Viewsonic ViewPad 7... at Your Local Fry's

I was out at our local Fry's store and they had the Viewsonic ViewPad 7 instock and on display. I did what any mobile trooper would do. I picked it up and gave it a test drive to see how well this device is. The ViewPad 7 has the ARM11 CPU Processor, and runs on 600MHz, using Qualcomm MSM7227 Chipset. Has Flash 512MB NAND Flash and micro SD expandability up to 32GB and
Internal 512MB, with 7" multi-touch capacitive screen. For having a lower speed it does respond very snappy and there is very little pauses or lag if any. The price is $499, but at this price it's going to be a little hard to sell when the Galaxy Tab is now $499 with a month to start up, or Sprint $399 with 2-year contract. The quality is actually not to bad and It didn't seem to cheap.



Both the ViewPad 7 and the Tab are pretty much easy to hold, due to the small size. The ViewPad 7 screen display was not as clear as the Tab. It was more washed out, when looking at pictures or anything on the screen. I really got use to the Galaxy Tab 1024x600 resolution vs the 800x480 on the ViewPad 7. The camera resolution was not as clear as the Tab, even though both rear cameras are same resolution. The front facing camera is only 0.3MP, so don't expect HD video chatting. :) It is nice that Viewsonic made the market app available on the ViewPad 7. No need to hack to have the market place app, like some of the Android Tablets out. It also has Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11 B/G, and no N.



As you can see the camera is located in the center of the tablet which isn't bad. The Tab has the camera located in the corner of the Tablet. Also like all tablets, it is very finger print friendly. I did a quick video of the the ViewPad 7 opening apps and scrolling around the settings to get a feel of the speed of the device. Like I said, not bad, but needs a starting price of around $179.99. I really like the Galaxy Tab speed and battery life. Viewsonic claims 4-6 hours of hard use of the device. I have tested the Galaxy Tab battery life and have been able to get 10 hours of pretty much constant use with Wi-Fi on.


(Recorded video with iPhone 4)

One nice feature is that the ViewPad 7 can be used as a phone, so you can insert your SIM card. Not that many would like to use a 7" screen device as a phone, but if you happen to use your SIM card from your phone, you won't miss a call. You'll most likely be working with the ViewPad 7, so it wouldn't be bad to answer a call while using the ViewPad 7.



With CES2011 this week and new tablet announcements every 15 minutes, you might want to wait and see what will be available with the Tegra 2.