- Sep 24, 2010
- 3,649
- 561
I have already given my initial impressions on the Xoom, and talked also about how it is beginning to fit in to my work life (more on that later this week), but this was my first weekend using the G-Tablet at home instead of for work. For most of what I am going to be writing about this morning, any tablet will probably fit the bill, but there are some items here that are Verizon Specific.
First off, I am not finding the battery life what the specs say it should be, not even close. It is not bad, but no where near the 10 hours of use that the specs claim. Yes, I am also paying attention to Task Killer, etc, but this is supposed to be testing by your average user not a geek. I think about my neighbor, my best friend or my mother and ask "are they really going to check those things" and the answer is no. They expect a device to work out of the box with minimal tweaks, and certainly nothing that requires a ton of extra work in terms of configuration.
So, that being said....I watched a couple of Netflix movies Saturday morning, that was very nice. Good viewing angles, I ran one movie on the house WiFi and one moving on Verizon's network to compare, both worked just fine. I did have an interesting issue with the search functions not working on Verizon at first, but after a restart it was fine. Only complaint is that the built-in speakers are horrible, really bad range and no power. After I switched to headphones then it was usable. The picture itself was great, and for those that complain it isn't HD, get over it! You are holding a movie in your hand, with probably a smudged screen. Complaining about it not being HD on a screen that small is a waste of time.
It was also very nice to tote around, it is certainly lighter than my Viewsonic G-Tablet, and the 3G availability was very nice. It is much nicer to simply bring your network with you instead of having to sign in and create profiles every where you stop.
Only other real complaint I have (besides the speakers) is the placement of the charging port. C'mon Motorola, put it on the side. You have designed a device that most people will use in landscape, but set it up so that you can't charge it on a stand or case without turning it sideways. Other manufacturers have gotten this figured out. Maybe now that Google owns Motorola we can get that changed?
First off, I am not finding the battery life what the specs say it should be, not even close. It is not bad, but no where near the 10 hours of use that the specs claim. Yes, I am also paying attention to Task Killer, etc, but this is supposed to be testing by your average user not a geek. I think about my neighbor, my best friend or my mother and ask "are they really going to check those things" and the answer is no. They expect a device to work out of the box with minimal tweaks, and certainly nothing that requires a ton of extra work in terms of configuration.
So, that being said....I watched a couple of Netflix movies Saturday morning, that was very nice. Good viewing angles, I ran one movie on the house WiFi and one moving on Verizon's network to compare, both worked just fine. I did have an interesting issue with the search functions not working on Verizon at first, but after a restart it was fine. Only complaint is that the built-in speakers are horrible, really bad range and no power. After I switched to headphones then it was usable. The picture itself was great, and for those that complain it isn't HD, get over it! You are holding a movie in your hand, with probably a smudged screen. Complaining about it not being HD on a screen that small is a waste of time.
It was also very nice to tote around, it is certainly lighter than my Viewsonic G-Tablet, and the 3G availability was very nice. It is much nicer to simply bring your network with you instead of having to sign in and create profiles every where you stop.
Only other real complaint I have (besides the speakers) is the placement of the charging port. C'mon Motorola, put it on the side. You have designed a device that most people will use in landscape, but set it up so that you can't charge it on a stand or case without turning it sideways. Other manufacturers have gotten this figured out. Maybe now that Google owns Motorola we can get that changed?
