Viewsonic Viewpad 10S
Just another Android 10 inch tablet ?
For a long while the iPad 2 was regarded as a revolution in the world of tablets, but since its first release a lot of competitors blossomed and asked for a share of the market. Take ViewSonic, for instance: their gadgets are, little by little, establishing a pretty good reputation among tablet users. Except the ViewPad 10. But never mind that fail of the company, in this review we’ll have a look at the ViewPad 10S, costing under $470, a definite improvement for ViewSonic and, in some respects, kinda like Motorola’s Xoom. The tests we did on this device will tell you more about it.
Comfortable design
The build of the ViewSonic ViewPad 10S reminded us of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and the Tap’s UI-totign Hannspree Hannspad shapes. Other than that, the product has a black and thick body, no keys on the front, a camera hole that looks out of place and black plastic on the rear (and glossy, at that). Taking the tablet in our hand we felt a sense of comfort and then we almost dropped it, because it was really slippery. We found that holding the ViewPad 10S in the landscape mode, this issue didn’t mar it anymore. The quality of the gadget wasn’t as good as on the Samsung Galaxy Tab and other hot sellers, because it had a tendency to bend much too easily. All essential ports and controls are covered on this version and there are even a dock connector and a lock switch.
Tap user interface
ViewSonic’s G tablet has Tap UI, which is an Android overlay that brings out the best in that device’s display. The ViewPad 10S and its Tap user interface comes with only software keys for the Menu, Home and Back settings. Android 2.2 offers the tablet 5 Home screens, downloadable widgets and the App Center store; the latter, we were disappointed to find out when testing the gadget, had no actual app for Facebook or Twitter, but the company gave us, when located on its official Internet page, some links to APK files for Facebook, Angry Birds and Twitter. As a way to make amends for such lacks, this tablet’s Android browser is still one of the best we’ve ever got to check out and the Adobe Flash 2.1 is something that even Xoom should have thought of adding but didn’t.
1024 x 600 pixels resolution
Meanwhile, the screen of the ViewPad 10S is a 10.1 incher with 1024 x 600 pixels of resolution and can be activated by a simple touch. Don’t get your hopes high, though, because the display refused to work when we touched it on a couple of occasions and the quality wasn’t quite alright. Viewing angles were very poor and navigation suffered from many pauses, which resulted into commands piling up to the point of making us want to stop using the tablet entirely. Composing emails saved the device from that by making sure we weren’t completely disappointed with the screen and the sluggishness; HDMI mirroring and playing back of videos were further evidence that the ViewPad 10S is not a complete waste of time. The speakers put on a fairly good performance, same as the music player. The cam produced watchable videos and nice photos.
Using the gadget a whole day got the battery life at around half of its power, mainly because of the mode for standby.
Test and review conclusions
The ViewSonic ViewPad 10S proved a better tablet in this review then the ViewPad 10, but the user interface and pausing we encountered were a bit underwhelming.
Technical specifications
| Processor | NVIDIA Tegra 2 250 T20 |
| Frequency | 1000 MHz |
| Operating System | Android 2.2 |
| Screen Type | color transflective TFT |
| Diagonal | 10.1 “ |
| Display Resolution | 1024 x 600 |
| Video out resolution | 1920 x 1080 (1080p) pixel |
| RAM | 512 MB |
| Camera | 1.3 MP |
| Accelerometer | Supported |
| Battery type | built-in |
| Battery capacity | 3300 mAh |
| Total weight | 730 grams (battery included) |
| Dimensions | 275.5 x 178.5 x 14.5 mm |
