The respected tech blog Endgadget got their hands on the highly sought after Andorid tablet from Augen called the Augen Gentouch.
To start off then YES – it does have access to the Android Market and YES – It does come with Android 2.1.
On to the…
· Build: Unlike the iPad, the Augen tablet is made entirely of black plastic. Still, the Augen tablet is satisfactorily light and it’s easy to hold up to read a website or e-book. The 7-inch screen is of an ideal size for light web browsing and viewing videos on the go. Surrounding the tablet is a micro-USB port, a 2.5mm headphone jack (3.5mm with later models) and a microSD card slot. As for that headphone jack, Augen has released a statement that if you email them at support@augenus.com, they’ll send you a pair of 2.5mm headphones or an adapter. Oh, and you`ll get a leather holding bag of a sort also with the Tablet to carry it around with you!
· Screen: … is resistive and only has an 800 x 480 resolution. For the price this is expected and to our surprise it works quite well. For quicker and more accurate response you really need to use the included stylus, but a fingernail certainly gets the job done as well. Either way, resistive is, well, resistive. Current model doesn`t come with an accelerometer but future models will. All in all the screen is quite good.
· Performance / Android experience: The Android in here is not the old 1.5 that most of the iPad clones come with but rather a quite new 2.1. It’s not 2.2 — though Augen says it may be upgradeable sometime! — but at first boot we were greeted by a live wallpaper and shortcuts to the browser, YouTube, the Market, iReader, Skype and others. Basically, if you’re an Android user, you’ll feel quite at home. Unfortunately the device thinks of itself as a phone so you currently do not have an on-screen back button which is quite needed. There are however buttons on the back of the device. It has an 800MHz processor and 256MB of RAM but it`s nowhere near as fast as the latest 1Ghz Android smartphones, like the Droid X, Incredible and Evo 4G. The application panel can jigger across the screen, scrolling is quite delayed and launching applications takes a noticeable few seconds. Still the tablet is capable of doing things like loading and watching YouTube videos as well as surfing the web, albeit on Hawaiian time. There’s 2GB of onboard memory, but the microSD slot should support up to 16GB cards.
· Apps / Market access: As I said before the Gentouch does come preloaded with the Google Market. There was a problem with the applications not installing but this is patched up with the latest firmware. However, Gmail and YouTube are both pre-installed on the device, and we have had no issues with either one. Skype, on the other hand, doesn’t work yet.
· Support: The official Augen support page is located here! There is also a growing community behind the Augen Gentouch tablet which is working hard on improving the device. Be on the lookout for more updates soon to come!
