I just picked up a Viewpad 7e over on Amazon for $169.99 (USD) and I have to say that, based on what I have seen so far, this is an amazing little Android 2.3 tablet, and, just to stay on-topic for this forum, in addition to that, this little guy makes one hell of a nice e-reader.
It comes with Kindle for Android pre-installed, and you can add B&N's Nook for Android from 1Mobile Market (which is pre-installed).
I also added FBReader from the FBReader.org web site (because it was newer than the version at 1Mobile Market) and that also runs flawlessly.
The screen on the Viewpad 7e is only 800x600, but is amazingly sharp. PDFs that look like hell on my Sony PRS-650 are perfectly readable on my Viewpad 7e.
In part this is no doubt because the screen is a bit larger (7 vs 6 inches) but I suspect that it is also because the Viewpad 7e is doing fairly sophisticated sub-pixel rendering.
This is less surprising when you consider that, although the screen on the 7e is smaller than an iPad, and slightly lower in overall resolution (800x600 vs 1024x768), in terms of dots-per-inch the Viewpad 7e is actually higher than an iPad (143 dpi for the viewpad vs only 132 dpi for iPad and iPad2 ).
The Kindle Fire and Nook tablets have seven inch 1024x600 screens, which technically offer even higher DPI resolutions, but because they have aprox16:9 aspect ratios instead of 4:3 like my Viewsonic, they actually offer a few square inches LESS screen area.
Specifically, a 7 inch diagonal 800x600 = 5.6x4.2 = 23.5 sq/
. . . where a 7 inch diagonal 1024x600 = 6.0x3.5 = 21 sq/in.
So although you technically have a higher screen resolution on a Nook Color or Kindle Fire, it's crammed into less actual screen area.
After trying out a 7 inch 16:9 screen on a Nook Color, I found that I greatly prefer my Viewpad's 4:3 aspect ratio on a small tablet device (I guess there is a reason that iPads are 4:3). Although 16:9 wide screen format is a bit nicer for wide screen movies, as soon as you try to rotate the tablet and use it in portrait mode, it sucks for basically everything else.
As far as it's other Android features go, my Viewpad 7e kicks the living hell out of both the Kindle Fire and Original Nook Color (and is currently selling for less than either)
- Android 2.3 (not 2.0 or 2.2 like many other low cost tablets)
- Fast 1GHz Arm 8 CPU (only single core, but this thing FLYS)
- 512k of RAM memory (most sub-$200 tablets have only 256k or less)
- Bright clear 800x600 screen (not the 800x480 found on many other sub-$200 dollar tablets)
- Fast Integrated Web Browser with Flash Video Capability
- MicroSD slot for up to 32 Megs of SDHC expansion memory.
- Both front and back facing cameras (a little grainy in low light but as good as most cell phones)
- WiFi (works great, even though my router is at the other end of the house on another floor)
- Dual mode Host/Storage-Device USB OTG port (supports external USB keyboard/mouse)
- Bluetooth (Bluetooth Keyboard/mouse/file transfer)
- HDMI High Definition Video Out (480p/720p/1080i user selectable)
I do have a few minor grumbles, though nothing major.
- This little sucker weighs in at about 15.8 ounces (same as the original Nook Color) which is surprisingly hefty in such a compact device.
- It doesn't come with built in access to the full Google Android Market (Though it does come with 1Mobile Market, and the Amazon Android App Store pre-installed, and also allows full unrestricted installation of downloaded or side loaded .APK files).
- Battery life is spec'ed at a relatively short 5 hours, and could be even less if you run the screen at max brightness and run a CPU intensive application like Flash Video. Luckily, it also goes the other way, and if you want to use the device as a simple e-reader, and read in a room with subdued lighting with the screen brightness turned down (and Bluetooth, WiFi, and AppSync turned off) then you can pretty easily extend that time to 6 to 7 hours or more.
- WiFi stays active during SLEEP (so apps can update or sync), and this really increases the SLEEP power consumption (so that you can still run the battery flat in less than 24 hours even if the device sleeps the whole time). If you manually disable WiFi before putting the device to SLEEP then you do get dramatically lower power consumption and will only loose a few percent of your battery over several hours.
Overall though, these are fairly minor quibbles, and I have to say that I am VERY happy with my 7e and wouldn't trade it for either the Nook Color or Kindle Fire, even if the prices were equal.
