By The GenTouch 78 by Augen garnered an amazing amount of interest from the Android community when K-Mart revealed it in one of their circulars for a few days ago. The tablet debuted at $150 and had a good amount of you scrambling about to see if you could find one in your local K-Mart stores. Even with it not being the most capable tablet we’ve seen, the community’s excited about it and it clearly shows that demand for Android tablets is real and the market for them could explode any day now.
Cyanogen and his team that never sleeps have shown an immense amount of interest, as well, as they’re bringing CM6 to the tablet (the first tablet to receive such an honor). Specifically, popular developer TheDude has been the one tinkering with the device for the past few days and has gotten the FroYo-laden CM6 running on it and is working on tweaking it for that nice 7-inch screen. Cyanogen’s humorous “tips” widget is shown between the search and music widgets, with the bottom-most row holding 8 icons horizontally (from the looks of things, the launcher is an 8 wide x 6 tall grid).
Be sure to follow TheDude on Twitter if his developments interest you and if you’re thinking of picking one of these up for yourself.
[via AndroidSpin]
give it a froyo port
CM6 is Froyo bud.
I picked up and am not happy with it at all. My initial review is here.
http://theandroidblog.com/content/164-hands-augen-gentouch78-tablet.html
They released a patch last night but the install doesn’t work and of course there is no support on the weekend.
Will be getting one for my daughters for Christmas and if it breaks thats ok too. First I will port with 2.2 or 3.0 or whatever is available then…… HO, HO, HO, Merry Christmas!
This could be seriously awesome. My one question, is it resistive or capacitive.
Resistive. :-(
Knowing that the CM team is behind a device makes it suddenly twice as appealing to me. Still loving my HTC Magic for this very reason.
For $150 its a steal I will be buying one !!!
For those that purchase it and discover that Factory Reset doesn’t work… this is how you remove your Google Account from it (in case you wish to return it to Kmart).
adb shell
cd /data/system
rm accounts.db
sync
reboot
That will actually turn the device off, instead of reboot. When you power back up you will see that your sync accounts are gone. If you want to reset the widgets and wallpaper I believe they are in that same folder, although I didn’t test those. Good luck!
Picked up 2 at my kmart cuz i thought it would be cool to sell one…. anyway, these are extremely cheaply made, all plastic even the screen. slow and not as smooth as you would want, plus the sound on it is terrible, can even listen to music. It comes with an ac adapter, so you have to carry around a bulky charger..cant use usb to charge. Also the sd card slot is cheaply made, got my sd card stuck and broken. basically its garbage. Im returning both after the weekend. i say stay away and wait for an upgrade. Too bad Android put their name on it.
what’s so special about this tablet? Sounds like it’s a lot like all the other no-name tablets out there. I think I’ll wait for the samsung tab…
This is amazing news since I drove an hour and a half today to buy one. It’s a little janky and stuttery but has great potential and this is solidifying the deal. Can’t wait for this build!
you can delete all your info by: click on the grey tab from the desktop then settings(hammer & wrench)then privacy factory data reset (hold down home button before choosing erase all data — i found that on another site –ONLY do this if you are NOT KEEPING it as it will delete the extra apps already installed on the device) i’m a total nubie to the ipod/touchpad world — this device was too much effort for me i’ll stick to lugging my laptop around :)
Nope, not froyo…just ADW Standalone (by @andersweb) set at 8×5 and Protips.apk pushed for entertainment. Still on stock eclair. CM5 first, then CM6 once we get better access to source etc.
that it a bar for signal.. are this tablet support for sim card guys??
thanks
I picked one up on Friday. Like other posters noted, there are a lot of problems w/ the software. The patch worked the first time I installed, but not since then.
I will say the three things that work on it work well; the browser, the email app, and youtube. Everything else needs to be fixed or I’ll have to return soon before my wife kills me for buying another “toy”!
@TheAndroidBlog : you were first to get a review out because your KMart got lucky. If you don’t like it…return it. Obviously there are more than a few of us who’re willing to tinker, and this gives us the first reasonable ( notice I didn’t say good or great ) taste of Android on a tablet.
Everyone KNOWS Samsung will come out with their own Hummingbird-based Tab sometime in the next few months, but it will both be expensive ( by comparison ), and have issues of it’s own. To anyone who’s ever used a Windows Mobile phone or Palm Treo, Resistive is all we had, and millions of those devices are STILL in use today. Just because the iPhone’s been here a couple of years ( ok, 3, sue me ) everyone’s all tainted and can’t be bothered with a resistive screen. Is it a pain ? Yes. Could it be better ? Of course. But, before the hardware is there, there are software issues to sumount.
1. Screen Rotation ( not all devices will have accelerometers to help determine rotation of the screen ).
2. Resolution/Auto-Scaling ( Most android apps are EITHER HD or MD, and don’t auto-scale. Devs will have to revisit this for the tablet form factor )
3. Battery Life…..all this life sucking going on by applications applying “Partial-Wake locks” wantonly are going to have to come under control. If you put the device to sleep, it should bloody well sleep.
4. Directional buttons. I’m sorry, but nothing is more useful to users than a cursor. Period.
@Marcelo
2. Actually, android autoscales by default unless you ask it not to.
If you are phan this you will probably want a better tablet. If you are developer you may want to know how your software runs on it or other low end tablets since you will most likely have new customers running them.
I haven’t looked too much into it but I can the you that that is not cyanogenmod6 in that picture, or at least not the completed version. Missing features are the trademarked rounded corners, and eliots music mod isn’t implemented in it. And also, those aren’t the froyo icons.
Probably still a work in progress but idk.
I think the slow jerky scrolling on websites with this tablet is because it has the 2.1 scroll bug where images were not having antialiasing turned off when scrolling. That was fixed in 2.1 update 1. They probably didn’t build off that code. Froyo would run awesome tho since its so much faster in general. I think its worth getting since xda is working with it.
froyo should help out this tablet a bunch.
While it is true that froyo has a lighter footprint then eclair, it won’t work miracles. The major thing that people seem to believe will help is JIT. JIT requires a way faster processor to be helpful. It helps in benchmarks, and unless your using apps which rely heavily on math and java calculations you won’t see any if at all improvements in performance for real life activities. Maybe with compcache it will run better.
also in froyo:
Kernel Memory Management Boost: Improved memory reclaim by up to 20x, which results in faster app switching and smoother performance on memory-constrained devices.
Had a chat with a tech, here is the info he told me:
larry : to get headset
Mark: We released the 1st part of the update patch which is for USB drivers and the 2nd part of the patch for the download apps issue and restore factory reset issue will be posted next Wednesday August 10
larry : but that usb patch isnt for windows 7 64bit..
larry : and my mac doesnt find it
Mark: Please wait until the end of this week for the windows 7
Mark: we cannot confirm yet the drivers for MAC
larry : so the news post isn’t correct from your site
larry : should get them to post something about that, I am sure you are getting slammed with question about it.
Mark: yes we are and we do apologize for the delay on the patch
Mark: this is due to technicalities of the android eclair that our R&D is dealing with now.
larry : ok, I will wait till then. Thanks for the info
Mark: Thanks for contacting Augen
So, looks like another week or so before the fix to the markey place and windows drivers to be complete. Sorry for the folks with MACs.
Okay, to the “quality” critics. You are spending $150 for a device that has more capabilities than similar devices that sell for $300 (like Android 2.1, 600-800Mhz processor, resistive screen, etc). Compare it to something in the same price range and it is far superior (compare to some crappy eBook reader perhaps…those are about $150). Yeah, its not going to be perfect and yeah, there will be much better units coming out, but you’ll be spending at least double to triple for it. Be realistic when you talk about capability to price. For $150, its a pretty good deal.
I’m quite happy with mine. Yeah it is cheap quality, and it could be improved with better f/w, but it is FAR better than ones from the direct from China places that cost the same amount. Also, USB works fine on my Mac. Must use the rear connectors on Mac Pro, and a decent USB cable. On-going review and hints on my Website. http://linuxslate.com/Review_Augen_7in_Android_Tablet.html
Why not just install Ubuntu on it and make life a whole lot easier?
Why not hack the Pandigital Novel eReader which sells at Bed Bath and Beyond for $170 minus 20% for the BBB coupons that are all over the place, minus a $25 rebate…
Seems that there will not be any new Gentouches available atleast for a month :(
http://www.augengentouch.com/gentouch-rumored-to-be-delayed-until-end-of-august/
I have written a comprehensive review of the augen gentouch78. At the end of the review, I have listed problems and fixes for it.
http://livingenzyme.webs.com/augengentouch78tablet.htm
I will continue to add to the problems and fixes section. For now, if you follow all my instructions to fixing it, the device will work 200% better and will truly be a good bargain.
And no, I don’t work for augen. Before last month, I’d never even heard of them. It’s just that I can’t stand seeing all the bashing of the device without any real effort to give it a chance.
http://liliputing.com/2010/08/first-look-at-the-wiipad-190-android-tablet-video.html
first look at wipad android 2.1 tablet
Any more news about this build… picked one up the other day and its not bad. But this would be real nice.
P.S. left this comment on my gentouch!
I got one yesterday, 9-13-2010. Attached ok, surfed ok, USB doesn’t work, Micro SD doesn’t work. Keyboard ok. Email works. Worth $160? Youtube has a routine for taking personal info off. You can fiddle with it for 90 days and still return it so says the sales slip.
I got one last week. For those who want it fully working from the box, don’t buy it. Folk at Augen are supposed to come out with a faster one with more options to it. But for those who want a device to hack in a price range that would cheaper than the other major money tablets, its worth having. I got it to develop programs for. A tablet that lacks a lot of options, but can spoof everything else.
Only wish to get Ubuntu running on it. Anyone know any ports?
I followed the guide here http://nexusonehacks.net/nexus-one-hacks/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-your-nexus-oneandroid/ and got ubuntu working on my augen gentouch78
I’ve been trying to get it to wrok at the same time as android so I can run linux programs on my android, but no luck so far
well honestly this augen is cheap as crap & is total garbage & to be honest you get what you pay for & when you pay for this your buying nothing but garbage in a box, I mean honesly people get a life & who ever buys this thing is poor & too cheap to afford anything (“good”) so listen people get a dang job & get with the program because broke people are losers & dont get nowhere in life
Kyle, you obviously have at least a bit of interest in the gentouch, or else you wouldn’t be here. But you very clearly miss the point. A lot of people purchase the gentouch because they like “getting their hands dirty” and turning the “garbage” into something more useful. You know, it’s called a hobby – somewthing we do outside of our regular jobs. My gentouch has actually scrubbed up quite nicely, even though it will never compare to my Galaxy Tab. The gentouch is certainly not for the faint-hearted. For those who lack the patience or the aptitude, stick to the sub-$1000 gadgets, and leave the “garbage” to those who can actually make it work, and enjoy doing so.