Owens L'ill Slice of the Web

Toys for Boys

My cool new toy; An android tablet..

I went out and got myself a POV Mobii Tablet, 10′ screen, running Android on a very efficient but fast Nvidia TegraII chipset. It’s the perfect antidote to the iPad.

I’ve had it a week now and I am very impressed; it is fast, responsive, very portable and has excellent battery life (the screen backlight is the killer in this, keep it on minimum and I double my runtime.. which shows how efficient the rest of the machine is). Android is working well, although some dialogues and applications still betray the fact it was designed for small screen devices. I did a bit of work to get the Android 2.3 virtual keyboard; and flash running on it (actually all I did was hunt for and download down the relevant installers and double-click them) plus a few apps and a tweak that lets me run the ‘proper’ Android marketplace as well as the POV supplied one (which is not so good). Wifi is good once connected, but it can be slow connecting when I have changed locations.

It ships with Android 2.2, but is ‘rooted’ as supplied, so I can replace key OS elements without having to hack it first. I am sure that I’ll be able to get the full Android 2.3 release on it eventually; and since the Galaxy tablet runs the same screen resolution (but in a 7′ form factor) and there are many 10′ android tablets in the pipeline, I’m sure that the UI experience is just going to get better. Also a hacking community is already building around it, and it’s ‘badge cousin’ the Advent Vega tablet sold in the UK.

Apple fanbois please note: 1) I have multiple application markets on this (choice!) 2) It has a Standard USB port, I can plug a memorystick, or even a USB disk into it. 3) It has a bigger screen than the iPad.. 4) It has a HDMI port and can play full HD content (Nvidia Graphics.) 5) It plays Flash, Flash based websites simply work. (this is currently a hack, I installed the FlashPlayer beta myself; advantages of an open system!), an ‘official’ flash player is due later this month. 6) It has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.