I’ve ordered a few things from Woot.com previously, based upon that experience I didn’t expect the goods to arrive too quickly. However, I was pleasantly surprised when it arrive Saturday afternoon.
From a perspective of pure hardware specifications the gTablet is amongst the first of a new generation of Tegra2-based Android tablets. The 1 GHz dual-core processor certainly feels peppy. The gTablet’s multi-media capabilities seem impressive. It plays movies, even 1080p HD movies, quite well.
However, running Android 2.2 it’s going to be a short-lived product given that Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets are now shipping. It’s been widely reported that Honeycomb is the first version of the OS that was designed with tablets in mind.
Since the gTablet does not support Google’s Android Marketplace one is forced to “side-load” applications. Google’s current position is that anything with a display larger than 7” does not get access to the Android Marketplace. All of this suggests that the gTablet is destined to be rooted and loaded with aftermarket ROM in order to enhance its utility.
I will refrain from further comment about the gTablet until I have some greater experience of its use. I’ll be taking it with me on my travels the next few weeks. I’m especially curious to see to what extent it might possibly replace my netbook.