Tablets

Viewsonic Drops the Ball, Resorts to Booger Flicking

21

Viewsonic G Tablet Pulled
At first Viewsonic claimed that pulling the G Tablet was due to a “manufacturing defect”. Turns out that was a load of bunk, and was really a “user experience issue”. An excuse that blows just as much wind; but whatever puts the proverbial wind in your sails, Viewsonic.

Basically what it boiled down to was Staples saw more returns on the G Tablet than Vegas has Elvis sightings. But don’t let that fool you, this wasn’t Viewsonic’s fault. Not in the least. Engadgeted ask “sup?” to the VP of Marketing Adam Hanin who responded while Android and Tegra are great platforms, Google’s lack of support for larger devices means that companies like Viewsonic have to “go out and put together their own software and app stores.”

First of all, what? Second, your company used an operating system that isn’t quite ready for tablets, but still blame the OS maker when you try it regardless. And third, someone else managed to successfully launch a tablet with the same base OS, your excuse is invalid.

Sorry, Mr. Hanin, you’ll need to do a little better.

Boiling it down, the Android tablet win to fail ratio is just dismal. We, as Phandroids, can only hope Motorola hit a homerun at CES.

[Story and Image via Engadget]

Tyler Miller

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21 Comments

  1. It may be cheap, but has full market and good wifi, the Coby 7015 is doing fine. Full root recovery and ShapeWriter keyboard. Three book reader services good browsers and only $140 on black Friday Kmart.

  2. He just gave the same excuse Viewsonic’s engineers gave him to scoff of responsibility for the shitty work they have done.
    That’s why we see so many flaws at product descriptions in stores, because of the lack of knowledge.
    These are the kind of jackasses that go on-stage saying “Twitterdeck”, because all they know about tech comes from worked up speeches.
    Viewsonic, grow some balls, admit you were stupid and release the damn thing with proper software.
    Oh, and replace your VP of Marketing for someone who actually knows something about tech.

  3. the galaxy tab is awesome even with 2.2.

    However still some kinks… every so often it hiccups and forces close soem app.. hoping 2.3 will stabalize it.

    could be that i have tons of stuff installed on it and use the hell out of it.

  4. Hey, they are taking marketing advice from Apple!

  5. I had purchased this tablet on black friday…Took it back the same day. The wifi did not turn on. it kept cycling and refused to turn the radio on. The guy at the store tried to tell me an update was coming to fix that. I was like, ok how is it going to fix it when I cant turn the wireless radio on to connect to the internet. He had no answer. Also, the skin this thing was running made the tablet shockingly slow. For a tegra it was more like the old eee pc speeds. I am really disappointed with Viewsonic. Loved my monitors, hated this tablet.

  6. Mine is fantastic. Even with the original firmware running it with LauncherPro is the solution. I’m running the TNT2 software with LauncherPro and it is freakin’ awesome. There are a few apps that don’t run but The most important things work great. I can watch movies, read comics, listen to music with winamp, and Play Angry Birds.

  7. Uh, major blog fail. He’s not blaming the users for the problems. He’s actually blaming the software they developed on top of Android for the issues. So, he is being honest when saying they didn’t screw up the hardware, rather the software.

  8. This tablet with the Vegan Firmware developed over at XDA is nice and fast and I havent been running into any problems :). This tablet is not ready for the normal consumer….however lets not forget that it is only $380 ;)

  9. Does this mean the GTab will be cheap? Id love to pick it up for about $50. LOL

  10. I have it with TNT2 light, running ADW launcher, it runs great. and the latest update from Viewsonic has an option to run launcher instead of the crappy TNT interface, much better. All in all it’s a good tablet.

  11. I have few tablets for development and the g is definitely a diamond in the rough. I’m running tnt lite on one and another is running vegan. They’re FAST and nicely built (heavy). Nvidia is doing a great job supporting the development community.

  12. Yes the tap n tap software sucked at first but with updates it got better. But the only reason why the Tab sells better is marketing and the android market.

  13. This great! Seriously, the tab industry will get it right and the market is there and manufacturing is there, the competition is too. This just means eventually we will have affordable tablets after the bumps and misteps get ironed out. Perfect open economic progress. I’m psyched!

  14. It is very hack friendly. After hacking it, it is an amazing tablet EXCEPT for the screen. The screen just sucks and throwing a netbook LCD on a tablet is not the way to go. Hopefully no more companies will do this. (A guy can dream, right?) I have used the Nook Color extensively and that screen is just amazing. I would have rather paid $500+ and got a nicer screen that was closer to the Nook Color in quality.

  15. Viewsonic is being honest. Viewsonic never claimed they were pulling the G Tablet due to a “manufacturing defect”. That was either Sears or Staples that said that. Viewsonic has been open about how the software on it is crappy (which it is). At least they’re releasing updates that slowly improve it.

    If you’re willing to install a custom ROM this thing is a beast apart from the crappy viewing angles.

  16. If you do not root or mod, the new update fixes the crappy problems and the Folio version of Flash works fine now.

    If you root:

    1. Flash performs better than any device I have tried (Droid, Droid X, Galaxy S, Tab, Incredible and 101).

    2. PSX plays most 3D games full speed

    3. 2430 average Quadrant scores

    4. Rock solid wifi and wifi tethering

    I think the OP jumps to conclusions too easily. Still, the launch FW DOES suck REAL bad.

  17. I think the tablet is a GREAT entry to the tablet world. It has a dual core thats been available for over a month. Its impressive to say the least. Big name companies cant even get one out BEFORE Xmas. Just wish I snagged one at Sears when it was $300.

  18. @rushmore – Yeah it can play smooth full screen flash videos on every site I’ve thrown at it where the Galaxy Tab and Nexus S fail.

  19. Yep, people would be STUNNED if they tried the device out now. Updated with new firmware and download the Folio Flash apk. Performs nice without the rooting now, but you jump from 1800 to 2400 Quadrant with TnT Lite 2.40

    Viewsonic did themselves no favors releasing the device with Crap N Tap. They fixed it now, but the damage it caused is going to be hard to overcome.

  20. As a former G Tablet owner I can say with complete certainty that the number of returns are a direct result of the HORRIBLE interface that Viewsonic released on this tablet. It’s nice that you can customize Android as much as you want, but you shouldn’t have to almost completely gut the software that comes from the factory just to make the device usable. If they just left Froyo alone it would have been a great product.

  21. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID. MY HAIR IS A BIRD.

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