agreed. I've been building, repairing and upgrading PCs since the 8-bit days. Installing an OS upgrade (especially of the Windows variety) often found you needing a faster processor, more memory and having programs that would no longer run. Also there was always the fact that hardware cards and peripherals would need driver updates to run but often the manufacturers had gone out of business or were no longer supporting their "legacy" products so you had to buy and install new ones.

Reflecting on all this makes me realize how painless the Honeycomb upgrade actually was. Sure, it required a few tweaks and app swap-outs but they were minimal and the outcome was more than worth it.

 

[laser1138]

Skype is sideways AGAIN................groan. Hey Vizio, y'all fixed this once before, think you can do it again ???

 

[J515OP]

Agreed. I've been building, repairing and upgrading PCs since the 8-bit days. Installing an OS upgrade (especially of the Windows variety) often found you needing a faster processor, more memory and having programs that would no longer run. Also there was always the fact that hardware cards and peripherals would need driver updates to run but often the manufacturers had gone out of business or were no longer supporting their "legacy" products so you had to buy and install new ones.

Reflecting on all this makes me realize how painless the Honeycomb upgrade actually was. Sure, it required a few tweaks and app swap-outs but they were minimal and the outcome was more than worth it.

You know it is actually quite amazing we have moved beyond that sort of pc idea in software at the mobile level. In fact Windows Phone and the latest Android updates actually make it easier for older devices with lower specs to run on the new OS. If you just think about that for a moment it is really something. On top of that, we loosely call these "updates" where they are really complete OS upgrades many times rather than just simple updates. As you noted it is a far cry from the issues associated with the computer OS upgrades of the past and more like service pack updates than Complete OS swaps and 2.3 to 3.x to 4.0 are indeed complete OS swaps not simply service pack style fixes.

 

[schwing1]

Fairly new to the forum but here is my input.

My battery life seems to be a bit longer. I took a 4.5 hour flight last week and read for about 3 hours of it, battery was still doing good. Words With Friends needed to be reloaded but it is now sideways, which I can now see the entire board. I liked that part.

All in all, I am not disappointed with the upgrade.