Monday, May 16, 2011

ARNOVA 8 Android tablet...

Just picked one up, they literally just came on the market with the capacitive screen. Previously they were resistive.
Anyway, build quality is impressive for an inexpensive tablet, however, with the original firmware the device was a little sluggish, scrolling was quite jerky, selection of screen items hit-or-miss, and worst: whenever the tablet put itself to sleep it froze. This required the reset button to be pressed, and then it would boot, but after that you'd still have to go through the screen calibration again before you could use it. As it's supposed to be "instant on", that's a definite downer.
Last night there was a firmware update posted on the Arnova site, so I installed it. It fixed, or really improved most issues, yet the tablet still requires the reset if it is allowed to sleep for more than about 30 minutes.
So I have 3 choices:
1...return it.
2...wait for a firmware fix that will cure the problem, or
3...try a hacked firmware from arctablet.
As it's such a new machine I am obviously loathe to try hacked firmware at this point, so I guess I will wait a while and see if Archos (Arnova is a brand of theirs) can come up with the fix.

Update: tried putting the tablet down for sleep, and connecting it to the power supply. It still blanks the screen after a minute of course, however, for the next hour or so, providing the unit remains plugged in, a press on the power button (or home screen button) wakes it up immediately. For about another half hour after that it'll still wake ....but now only using the power button. About another half hour after that, and it's back to needing the reset button pressed.
So, my guess is that something is happening during the different levels of sleep that the tablet is entering that eventually causes it to be unable to wake.

Last update: Returned it to the supplier. Archos seems to have a real history of never-quite-fixing-their-junk-yet-nevertheless-putting-it-out-on-the-market. Google reveals all.

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