[cutterjohn42]

I posted this in the other GT thread, but I'll repost it here:

I've had one of these since Saturday, Augen calibrate update, rooted, Clockwork, setcpu(min 126MHz/max 600MHz left on OnDemand), marketfixed and clockwork update.zip fix(perma fixes market, redoes root, and adss nexus one startup anim. (Raincheck from 7/29) MUCH snappier than the base fw w/above. (We're pretty sure that it's a Dawa D7 or cost-reduced variant.)

It's not bad, I seem to get about 3h or so of WiFi operation after doing all the mods/hacks to it. Probably 4.5 - 6ish hours w/no WiFi. (These are rough as I've never run it dry since modding/hacking but it's NOTICEABLY better than the default shipped fw.)

It DOES run a bit warm, as in it does eventually get to feel warm on the battery side once you've been going through several web pages.

Brightness controls don't work properly, only slightly modified brightness i.e. not the range that you would expect.

No hw volume control, or any virtual vol. control buttons yet.

Only have really tried iReader as a reader app on it so far as I've been reading text files and most of the other apps mainly seem to support EPUB, FB2, etc. but not text.

Played a few videos w/the YouTube app. They actually play better than on my nb w/a 4850 mobility! (at least under Ubuntu 10.04, might be close v. Windows, but I'd still give the edge to the Gentouch)

Doesn't seem to truly suspend either, so I have it power down when not using it for a while. Boots fairly quickly, but I've never timed it exactly. Definitely WAY faster to useable than my Sony PRS-505 is from a cold start, but not as fast as my nb booting either Vista or Ubuntu 10.04.

CPU clock speed is still stuck @ 600MHz. This requires a new kernel compile to "fix".

Touchscreen is MUCH better after the calibrate update and then running the calibration app.

Battery seems to be soldered(by leads) direct to mb, bad IMNHO as I GREATLY prefer easily user-replaceable batteries and look in askance at companies who do not design for this.

Accelerometer ("g sensor") does NOT function, but various Android system info apps DO list it as present.

OpenGL ES is apparently being reported as 0.0 instead of 2.0 as the datasheet indicates that the TCC8902n + mali(GPU) can support.

Nook, Kindle, FBreader, Aldiko, etc. all work.

Browsing with the builtin in browser is decent, but I'm having a hard time going back to the window oriented approach v. tabs like I have on my desktop although I guess it's understandable for a machine with limited resources.

Skyfire and Dolphin browsers also are reported to work, but I haven't tried them myself yet.

Android market works, but google maps won't update ATM. (Apparently a problem that crops up from time to time with various Android devices and releases...)

User reported a problem with last.fm caching, haven't verified this myself yet. Another reported Pandora radio working, apparently good enough for his wife.

Apparently all units have the same MAC address assigned to the wireless card. Reports of a second batch(box w/o Android Market support claim) apparently have a different MAC address. Not sure if they're all unique now or just different from the earlier batch. (Mine must be the original batch as the box still mentions Android market support... and well.. I made it be supported... )

Note on batt runtime: Apparently some of the units have been shipped w/2100mAh batts while others came w/1500mAh batts. Not sure which is in mine as I may still end up returning it IF Augen is not able to provide better support(we're still waiting on a more complete fw update and so far they have pushed it back once, now scheduled for 8/20, likely with no accelerometer fix or CPU max frequency unlocking).

i.e. it's not bad, but w/o better Augen(Dawa?) support and/or source code so that we can fix things ourselves I can't really recommend it for most users. (Probably could pry the kernel patches out of Telechips(and hope that the Dawa changes are close enough) and then try to build a generic android build would be OK but alot of work/debugging. Already seems to be pretty much base Android 2.1-update1 anyways given what i see in the emulator(SDK) and what the base GT fw looked like minus extra apps are very close.

Didn't use the extra apps as shipped with base fw much and forgot to manually back them up before doing the market update(you blow away all the extra apps as part of that), but I have a clockwork nandroid backup from right after I rooted and added clockwork to the base fw so I still have the apps in an .img file. Just need to figure out how to unpack it, and see if any of the apps were really worth having as extras.

(I've been mainly using the default browser, iReader, and xda-developers app, plus toying around with maps...)

If it goes back I expect to order a Witstech A81-E w/GPS or variant either from mp4nation or merrimobiles or most likely JTshop(free extra battery w/them) as their Android 2.2(froyo) is looking to be shaping up well(flash is alpha, but youtube plays well, other things slow -- from videos), GPS support in the 8/9 ROM, and they're working on adding bluetooth drivers. (This device has no camera(GT doesn't either) or accelerometer(non-functional on GT)).

So, I suppose if you don't mind hacking and can find one you MIGHT want to try it, after all you can always return it, if it doesn't suit your needs. (My receipt states that I have until 11/12 to return mine, but I'm sure that w/in a week I'll have made a final decision.)

slatedroid forums would be the best place for info on this, but xda-developers forums also has a GT78 dev thread.. 80 some pages with all the hacks, and IIRC a pointer to the wiki with them all collected into one place.... hopefully slatedroid will be back up soon as that's the best GT general discussion forum that I've seen... sadly it also appears to be for the A81-E as well, unless mp4nation takes that over... a possibility since they will be shipping their own re-branded A81-E starting 8/23...

<snip> nm I see that in the end you got about 4h which is closer to what I'm experiencing after applying all current hack/mods... now to try to pry loose the kernel source patch from Telechips...

[EDIT]
brightness control: I believe that it will likely require a new kernel compile, and let's just hope that that's the case rather than a hw bug...

BTW when he mentions that "small" range, I never even noticed it until I was using the GT outside one night and decided to see if I really couldn't do something about the brightness and noticed that it change a TINY bit... during the day I couldn't even tell if it did anything when I tried...

I ended up ripping out all of the telephony stuff again last night -> broken youtube(requires Phone.apk & TelephonyProvider.apk to work) as I noticed it was eating batt again w/WiFi off...
[/EDIT]