35 replies to this topic

[The Soup Thief]

flibblesan, on Jun 23 2011, 11:11, said:

AndyPad just tweeted this:
Could they be reconsidering the specs? Could the devices Phil saw be prototypes and not finished products?

Thoughts  

My fingers are tightly crossed (making multitouch difficult anyway!)
Hopefully was just rumour and hearsay - Philicibine, can you be a bit more specific about your meeting with them please?

FWIW, my dream budget tablet at the mo would be a warmed over Advent Vega - nice big capacitive screen, with a slightly quicker processor and a bit more memory for under 2 ton
Shurely shomeone can riddle me that shometime shoon?  There's money waiting...

Edit - just saw the link from Flib's post.  Rumour that there might be a 40 quid upgrade to better RAM than feared (512mb) and a proper screen, but still the resistive screen and 256 mb on the base model - though apparently the screen's a good one with five point multi-touch, the link claims
Ho-hum - I remain to be convinced
I fear the R word may put a lot of people off (it's putting me off!)
But as they tweet, we mustn't jump at rumours - all good things come to he who waits
Here's hoping it's a capacitive screened, memory laden peach for 129 quid

Edited by The Soup Thief, 23 June 2011 - 10:44 AM.

[philicibine]

You guys are right..

I did only see a prototype after all.... and the meeting was because they want feedback.  So nothing is set in stone!  Its two months to release... so let's see what happens!

Its too early to flame them!

[AndyPad]

Hello all
This is George, one of the guys who met with both Phil and Paul from the boards!

Very good website here, I'm very sure I'm going to sign up myself on a personal level

I just thought I'd hop in on the conversation and let you know a couple of things. Seems that there's a little case of 'the wrong end of the stick' around here, today!!

We're all a geeky bunch of guys and we love our tech. We're all looking at the latest conferences and blog sites eager for a glimpse of the next piece of the future to come out. This is not who the Andy Pad is aimed at...
The Andy Pad is aimed at those who don't know much about tech - young adults, kids, teens - all eager to get on the tablet bandwagon but who couldn't tell their ass from their Asus. Haha.

If a parent gets constantly bugged by their son to play on the iPad - they can get them an Andy Pad: runs well, sturdily built and has a bunch of the most popular games pre-installed. The kid doesn't care too much about its exact spec - they just want a device that runs well and is inexpensive.
Andy Pad is 129 and runs perfectly.

But......
All you lot (and countless others on the internet) have been talking.
"Capactive screens and 512 RAM" we hear you cry!
Techies like me and you want an inexpensive tablet like the Andy Pad but with these features...

We've listened - and I'm happy to let you know that we're currently working on an 'Andy Pad Pro' with all the features you desire (and a lot extra!!).

Obviously the whole Andy Pad idea was always based around a low cost tablet with a high spec - so rest assured the 'Andy Pad Pro' will not be a sufficient jump in price (but I can't release the price just yet).

Oh. And guess what. The first Andy Pad now has 512 RAM and all.

Enjoy!

[buneech]

Nice. Will wait out for the Pro model.
I like that you are getting involved with the community and hearing out all of our needs.

Edited by buneech, 23 June 2011 - 01:52 PM.

[flibblesan]

Glad we've got the wrong end of the stick. I like the idea of a cheaper tablet for younger people, and a pro version. I've been reading that the screen you guys are planning to use is a very good resistive screen that supports multitouch?

I'm very pleased that AndyPad are listening to the users. It's a sign of a good company in my opinion.

[The Soup Thief]

@George
Thanks for the info!  With bated breath I wait...
I'm sure you've not forgotten about the other end of the age spectrum and the potential suitability of basic tablets
I've a couple of fairly elderly relatives who really like internettery but who get terrified when windows does anything odd
Have been looking forward to a basic Android Pad that would just work with their wireless routers and let them surf the web or skype relatives overseas
The basic Andypad may fill this niche
Best of luck - sounds like you've a busy few months on

[McSpoon]

Admittedly a lot of the voices on this forum are Android-savvy geeks but non-technical noobs pick-up the same knowledge.  Anyone shopping for a tablet quickly discovers that resistive screens are to be avoided.

Many of the people who brought the ZTE Blade or Advent Vega had never used Android before and are very much your target audience.  Those devices still attract the hottest threads on sites like hotukdeals.com and I suspect one of the key reasons for their success is due to the geeks genuinely arguing about it being better than the equivalent Apple product (and rightly so) for half the price.   And of course, Paul was highly influential in their success too, as he made sure everyone knew about them whilst the specifications spoke for themselves.

£129.99 is cheap but people will still need to be heavily convinced before spending that amount.  Perhaps they could be swayed if the geeks are bragging about the AndyPad Pro?  Which makes me wonder what the difference in sales is between the Advent Vega and it's cheaper base-model the Advent Amico.  I bet there is still a warehouse full of Amicos out there somewhere.   Never under-estimate the influence of geeks. lol

[screwface]

AndyPad, on Jun 23 2011, 14:45, said:

Hello all
This is George, one of the guys who met with both Phil and Paul from the boards!

Very good website here, I'm very sure I'm going to sign up myself on a personal level

I just thought I'd hop in on the conversation and let you know a couple of things. Seems that there's a little case of 'the wrong end of the stick' around here, today!!

We're all a geeky bunch of guys and we love our tech. We're all looking at the latest conferences and blog sites eager for a glimpse of the next piece of the future to come out. This is not who the Andy Pad is aimed at...
The Andy Pad is aimed at those who don't know much about tech - young adults, kids, teens - all eager to get on the tablet bandwagon but who couldn't tell their ass from their Asus. Haha.

If a parent gets constantly bugged by their son to play on the iPad - they can get them an Andy Pad: runs well, sturdily built and has a bunch of the most popular games pre-installed. The kid doesn't care too much about its exact spec - they just want a device that runs well and is inexpensive.
Andy Pad is 129 and runs perfectly.

But......
All you lot (and countless others on the internet) have been talking.
"Capactive screens and 512 RAM" we hear you cry!
Techies like me and you want an inexpensive tablet like the Andy Pad but with these features...

We've listened - and I'm happy to let you know that we're currently working on an 'Andy Pad Pro' with all the features you desire (and a lot extra!!).

Obviously the whole Andy Pad idea was always based around a low cost tablet with a high spec - so rest assured the 'Andy Pad Pro' will not be a sufficient jump in price (but I can't release the price just yet).

Oh. And guess what. The first Andy Pad now has 512 RAM and all.

Enjoy!

If you can produce a tablet with equal or superior specs of the advent vega then you have my full attention, and wallet.

[Subject Delta]

AndyPad, does the resistive touchscreen have support for multitouch input or not? seems to be a lot of conflicting opinions on this.

My personal opinion however is that a fair amount is actually being offered for £129, I have had 3 Android phones now and I would still consider buying one, and I consider myself to be a tech geek. What I am looking for is something bigger than a phone but smaller than a laptop, good for browsing, flash, and light games like Angry Birds, sheep launcher, and so on, enough onboard storage for plenty of apps, and cost effective, and I believe this tablet would fit that billing well for me.

Oh, and the unlocked bootloader is a big selling point for me too, I always load my devices with custom software.

Edited by Subject Delta, 27 June 2011 - 05:15 PM.

[Fysi]

AndyPad, on Jun 23 2011, 14:45, said:

We're all a geeky bunch of guys and we love our tech. We're all looking at the latest conferences and blog sites eager for a glimpse of the next piece of the future to come out. This is not who the Andy Pad is aimed at...
The Andy Pad is aimed at those who don't know much about tech - young adults, kids, teens - all eager to get on the tablet bandwagon but who couldn't tell their ass from their Asus. Haha.

If a parent gets constantly bugged by their son to play on the iPad - they can get them an Andy Pad: runs well, sturdily built and has a bunch of the most popular games pre-installed. The kid doesn't care too much about its exact spec - they just want a device that runs well and is inexpensive.
Andy Pad is 129 and runs perfectly.

So your looking at taking advantage of people? Not very ethical of you guys ;-)

But seriously, from working in various tech shops over the years, I know that if a parent gives their kid a resistive screened device after playing on a more expensive device or iPod touch, the kid will seriously start moaning at their parents for buying such rubbish when all their friends have an iPad or iPod touch, and said parent will return it. Resistive screens really are a massive piece of crap, and no pulling wool over peoples eyes with GHz and Dual Cores and however much RAM will stop them thinking 'I can't really play Angry Birds that comfortably on this'.

[AndyPad]

@subjectdelta

In honesty, it currently has mixed multitouch.
It works on some apps and others not so much.
We're working on it - and it should have full multitouch for launch.

[Azurren]

AndyPad, on Jun 23 2011, 14:45, said:

Hello all
This is George, one of the guys who met with both Phil and Paul from the boards!

Very good website here, I'm very sure I'm going to sign up myself on a personal level

I just thought I'd hop in on the conversation and let you know a couple of things. Seems that there's a little case of 'the wrong end of the stick' around here, today!!

We're all a geeky bunch of guys and we love our tech. We're all looking at the latest conferences and blog sites eager for a glimpse of the next piece of the future to come out. This is not who the Andy Pad is aimed at...
The Andy Pad is aimed at those who don't know much about tech - young adults, kids, teens - all eager to get on the tablet bandwagon but who couldn't tell their ass from their Asus. Haha.

If a parent gets constantly bugged by their son to play on the iPad - they can get them an Andy Pad: runs well, sturdily built and has a bunch of the most popular games pre-installed. The kid doesn't care too much about its exact spec - they just want a device that runs well and is inexpensive.
Andy Pad is 129 and runs perfectly.

But......
All you lot (and countless others on the internet) have been talking.
"Capactive screens and 512 RAM" we hear you cry!
Techies like me and you want an inexpensive tablet like the Andy Pad but with these features...

We've listened - and I'm happy to let you know that we're currently working on an 'Andy Pad Pro' with all the features you desire (and a lot extra!!).

Obviously the whole Andy Pad idea was always based around a low cost tablet with a high spec - so rest assured the 'Andy Pad Pro' will not be a sufficient jump in price (but I can't release the price just yet).

Oh. And guess what. The first Andy Pad now has 512 RAM and all.

Enjoy!

I'm really glad you decided on 512mb ram. Lets forget the screen for a sec (Some more "casual" android users prefer a resistive screen for stylus / finger nail usage)

I have owned 2 devices with 256mb ram (or less) The Huawei Pulse and the Samsung Galaxy Spica. 256mb of ram was the minimum to run 2.1, even then you can completely forget about multitasking! Huawei (A fairly large and experienced company) failed to deliver on their promise of a stable 2.1 rom as the device just couldn't support it. The Spica is still chugging along with custom rom support but is still severely limited by its hardware
Needless to say unless you have some super-human programmers working for you I highly doubt that you could deliver on your promise of updating a 256mb tablet to "Ice-cream sandwich"

I've also used some budget Chinese tablets with 256mb.. Tablet web browsing is just not the same if you lose your page(s) whenever you check your twitter / facebook feed. 256mb of ram is really to low, whereas 512mb is very usable (Able to multitask as well as 1gb ram)
So please don't skimp on the ram if you later run into any costing problems, there no point in having a super processor if the device can't use it

[Rem1x]

Azurren, on Jun 28 2011, 11:58, said:

I'm really glad you decided on 512mb ram. Lets forget the screen for a sec (Some more "casual" android users prefer a resistive screen for stylus / finger nail usage)

I have owned 2 devices with 256mb ram (or less) The Huawei Pulse and the Samsung Galaxy Spica. 256mb of ram was the minimum to run 2.1, even then you can completely forget about multitasking! Huawei (A fairly large and experienced company) failed to deliver on their promise of a stable 2.1 rom as the device just couldn't support it. The Spica is still chugging along with custom rom support but is still severely limited by its hardware
Needless to say unless you have some super-human programmers working for you I highly doubt that you could deliver on your promise of updating a 256mb tablet to "Ice-cream sandwich"

I've also used some budget Chinese tablets with 256mb.. Tablet web browsing is just not the same if you lose your page(s) whenever you check your twitter / facebook feed. 256mb of ram is really to low, whereas 512mb is very usable (Able to multitask as well as 1gb ram)
So please don't skimp on the ram if you later run into any costing problems, there no point in having a super processor if the device can't use it

To be fair the Pulse had 192MB of RAM and THAT was the problem.  But yes - 512mb of RAM is great, the perfect balance between cost and performance!

[Azurren]

Rem1x, on Jun 28 2011, 12:09, said:

To be fair the Pulse had 192MB of RAM and THAT was the problem.  But yes - 512mb of RAM is great, the perfect balance between cost and performance!

Did he ever get to the bottom of that?  
Did it have 256mb physical but some reserved for the drivers / OS or a 192mb chip? Bit off topic but..

[flibblesan]

(laughs at the ex Pulse owners invading the AndyPad thread)

[Subject Delta]

AndyPad, on Jun 28 2011, 09:18, said:

@subjectdelta

In honesty, it currently has mixed multitouch.
It works on some apps and others not so much.
We're working on it - and it should have full multitouch for launch.

One more question, what will the size of the provided battery in mAH?

And as I have only ever owned devices with capacitive screens before, could someone run over what the limitations of a resistive screen are? I want to assimilate all information before I make a decision to buy or not?