Cheap china android tablets

[boosted_4cyl]

So, im thinking about one of those cheap android tablets from dealextreme type sites for christmas. From what I have read, the tablets with the rockchip processors seem to be the quickest, and have custom firmware available. Has anybody here have any experience with these or any similar android tablets? What should I look for? All I am really concerned about is internet browsing and a quick and fluid UI. Battery life is not really a concern as it will be plugged in most of the time.
Maybe I will get John from priceangels opinion, he seems to be an honest china seller.
Thanks for any advice

 

[Misellus]

Just ordered a ZT180 yesterday...will let you know how it works. It's a 10.1" tablet with 256ram and a 1 gig processor (IIRC, looked at a lot of them yesterday) running android 2.1. I ordered it off ebay from a buyer that claims to ship from the US, so I should have it by end of the week.

Watching various videos it seemed the most responsive in the pricerange ($200) and has custom firmware available on slatedroid (working Flash and Marketplace). If I don't like it, but it does email and solitaire, I'll give it to my parents for Christmas. They want something cheap to take traveling. If I do like it, I'll likely buy them one.

misellus

 

[boosted_4cyl]

Oh awesome! I was wondering about those 10" ones. 1ghz aint bad either!

 

[Misellus]

I've now owned my ZT180 for a week. It did ship from the USA, and came with the latest firmware (1030). After a week, I'm sure there are things about the OS I don't know, but I think I've learned the basics and can get by on the device. Slatedroid seems to be cleaning up from a failed forum software migration and had a lot of bad links when I first started looking for help. Bad timing for me since that's where I was expecting to find answers. They now appear to be mostly, if not completely, back.

Nothing special about the packaging. Just a power adapter and a tiny user guide that covered turning the device on. I decided to leave the factory screen protector in place until I can get a better one.

First few days were spent trying to find where various settings were located, and program names for various tasks. This is my first Android device so I was doing a lot of reading and searching. Biggest problem at this time was the touch screen. I felt it was too sensitive and would launch programs while I was trying to slide screens. Android Market worked fine and I downloaded a bunch of apps from there. Only thing I can think of that didn't work were the animated wallpapers. Not a real big deal.

Next few days were trying to get adb working (part of the developer package and used to push files or settings onto the device). For some reason, the program doesn't recognize the ZT180. I need to find some help files for it since most of the places I've seen it called out, they assume you know how to run it. Since I couldn't get adb working, I cannot install Flash Lite 9.1 which is the only Flash that is known to work on the pad.

Day 5, I noticed the Market no longer works. I can select something for download, it attempts and fails. Then never goes back to try again (rebooted and left it sitting for 12 hours once). The Google Help response is to reboot the device and try again 10 minutes later. Slatedroid posts say to leave it on and it will eventually get the files. Several posts about this on the Zenithink website forums but no answer from the company. It still connects to my Gmail and youtube accounts so I don't think it's something simple like lost the username/password.

I decided to restore the device to factory default by burning the 1030 firmware. This went fine. Zenithink provides the files and the burntool from their website.

Market still doesn't work. I had hoped the problem was caused by me in my ignorance. I reset it again and this time created a new google account in hopes that would fix the market. Didn't work. Not sure what to do about it now other than find another place to download apps and hope it starts working. There's one at slideme.org

I figured out my problem with sliding was too little pressure and trying to cover too much distance. Short slide gestures work better.

It plays youtube videos through an app. No problems with that. Videos on other websites are hit and miss. If you copy video files to a flashdrive the tablet will play them without a problem, but I cannot get it to play files hosted on a different computer across my home network. Using SMB I can see the files on a shared drive, but can't access them even with permissions set to their most lax.

Would I recommend it to someone? On day one and two, yes I would have, now I'm not sure about recommending it without a working marketplace. Some apps are not available anywhere except the official marketplace. If you don't care about the market, then yeah, it's a nice tablet. I paid $195 but I've seen it for $175 (shipped from China)

If you're wanting it for web browsing you'll be happy with it. The default browser works fine and there are several others to try. I've been using Skyfire since it was most often recommended. WiFi connectivity is great. I've never noticed it fail, and I can take the tablet to the basement (router is on 2nd floor).

I'm not having anywhere near the horror stories I've read about people buying the smaller $100 tablets, or the ZT180 buyers whose tablets won't turn on at all. I'm sure there are many tablet owners who would like to have one whose only problem it the market doesn't work

Hope it helps,
Misellus

 

[TeufelWolf]

Which buyer did you buy it from? I'm looking for something that would be a more robust ebook reader for books that are scanned as PDF images.

 

[ELEktron]

TCC8902 CPU is the best, it can play 1080p full hd video without problems.
look for tablets with that cpu, good is SmartDevices SmartQ T7 or T7-3G. You can buy it on allPMP.com
EDIT: SmartDevices has the best community support

 

[Misellus]

Which buyer did you buy it from? I'm looking for something that would be a more robust ebook reader for books that are scanned as PDF images.

That's one if the reasons I wanted it. I'm tired of reading on my 2.5" phone screen. I can't remember the name of the reader I was using before I reset it...thinking fbreader. The pad does read pdfs without an additional app, but not sure if the default one keeps your place.

Seller was audiograveyard, they sell several tablets.
audiograveyard items - Get great deals on tablet, Computers Networking items on eBay.com!

Misellus

 

[boosted_4cyl]

this was helpfull for me when i had the same problem with android on my n900
APP Market Fix:
Open the 'Market' app (from the Home screen or app launcher)
Leaving the Market app running, return to the Home screen and open the 'Settings' app again
Within Settings select 'Applications' > 'Manage applictions' > 'Running' (from Tab at top)
Scroll to select the 'Market' app > press the 'Clear Cache' button > then press the 'Force Stop' button (Do not press the 'Clear Data' button)
Press the back button (to go back to the list of running apps)
Scroll to select 'Google Services Framework' > press the 'Clear Data' button > 'OK' (to confirm) > then press the 'Force Stop' button
Return to the Home screen
Launch the 'Market' app again, which will give an error "Attention an error has occurred..." > 'OK' button
Shutdown by holding power button > 'Power Off' > 'OK'
Restart, wait for wi-fi to reconnect, open 'Market' again
(You may have to reboot several times and check 'Market')
The opening 'Market' screen should no longer be blank, and many more apps (free & paid) should now be available
(Although apps can be downloaded, some may still fail to install or run properly)

 

[Misellus]

I found out the market software changed and apparently affected a lot of tablets. There is a hacked version available but it does not run on my tablet. I probably need to wait until the next official firmware update, using AndAppStore : New Releases for now.

TeufelWolf, I remembered wrong, I'm using IReader for most of my ebooks. It doesn't do pdf so probably not useful to you. I found this list of various Android readers and their supported formats.
MobileRead Wiki - E-book software

Misellus

 

[TeufelWolf]

Well decided to order one. Figure it has a bigger screen then my Sony 600, and there seems a be a lot of software options for ebooks.

 

[joeymutz]

This has nothing to do with tablets but i know price angels sells stuff like that also. I purchased 3 items from them and 2 came not working at all. I sent a ticket in and now i can't even login to my account. I emailed john but so far its been well over a month and no action has been taken. The items were literally worth about $10 it was a lighter and a cigarette holder with a lighter built in. both lighter's weren't giving gas, they wanted proof not sure how to give proof for that. Was hoping they would reship it as I'm a member of the community that has bought from at least 5-7 different people on here with no issues, guess i haven't been a member long enough. I bought the items because he seemed like a real honest guy.

Anyway just wanted to post this because if you decided not to go with DX and go with price angels be very careful because $10 worth of items could not be resolved I'd hate to see you loose out on over $100 because of an item DOA. Hope this isn't high jacking your thread just thought people/you should beware if you decided to go through them.

 

[Benm]

I've seen numerous products on dx and others, but i have my doubts on quality and usability.

I'm looking for a smartphone or small table that runs andriod and has wifi support. Does anyone have a good idea in which ones are good worth buying, and which are just crap?

A dual-sim option would be prefereable too - since i usuually get a local simcard when on the road, but still wan tto be able toreceive texts and calls on my domestic network in roaming mode.

 

[boosted_4cyl]

I just found a store in chicago that sells a ton of cheap china phones/tablets. I will try to head up there soon and take a look and see if any seem worthwhile.

 

[TeufelWolf]

So just got a ZT-180 from audiograveyard. Seems nice, but I'm a bit clueless with the android OS.

I've been reading a lot of about streaming and servers. And have tried to set it up to stream music, videos. And trying to get my ebook management software (calibre) to run as a server.

Got it working on my Wifi (N) network, and I can browse my home network, and copy files with Astro-SMB.

But it seems have to issues connecting to any streaming or server apps I run on my PC.

Any of you care to post some examples of how you are getting it to play nice with your PC/Home network?

(Running windows XP, and mixed wired/wireless network thru a linksys WRT300N routers)

 

[boosted_4cyl]

I have finally gotten around to checking out some cheap android tablets in person, and I have to say, I think im just going to get an HP mini netbook. I do like the tablet idea, but I dont think it can replace a laptop. Plus I would much rather run ubuntu than android. The tablets do seem pretty decent for the price but I do question durability especially over long term use.

 

[spyrorocks]

Can't wait for motorola xoom