ColdSun's Pandigital Novel Early Thoughts

Originally Posted by Noah98

I don't want to double post, so check out the following link concerning Kohls and the apparent recall...

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=85502&page=2

I showed up this morning and was told by Kohls they had to return the Novels, just like many others who have posted. All my enthusiasm for Pandigital eroded in a second. Well ColdSun I guess we might have an answer as to why your unit seemed good and Nate's seemed bad. Poor quality control. Or maybe Apple sued them or threatened to sue them. That has been know to happen! I am certainly suspicious of why a company that was so gung ho about their new product yesterday waited until the official in store debut day to recall all the units. The Kohls sale lady said it was defective packaging, but I have my doubts about that answer! At any rate, I'm too paranoid to buy it now.

[ColdSun]

Just got off the phone with them. Poor Pandigital. They can't stop salespeople who don't know what to say (and often lie to get the customer out of the store) from sending people off angry today. That is too bad. There is nothing wrong with the device. In fact, those same units they said they were sending back will be back up for sale in the store as soon as Pandigital techs install the firmware on site. That is all that is happening. Still, I don't blame you for being wary. How can you know what the truth is?

I will quote myself from the other thread so you know what happened:

THIS IS NOT A RECALL!

Tech support told me they are simply pulling the units off the shelf at the stores and their technicians are going in and installing the latest firmware and then placing them back up for sale. So if you already have one, or have one coming in the mail, its just a matter of putting the firmware on the device. There is no hardware recall. Again, I got the sense that they are super serious about supporting this device.

P.S. Jack your avatar is hilarious.

[the7gerbers]

Do you think I'll be able to get the coming Kindle for Android app running on this unit? Thoughts? That would make it a must-buy for me.

Hmmm...wasn't there more posts in this thread? It must have gotten edited big time!

Well it has been two weeks since the firmware update/pull off the shelf/postpone the release fiasco occured. It seems to me this was a full-fledged recall and not some BS firmware fix which customers could have done themselves. I read one rumor that the white model might be replaced with a black model. But at this point I've lost all faith in Pandigital more due to their lies than anything else.

[Guiltyr1]

Strange; I haven't heard much about this reader recently. Seems like all the talk has died down. Too bad for pandigital.. I hope it come through and would really love to get the black one..

[bookwurm70]

Originally Posted by Guiltyr1

Strange; I haven't heard much about this reader recently. Seems like all the talk has died down. Too bad for pandigital.. I hope it come through and would really love to get the black one..

I think there is no talk because there is currently no device. Only rumors that the black one will be released this week. Anxiously waiting to see if it is true, but getting close to buying a netbook instead.

[Guiltyr1]

Originally Posted by bookwurm70

I think there is no talk because there is currently no device. Only rumors that the black one will be released this week. Anxiously waiting to see if it is true, but getting close to buying a netbook instead.

I believe this is all being handled poorly.. This is going to make people turn to a different product and look elsewhere...

Originally Posted by Guiltyr1

I believe this is all being handled poorly.. This is going to make people turn to a different product and look elsewhere...

Yes indeed. Basically this was nothing more than a digital frame (picture viewer) with beefed up firmware, which apparently didn't work well. The fact that it has no buttons for page turning shows its true roots. This is no ereader, its just a glorified picture frame viewer.

[Guiltyr1]

Here is a link to the Black (review)

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/25/p...novel-preview/

Wow, what a piece of junk. Every Android tablet I've seen is slow and horrible like the video in that review. I'm not sure why ColdSun likes them. I guess maybe it is the open source OS. To me, I look back at the Palm TX I had years ago and think it was much more responsive and faster than any Android crap I've seen. And the TX was way outdated when it was released. To be brutally honest, I don't think Apple has to worry about much competition from Android, even though the iOS is crappy and more of a toy than a true OS! Plus like I stated earlier in another post, if they want to market it as an ereader it really needs at least two buttons for page turning. That unresponsive swipe is a killer. Even the iPad needs a couple of buttons and its screen is very reponsive.

[AnemicOak]

Too bad HTC doesn't make an Android tablet.

[ColdSun]

I like the device, but I still enjoy my netbook far more. My opinion was that the Nate's review was a little harsh, but I'm not sure where you got the idea I am this huge fan of the device. It works better than my SmartV7 with Android (but by comparison that isn't saying much). I didn't even have as much problem with mine and its screen compared to the video of the black model shown above. Remember though, I'm not comparing it to an iPad, I mean, that is silly, the cheapest iPad is $499. Not to mention that before the iPad there wasn't much else available than these Chinese devices, which I am very used to dealing with.

There is one thing we agree on. I'm not that impressed by any of these Android tablets. I don't much care for the fancy page turn animations. I don't like the OS as much as WinCE and wish that WinCE (and newer) would get more support. The OS may have a lot of software, but most of it is written with a phone in mind (screen size included). I'm interested in the Meego OS. I also have to say that Linux on my SmartV7 and SmartQ7 runs better than Android on any tablet/MID that I have tried so far (it just takes a little customizing).

I still think the reviews were a bit harsh for what Pandigital is trying to do. It isn't clear to me what is better about the black version, as it seems slower than the white one I have. It is interesting that you say that it is just a picture frame with an Open Source OS. I've got one myself and it is definately no picture frame. On the other hand, I bet their marketing department is not dealing with this well and customers will definately use this as excuse to excuse them from the playing field. If anything, they deserve credit for making such an interesting, if underperforming, device. In its current condition, it won't be replacing even a Nook, much less an iPad.

For what its worth, I think the market passed the 7" netbook factor by too quickly. I love how my 10" netbook sits on its own - I don't have to hold it. I can place it on my lap, next to me in bed, on my desk next to me, or just about anywhere else I can find a flat surface. I've been looking at these little WinCE 7" netbooks on eBay. I could fork out $89 for a WinCE device that could sit on its own and I could use it to read. I doubt I would use it for anything else (since my real netbook is so much better), but it might be a more portable version of my netbook. I don't know, I really don't NEED it, but I feel like playing with the little thing. I could actually write some cool little programs for it, especially since it has 6.0 R3 (silverlight support). I wonder if they will offer an image with Embedded 7?

Nate was right though. The SmartQ7 is a better ebook reader than the Pandigital, at least in the PD's current shape, and only when the SQ7 is running Linux. Until PD can update that firmware it will remain this way, but the PD has the hardware to perform much better than it does.

Maybe the Android tablet market will get better with the Ramos W7 and other capacitive versions coming out. The only thing is that they will also be more expensive.

EDIT: Hrmm. I might get this one instead. It is a little more expensive, but looks like a cool toy to play with. I can use VS2008 to develop something for it. It would be interesting to find out if I could mod it to use a touchscreen hehe. http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-7-Mini-Netbo...item335e6273b3 BTW these are just musings - nothing to take serious for anyone else considering a new purchase. I guess it is only a little over 1 pound in weight and quite a bit smaller than my 10" netbook. Guess I'll find out.

[ColdSun]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Too bad HTC doesn't make an Android tablet.

You can bet if they did you would have to sign up for an expensive phone plan or pay $1000 bucks for it.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ColdSun

You can bet if they did you would have to sign up for an expensive phone plan or pay $1000 bucks for it.

Unfortunately that's probably true. They just seem to "get" android more than some of the others. The versions that I've used that they've 'tweaked' for their phones runs quite well.