I'm going to hold off on a real review until after I get my keyboard and after the ICS update, which may change a lot of things. But I do have a couple of early impressions...
First off, my only real beef so far has nothing to do with the specifics of this product, but is shared by all Android tablets: that 16:9 aspect ratio. Yeah, that's the ratio for HD TV and movies, but that's not why I bought mine; I bought it largely for 'net surfing, reading online news and info, e-books, etc.
So when it's in the "default" landscape position with its full-width browser, it just seems too wide to naturally hold, and the limited height means a lot of vertical scrolling. Portrait mode is almost worse, as it seems too tall and the content feels horizontally squished. You know, there's a reason why things like printed books and standard paper sizes have evolved to that "old" 4:3 (or more correctly, 3:4) aspect ratio -- they're optimized for the way your eye scans lines of text.
All other things being equal (which they are not), I prefer the look-and-feel of the iPad's screen for the way I intend to use it.
Secondly, about the GPS issue. This seems to be something that should be fixable to an extent in software. I took mine out onto my patio a few minutes ago and ran an app called "GPS Status" that displays a compass, level indicator, and GPS coordinates with satellite signal bars.
I was quite impressed when, within 20-30 seconds, it had a fix on 10 satellites and a position error of 20m. However, none of the bars was very high, indicating weak reception, and within a few more seconds all the satellites gradually diminished to zero and the GPS lock was gone! Another half minute later and they started reappearing.
I find it hard to explain this phenomenon as being just a matter of the antenna, as it seems it would be a bit more consistent, especially once it had found the satellites. I'll have to play with this more later, but there's definitely something strange going on (and I was not moving at the time!).
More later after I get the rest of my order and the system s/w is updated!
First off, my only real beef so far has nothing to do with the specifics of this product, but is shared by all Android tablets: that 16:9 aspect ratio. Yeah, that's the ratio for HD TV and movies, but that's not why I bought mine; I bought it largely for 'net surfing, reading online news and info, e-books, etc.
So when it's in the "default" landscape position with its full-width browser, it just seems too wide to naturally hold, and the limited height means a lot of vertical scrolling. Portrait mode is almost worse, as it seems too tall and the content feels horizontally squished. You know, there's a reason why things like printed books and standard paper sizes have evolved to that "old" 4:3 (or more correctly, 3:4) aspect ratio -- they're optimized for the way your eye scans lines of text.
All other things being equal (which they are not), I prefer the look-and-feel of the iPad's screen for the way I intend to use it.
Secondly, about the GPS issue. This seems to be something that should be fixable to an extent in software. I took mine out onto my patio a few minutes ago and ran an app called "GPS Status" that displays a compass, level indicator, and GPS coordinates with satellite signal bars.
I was quite impressed when, within 20-30 seconds, it had a fix on 10 satellites and a position error of 20m. However, none of the bars was very high, indicating weak reception, and within a few more seconds all the satellites gradually diminished to zero and the GPS lock was gone! Another half minute later and they started reappearing.
I find it hard to explain this phenomenon as being just a matter of the antenna, as it seems it would be a bit more consistent, especially once it had found the satellites. I'll have to play with this more later, but there's definitely something strange going on (and I was not moving at the time!).
More later after I get the rest of my order and the system s/w is updated!
