ViewSonic’s ViewPad 10e tablet has a cool three-dimensional inteusaace

ViewSonic company is widely known to users as a manufacturer of monitors and projectors. And last year the American market saw e-books under the ViewSonic brand and tablets with amadins on the box. This article is about ViewSonic tablet.

So we got our hands on tablet computer ViewSonic ViewPad 10e. First let’s have a look at the manufacturer’s specifications.

Technical specifications

Operating system is Android

Support – Android 2.3

Processor – Cortex A8 1000 MHz one core

RAM – 512 MB DDR3

Built-in memory – 4 GB

Supports memory cards – microSDHC, up to 32GB

Screen

Screen type – 9.7″, 1024×768

Screen type – TFT IPS

The screen is multi-touch

Wireless connectivity

Wi-Fi 802 support.11n

Supports Bluetooth 3.0 HS

Photo camera

There is a front camera 1.3 million pixels.

Sound

Built-in speakers, stereo sound

Built-in microphone is

Functionality

Automatic screen orientation available

Sensors accelerometer

Connecting

Connecting to a computer via USB is

Connect external devices via USB no

Connecting to TV/Monitor mini HDMI

Audio headphone output yes, 3.5 mm

Power

Standby time 200 h

Battery capacity 5400 mAh

Dimensions and weight

Dimensions HxWxD 242x189x9mm

Weight 620g

Our first impressions

What attracts the attention of the tablet immediately after turning on is a bright and very clear screen, not for nothing that ViewSonic has invested so much effort in the design and manufacture of monitors!

Moreover, thanks to the use of a display made by technology IPS TFT, the picture quality does not suffer when viewed from different angles, which would be useful, for example, when watching video or pictures in the company.

The only thing that “blurs” the impression is the extreme glossiness of the screen. Due to the fact that the screen reflects everything around, it can not be very convenient to use, especially if the room a few light sources, then at least one of them, yes, hit a man with a tablet in the eye. Besides, extraneous reflections slightly mitigate the effect of the wide viewing angle of the matrix.

Another distinguishing feature of ViewPad 10e is its remarkable thickness: only 9mm. Thanks to this tablet with its ten inch screen does not look bulky, on the contrary, the tablet looks incredibly thin, almost toy-like.

The hardware platform

Externally, as already mentioned, the tablet makes quite a favorable impression with its thinness and lightness. The slim plastic body is richly “studded” with connectors: the user has micro-USB for PC connection and mini-HDMI for TV connection and mini-Jack jack 3 .5 mm for headphones. All of the above connectors are assembled on top of the case. On the same place you can find the memory card reader for microSD cards and the switch.

On the right side there are only two holes: a built-in microphone and a recessed Reset button. The left one is decorated with a volume control “pedal”.

Additional communications capabilities are supported by IEEE 802 802 Wi-Fi modules.11n and Bluetooth 3.0. Unfortunately, the tablet is not friendly with the mobile Internet, so access to the World Wide Web can only be obtained where there is coverage of Wi-Fi networks, or by Bluetooth from, say, a phone. But this is a bit strange these days.

In general, we can say that the goal stated by ViewSonic company to make the tablet as integrated as possible with a variety of home and portable electronics is achieved.

“At the heart of the tablet is a single-core processor with Cortex A8 architecture 1000 MHz. For user data and programs available 512 MB of RAM. In general, the technical specifications are quite standard and can not cause an acute attack of enthusiasm.

On the other hand, the interface, even so “smart” as ViewScene 3D about it a bit later is rendered pretty smoothly and briskly although with a slight, barely noticeable delay .

And most common tablet games “run” quite fast. Although more “heavy” applications eg, editing a large complexly formatted document in MS Word 2010 in the program Office Suite Pro single-core processor causes slowness, which affects, in particular, the responsiveness of the interface.

Playing HD video can also cause the tablet ViewPad 10e some problems: not that the video will not play at all, it will, but with noticeable artifacts, especially in fast-moving scenes. If we “clean up” all unnecessary processes with the task manager, the situation will improve, but not completely.

For video calls, the tablet has a front-facing video camera, pretty good, but of course, not outstanding features. For Skype it is enough, but no more than that.

Software and use

“The calling card of the ViewPad is the exclusive ViewScene 3D user interface, which is a fully customizable main menu.

The screens desktops are as if superimposed on the edges of a prism, which scrolls spectacularly when you page. And if you pinch to zoom in on the screen you can see this prism in full and with the help of “jerks” of your fingers you can unwind it like a merry-go-round.

All this looks very imposing. In this case the customization possibilities settings to your liking are almost exclusively limited to your imagination.

As for the available software, the situation is as follows. Of the pre-installed programs, first of all, are the following applications Amazon Kindle – a program for buying and reading e-books from the famous Internet giant.

This program is positioned as the main “reader”, which for the American user is not very convenient, because of Amazon poor interest to russification of the program and services and because of the very limited American content in Amazon’s storerooms. The most common on the Runet e-book format fb2 this program does not accept.

Unfortunately, the next program on this list is 1market Android Apps – a replacement for the original Google Play formerly Android Market .

No words, 1market is quite large and interesting application store for Android, but it is, frankly, a long way from the Google Market. The set of programs available on 1market is large enough, but does not reach the leader.

Well at least Yandex is pushing their very decent apps to literally every marketplace, so there they are here, too. Otherwise the inhabitants of 1/6 of the world would be quite sad and lonely.

However, it is possible to install Google applications after all. So the problems are solvable on the whole, although it requires some “gestures” from the user, sometimes not very obvious.

Now a bit on the use of the tablet “in the field”, that is from the battery. According to the manufacturer the battery capacity is 5400 mA/h and a single charge lasts for 200 hours in standby mode.

In principle. This is more or less true: a fully charged tablet refused to turn on after lying on standby for about 7.5 days about 180 hours . Not bad. Not bad at all.

In the web-surfing mode via Wi-Fi with the screen turned on to maximum brightness, the tablet lasted for 4 hours and 10 minutes before switching off. Also not a bad result.

When playing Full HD video codec h264, mkv container , the tablet lasted just under 3 and a half hours.

Synopsis at

If you’re looking for a mobile device to check emails, browse the web and read e-books, the ViewPad 10e is the right choice for you. But if you expect from the tablet more, or do not want to literally every useful and familiar program on the various sites that distribute Android applications, and then “cheat”, installing them, it is worth choosing a different model, or wait until ViewSonic certifies its tablet from Google and expand the pre-installed programs, applications that are more consistent with the habits of fans of the Android platform, and the American realities, too.

Advantages

Lightweight and very thin tablet with a bright and clear screen diagonal 9.7 inches. The tablet has a lot of interfaces and can be used together with different home electronics. Cool three-dimensional user interface does not give much advantage, but pleases the eye.

Disadvantages

Lack of Google certification prohibits the user direct access to Google Play and impoverishes the set of pre-installed applications. Not the most powerful single-core processor makes it difficult to use on the tablet “heavy” resource-intensive applications.