Effective strategies in 7" tablet for my needs

[Raoulangel]

Greetings everyone, again.. a few more questions.. to help me make a decision..

Looking at the current Android Tabelts, 7" with capacitive screens, it seems to be such an array of "almost there but... "

Viewsonic V7 - Capacitive, 512mb ram, resolution, wifi, android market BUT.. no flash 10.1 support

Archos 7o internet tablet, All of the above EXCEPT 256mb ram and no market.. but has superior flash and codec support

Basically its the same actross the board, Galaxy Tab has everything BUT is tied to the phone companies..

Seems almost like they are pusposely keeping themselves just slightly crippled enough to not be well rounded.. so.. I think i might have a solution.. but a question first.. The Flash support, and codecs that Archos has, is that PURELY a hardware thing? Or is the same flash plugin available for the Viewsonic.. same with the codecs.. they are just plugins right? Should be able to get the Viewsonic up to par...

The Other thought is, what kind of ram is in the Archos?? Could I conceivably pop in 512 and take out the 256? or is it hard coded in the firmware to limit it to that? I mean, the Archos would take the lead with 512 ram.. and none of them tether with an ad hoc wifi tether phone app..

please someone let me know if I am on the right track? Thanks all.

 

[EarlyMon]

Seems almost like they are pusposely keeping themselves just slightly crippled enough to not be well rounded.. so.. I think i might have a solution.. but a question first.. The Flash support, and codecs that Archos has, is that PURELY a hardware thing? Or is the same flash plugin available for the Viewsonic.. same with the codecs.. they are just plugins right? Should be able to get the Viewsonic up to par...

The Other thought is, what kind of ram is in the Archos?? Could I conceivably pop in 512 and take out the 256? or is it hard coded in the firmware to limit it to that? I mean, the Archos would take the lead with 512 ram.. and none of them tether with an ad hoc wifi tether phone app..

What you're seeing, in my opinion, is new makers rushing into a market they don't fully understand and trying to mitigate risk by mitigating costs - and that translates into hardware limitations.

Expect the hardware on the current generations to be hermetically sealed for all purposes - no ram changing (common to ultra-portables, nothing is socketed to lower costs and increase shock and vibration capability).

Codec support is purely a software thing - however - some processors chipsets have advanced codec support to reduce the burden on runtime software for codecs. Good luck finding out if that really applies to any device with the industrial secrecy built-in. Best way is to go by end-product demonstration - you don't necessarily care where the allocation is - so long as the job gets done.

Flash - now that's processor and buffer intensive (and one of the reasons Apple won't support it on its wunderproducten). Android 2.2 significantly unburdens the cpu load with the change for the compiler and that's why full Flash support is typically only available to 2.2 (Froyo) devices.

However - there is definitely a processor capability threshold to make the leap from Android 2.1 to 2.2 - and devices being marketed out of the box at 2.1 should be critically suspect as candidates for a 2.2 upgrade.

This year - we hope - marks the turning point away from highly-compromised tablets. Check out the upcoming Motorola Xoom or the Notion Ink Adam as examples of what can happen when performance is put first.

Beyond that, I'm not at all experienced with these tablets personally, so I won't comment further.

I would point out that we do have forums of actual users for this who may be able to answer your remaining questions. Not that I'm asking you to leave this forum, I'm just suggesting there exists a different audience, perhaps, here: Tablets & MIDs - Android Forums

In fact, I think it's in your best interest to move this thread there for you.

I've renamed it - http://androidforums.com/tablets-mids/258084-effective-strategies-7-tablet-my-needs.html