[nonanon]

I haven't gotten Android to work on my A81 at all and after trying it out on my son's Archos 7 (not the HT) I was unimpressed. The apps I tried are not made for a 7" screen and hearing that the touchscreen doesn't work as well with Android on the A81 decided me. I also find the Silverlight overlay that Wits has available to be an exercise in frustration as the keyboard only seems to pop up when I don't want it to, when using the browser it only appears some of the time which makes surfing impossible. And I'm too technically illiterate to modify ColdSun's interface which only left one option. Wince.

I ended up downloading the latest update and omitted the home.cab that has the overlay. Wince isn't as slick and pretty but it is fully functional, very reliable and not a pain in the neck. As I mostly use my A81 for reading, comics and videos this is workable for me. The games I've tried are hit or miss so all I usually play is bejeweled but at least the keyboard is there when I want to try surfing with it. It's too bad it won't stream from my network, which I think was promised at one point. With a new model in the offing I don't know if we'll ever see a reliable Android or Linux port for the model I have but I can live with Wince for the life of my device.

Sidenote: lately when I've used my A81 in public I've gotten a lot more comments and questions than before. I'm not sure why but it may be that people realize a device with a 10" screen is just too big to be as convenient and the A81 does look a bit like a smaller iPad or a bigger Touch. I can read or watch a video while standing in line which would be more awkward with an iPad I think.