We wonder
why companies make such poor choices when it comes to Android
The world has been
waiting for affordable tablet PCs, and when the HANNSpad 7" SN70T3 first
turned up I wondered if we'd reached a turning point on that journey.
On paper this
device ticks many boxes. Built around an ARM Cortex A8 CPU 1.0 GHz, the SN70T3
offers an ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) implementation of Android, 4GB of Flash
storage, a 800x480 display, Accelerometer, and 0.3m front facing camera. You
can expand the storage another 32GB using the microSD slot, and connect it to a
PC for media transfer using a Mini-USB port. What's more, all this costs well
under $160. If that was the whole story I'd buy one myself, but alas the
caveats here come thick and fast from this point in the review onwards.
The first issue,
though, is the screen. It has poor vertical viewing angles and a decidedly soft
display when presenting any contrasting text. Turning the brightness down
helps, but the bottom line is that this panel isn't good enough for this job.
Hold it at the
right angle and you can see what you're doing, but the pad is also generally
unresponsive, often requiring multiple stabs to illicit a response. With the
hardware in here it shouldn't do that, so I can only conclude they mucked up
the Android implementation in some fashion. That theory gets some supporting
evidence when you start using the pad in earnest.
Other faults aside,
the Android implementation is the real deal breaker here; it doesn't give you
Gmail or access to the Google Play market for apps. They've come up with two
alternative app stores, neither of which provide the range of apps that Google
makes available.
What's
super-annoying is that on these stores you can download GMail, but it won't
work because they stripped out the Google Services Framework that it requires
to function. I manually found the APK for this on the Internet and installed
it, but why I should jump through so many hoops to get basic functionality is
beyond me.
As such, without
modification, this device is of no practical use to anyone with an Android
phone who'd like something synchronized that they can use to tap out emails
while watching TV. That's a gaff of Godzilla-sized proportions, and what
Hannspree was thinking here I've no idea.
It is possible to
root this device and replace the OS with one crafted by enthusiasts who've a
better grip on why people buy Android pads, but that requires more technical
knowledge than a typical punter might be expected to have. I can't really
recommend it as a the start point for a project where you have to do something
that drastic to make it slightly useable, invalidating the warranty in the
process. Just pay the extra and get a Nexus 7.
A cheap
Android pad that doesn't offer critical apps
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Details
Price: $134
Manufacturer: Hanspree
Required Spec: Local Wi Fi access to the Internet
Specifications
- Touchscreen Type
: Capacitive Multi-Touch (5 points)
- Weight :
380 gm
- CPU :
1.0 GHz ARM Cortex A8 Processor
- Dimensions
: 230 x 150 x 10.5mm
- Screen :
7” 800×480 resolution (16:10)
- Memory :
512MB
- Internal
Storage : 4GB Flash
- Camera :
0.3 Mega Pixel Front Camera
- Connectivity
: WiFI 802.11 b/g/n
- Audio :
Microphone + 1x 1W speaker
- Battery
: Lithium Polymer 3000mAh/3.7V
- I/O
Ports : 1 x Micro SD Card Reader, 1x Mini-USB 2.0-Cable supplied, 1x
Headphone (3.5mm)
- OS
: Android 4.0.3
- Supported Video Formats
: MKV (H.264), FLV, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG3
- Supported Image Formats
: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, WBMP Supported Audio Formats : MP3, AAC, AC3, WAV
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