This weekend I took possession of two new Android devices. The first is a Samsung Galaxy SII phone which I got as an upgrade to my old HTC Hero. The second is a Tabtech A816 tablet ordered from Amazon.
The phone is an amazing upgrade from the Hero! Mainly because of the screen and vastly increased speed and memory but also the Android jump from Eclair (2.1) to Gingerbread (2.3.3). The Super AMOLED plus screen appears huge after the Hero but I am sure that I will soon get used to it. The change from Sense to TouchWiz 4.means that it is taking some time get the home screens setup to my taste but I am almost there. Gingerbread is not greatly different from the older version of Android but appears to be a little better in almost every area.
The tablet appears, from research on the Internet, to actually be a HeroTab M816 and is one of the great number of “Generic” android devices coming over from China. The device is definitely “no frills” with a resistive touchscreen and hacked phone version of Gingerbread. However, despite this, it works fine, the screen response could be a lot better but it runs all of the Apps I have installed with no problems. I brought this to “dip my toe” into the tablet market as I was not sure that I would actually use a tablet and didn’t want to waste a lot of money! So far it is working well as a way to surf the net whilst watching TV.
Both devices will take some time to setup and get familiar with. However, I will have some fun going through the process!