Lightly used 10" Android tablet (and accessories) for sale

[beowabbit]

Hi. A few months ago, I bought (from woot.com) a Viewsonic gTablet 10.1" Android tablet to use mainly as an ebook reader. I found it to be a great general-purpose Android tablet (after I wiped the somewhat flaky version of Android it came with and replaced it with CyanogenMod), but since I do most of my ebook reading on the subway, sometimes standing, it was a bit too heavy and too bulky for my purposes. (It really needs two hands.)

It’s nice and fast, and (in addition to a mini-USB port for synching) it has a full-sized USB port for attaching a keyboard or flash drive (or, I think, even a powered USB hard drive). It’s got a front-facing camera for video chatting. t’s got a capacitative (read “good”) touchscreen. It will come with a fresh install of CyanogenMod on it.

In addition to the tablet, I've got two docking cradles (which provide another USB port, and theoretically an HDMI-out port and a wired Ethernet port, although I have not successfully gotten HDMI to work under CyanogenMod and I didn’t try Ethernet), and a portfolio case with a built-in USB keyboard which turns the thing into a touchscreen mini-laptop (although you really need to use it on a table).

Anyway, $200.00 for the lot, PayPal preferred. (I bought the tablet itself for ~$280 new. The accessories added up to about another $100, but I was using a gift card for most of that.)

Comments

[beowabbit]

Does CyanogenMod support all Android-based apps?

In general, it should. Some apps require a certain screen resolution or pixel density, so may not work with this particular hardware. Some apps are arbitrarily restricted by the developer to certain devices (as Netflix was when it was introduced; I believe they’ve opened it up to all phones and tablets now). And some apps check whether your device is rooted and won’t run if it appears to be; apps like that wouldn’t run on CyanogenMod ’cause it’s rooted out of the box. But in general, you’ll get at least as wide app compatibility with CyanogenMod as you would with any given vendor’s stock Android firmware on comparable hardware.

This has a standard headphone jack, so I would presume the Square dongle would work, and I would presume Square will install on CyanogenMod (although that’s the sort of app that might try not to run on a rooted device, in an attempt to keep people from storing credit-card numbers), but I don’t know for sure. However, it is a fairly big tablet, and if this is about taking credit cards on-the-go, you might be happy with something more pocketable. (Also, this tablet has WiFi but no cellular data connection. For taking credit cards, you might want a phone, which would be able to get on the net from places without WiFi.)

Specs are on Wikipedia and in the sidebar on the CyanogenMod site.

I’ll let you know if it’s still available, and you can let me know if you think it’s worth a try.