ViewSonic's Newest Tablet: An Unholy Alliance of Android and Windows 7

[Kevin Jackson]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/08/viewsonics-dual-booting-android-windows-7-viewpad-10-tablet-n/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/08/...ad-10-tablet-n/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"If you'll recall, this one's rocking a 10.1-inch touchpanel (1024 x 600), 1.66GHz Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera and a version of Android we forgot about in 1994."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/adt/auto/1299790519.usr283.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>Not much to say about this one. You can get it with Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional with 16 or 32 gigabytes of storage. The real kicker is the 1.6 installation of Android. Why? I mean, everyone is two or three iterations on, with Honeycomb being the latest hot thing for tablets. Honestly, unless there is a good technical reason for going with Donut over, at the very least, Froyo, this is just plain dumb. Viewsonic is shooting themselves in the foot here, and I would be surprised if this device gained any traction at all.</p><p>Am I way out in left field on this one, or do you agree that this device is doomed to fail?</p>

[k1darkknight]

If this isn't the definition of EPIC FAIL, I don't know what is!




(and... FIRST! )

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

1.6 is the last version that is compiled to run on x86 CPUs. 2.0 and above all require ARM CPUs.

[alese]

1.6 is the last version that is compiled to run on x86 CPUs. 2.0 and above all require ARM CPUs.

Actually the last version for x86 is Froyo 2.2 (http://www.android-x86.org/download).
And there is actually version specifically for the Viewsonic - so they are either really lazy for not putting 2.2 on the device or Engadget has an old version of the device.

But in any case, why would you want Android and Windows on one device at the same time, I don't really see any real benefit from doing this regardless of the verison of Android.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Oh cool, is that new? Because 1.6 has been the only x86 version around for the longest time. Hopefully that'll mean that devices will start shipping with 2.2 come... next year. :P

[mtnmedic]

Oh wow. Have fun using your fingers tapping on those TINY Windows icons!

Now ya gotta to get a stylus. Then you're set. But wait...you left it at the house (because there's no place on/in the unit where you can store one) and you're at a meeting where you need to update your document or spreadsheet...so you ask around "does anyone have a stylus?"

EPIC FAIL.

For a successful software company, Microsoft can't create a mobile platform to save its soul. Ballmer has zero vision. I'm surprised he still has a job.