16GB Android 4.0.3 (LATEST VERSION OF ICE CREAM SANDWICH) G7 WAFER. 1GB RAM (Hi-Speed performance), 7inch Tablet PC. CAPACITIVE Touchscreen. SKYPE VIDEO CALLS, Flash 11.1, UK GOOGLEPLAY STORE, Camera, HD Movies + SKYPE VIDEO CALLS + CAR CHARGER INCLUDED! Reviews
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39 of 39 people found the following review helpful
This review is from: 16GB Android 4.0.3 (LATEST VERSION OF ICE CREAM SANDWICH) G7 WAFER. 1GB RAM (Hi-Speed performance), 7inch Tablet PC. CAPACITIVE Touchscreen. SKYPE VIDEO CALLS, Flash 11.1, UK GOOGLEPLAY STORE, Camera, HD Movies + SKYPE VIDEO CALLS + CAR CHARGER INCLUDED!
I’ve been involved with computers for over 40 years. Most of that time I was writing software that ranged from System software to commercial applications. I’ve seen computers shrink from rooms full of equipment to something that you can carry in your hand. However up to very recently I have had no experience of tablets, or indeed, smartphones. Some months ago I bought a cheap 10″ tablet with the intention of using it as an intro to tablets. It became obvious that although it was good at what it did the tablet had many restrictions – it dropped wifi at will and there was no feeling that it would last for a long time. So I decided that I would buy another tablet – my Christmas present – that would have the functionality that I wanted and would hopefully last for some time. Price was of course a consideration and £200 was as high as I could realistically go. I did some research and Cambridge Sciences soon came into the picture and, thanks in part to the enthusiastic reviews that they received, I decided to buy the latest model with Android 3.0. Delivery was exemplary. I ordered it at 4pm one day and it turned up on my doorstep at 10am the following day. Unfortunately there was no one there to receive it! However after contacting the delivery company it was delivered within a day or two. I didn’t open it until Christmas day but I certainly wasn’t disappointed. From the word go it gave the appearance of good design and competence and after a week of substantial usage nothing suggests otherwise. Moving from a resistance screen to a capacitive one meant certain adjustments to the pressure applied. In fact now, when I go back to the old tablet, I am surprised how much pressure must be applied to the resistive screen to get it to work. The obverse of that is that to start off I was having some problems with the screen, but it didn’t take long before my touch was adjusted and away we went. Unlike the old tablet there does not appear to be any parts of the screen that don’t work so the whole of the screen is usable. The screen itself is clear and bright and easy to read. Sound is always going to be a problem with this price of machine, and a backwards facing loudspeaker doesn’t really help, but to be honest if I want to listen to music I will use headphones anyway so it’s not really a problem. The only real problem with sound is not having a physical volume control. Initially it was a pain having to drop out of an application, go into “Settings” and adjust the volume. However there always seems to be an “app” to fix anything and now I’ve got a volume control widget which makes it easier to adjust the volume quicker. Wifi seems to be good. So far I’ve not had any problems with Wifi dropping. I’ve not done any serious range tests but it certainly gives better performance than my old tablet. I’m not interested in 3G so I can say nothing about that but I have no reason to think that there would be any problems with it. I bought a 16mb micro SD card for extra storage and so far there have been no problems with storage capacity. I’ve already loaded up the apps that I want and there is still plenty of room. I would have liked a full size USB port but with a machine this small it’s not a practical consideration. However I did have a problem with the mini to full size USB converter plug that was included with the tablet. I’m not quite sure why but it failed after a few days and I needed a quick delivery from Amazon to get a new one sent to me. (I mainly needed it to be able to use the external keyboard that I had bought separately. For someone with clumsy fingers like mine the keyboard is much easier to use!) I’d not come across the OTG usb’s before but I was able to use the OTG USB port with no problem to download files from my laptop to the tablet. I haven’t tried the HDMI and so can’t comment but I have no doubt that it will work. There are quite a few applications that come preinstalled. The BBC iPlayer is a bonus as is Skype. I have my own preference for File Managers but they are easy to download from the Market. Summing up: I am very pleased with this machine and I anticipate that it will serve me well for a substantial time in the future. However I also know that if there is a problem a quick email to QS will get me an answer.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: 16GB Android 4.0.3 (LATEST VERSION OF ICE CREAM SANDWICH) G7 WAFER. 1GB RAM (Hi-Speed performance), 7inch Tablet PC. CAPACITIVE Touchscreen. SKYPE VIDEO CALLS, Flash 11.1, UK GOOGLEPLAY STORE, Camera, HD Movies + SKYPE VIDEO CALLS + CAR CHARGER INCLUDED!
I received this tablet one week ago and took the time to play around with it for a bit before posting a review. The tablet is neat and comes with several apps pre-installed – BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, Amazon Kindle, Aldiko and ebay, to name a few. And it is running Android 3.0, as advertised. The screen is very responsive and setting up wifi was a straightforward process. Navigating is fairly intuitive, especially for someone who is used to Android.
I’ve had no problems with it – I’ve downloaded apps from the UK Android Market, both free and paid, without a hitch. I’ve streamed content directly from the BBC and 4OD, and thought the quality was excellent. I’ve only briefly looked at the camera and video but the quality seemed decent enough. I’ve used the pre-installed browser to surf the internet, and it’s been generally very good – there seem to be occasional gremlins but restarting the browser usually solves the problem. The speakers are adequate in terms of volume, i.e. in certain cases the volume can be a bit low, but the overall quality is very good.
All in all, an excellent little tablet which provides good value for money. It clearly isn’t a high-range tablet, and neither does it pretend to be, but it has exceeded my expectations. I’d happily recommend it to family and friends.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: 16GB Android 4.0.3 (LATEST VERSION OF ICE CREAM SANDWICH) G7 WAFER. 1GB RAM (Hi-Speed performance), 7inch Tablet PC. CAPACITIVE Touchscreen. SKYPE VIDEO CALLS, Flash 11.1, UK GOOGLEPLAY STORE, Camera, HD Movies + SKYPE VIDEO CALLS + CAR CHARGER INCLUDED!
Cambridge Sciences G7 III Review
I have been using pc’s since the days of the ZX Spectrum so no stranger to technology, and carried out a lot of research before deciding to buy this tablet. My impressions were that this was a great tablet for the price but at least one amazon customer had posted a review saying they had received the earlier model (Vector G7 II) which runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. As the hardware and front-end O/S are identical it is impossible to tell without checking in the settings; on the plus side the G7 II reviews (8 & 16GB) are as informative as the G7 III ones because of this.
Customer Support
Quick and polite response from Martin at Quality Stores when I emailed them to find out when the tablet was arriving (delivery took 6 days including the weekend).
After I emailed QS about my model version concerns I had a phone call two hours later from Karl, a Cambridge Sciences rep (this was a Saturday afternoon). He was extremely informative and helpful and ascertained that I did have the right tablet by checking in settings / about device/kernel version (which for my tablet was 2.6.35.7).
How this relates to my Android version is unclear – I think I will be typing `Linux’, `Kernel’, `Android’ and `Baseband’ a lot in Google search over the next few weeks.
RAM – 512MB, wish it was at least 1GB but haven’t encountered any freezing or slowness yet
Processor: Karl stated that the 1.6GHZ rating is a combined rating of a 1.2GHZ CPU and a 400MHZ graphics processor.
He emphasised several times that if I was unhappy with the tablet I should return it within the seven day period, but also said that these are the best value quality capacitive tablets in the UK market at the moment, and I am inclined to agree.
Advertised features checked out so far:
Capacitive Screen – a joy to use after getting the hang of it, although sometimes too sensitive, and easy to scroll down or up too fast; also easy to press on a menu option or icon while scrolling, swiping etc. My girlfriend prefers playing Plants v Zombies on this tablet to playing it with a mouse on a laptop. NOTE: if you want to use a stylus it needs to be a good quality capacitive model, resistive type styluses will not work.
Video Skype – Skype installed with the tablet didn’t support video calling but after installing the one from Android marketplace I can confirm this tablet supports and runs it.
Internet browsing – Quick, no incompatibility issues so far
Camera – basic, one of the features which should be improved
Wi-Fi – Good signal and range from my Sky router, continued a Skype conversation down several flights of stairs and out on the front doorstep.
Battery life – Followed the manual instruction to charge for at least 8 hours before first use; I estimate 4-6 hours use before charging but it really depends on:
– what you run on the tablet – how efficiently you use standby mode or full shutdown – managing which applications and background tasks are active.
Speaker and volume level: advertised as `high quality speakers’ there is in fact only one `functional’ speaker on the back of the device (two on the front would have been preferable). It is adequate rather than great and I found volume levels to vary depending on the media being played (songs were quite loud, a film was too quiet and on both occasions settings volume and player volume were set to max) but that is also down to the source volume level being played.
Applications / Interface
The applications provided range from occasionally useful to brilliant. I also recommend downloading Thinking Space Pro, Adobe Reader, Whiteboard and the latest video version of Skype to get a small idea of the potential of this tablet. The interface is quick, smooth and intuitive with a few `hiccups’ eg jerkiness or imprecise screen typing but some of these are down to the user as much as the machine.
Other Points
External volume control dial would be a definite plus, though not a deal-breaker; the tablet has a physical on / off switch which many other tablets do not.
3G: no SIM card slot but the tablet has 3G settings, possibly for when using a dongle though I can’t confirm this. The same applies to GPS and Bluetooth functionality.
Tablet connected to the PC and USB memory sticks OK, although my PC occasionally says it doesn’t recognise the device (possibly due to the PC trying to identify inaccessible tablet drives / storage).
C S will be issuing an upgrade to Android 3.2 at some point (although being Android 3.0 means there are now many apps available for it)
USB charging – the tablet does not support USB charging, only through the mains adaptor supplied
Information about these tablets is sparse or scattered – C S…
Great little machine,
I’ve been involved with computers for over 40 years. Most of that time I was writing software that ranged from System software to commercial applications. I’ve seen computers shrink from rooms full of equipment to something that you can carry in your hand. However up to very recently I have had no experience of tablets, or indeed, smartphones.
Some months ago I bought a cheap 10″ tablet with the intention of using it as an intro to tablets. It became obvious that although it was good at what it did the tablet had many restrictions – it dropped wifi at will and there was no feeling that it would last for a long time. So I decided that I would buy another tablet – my Christmas present – that would have the functionality that I wanted and would hopefully last for some time. Price was of course a consideration and £200 was as high as I could realistically go.
I did some research and Cambridge Sciences soon came into the picture and, thanks in part to the enthusiastic reviews that they received, I decided to buy the latest model with Android 3.0.
Delivery was exemplary. I ordered it at 4pm one day and it turned up on my doorstep at 10am the following day. Unfortunately there was no one there to receive it! However after contacting the delivery company it was delivered within a day or two.
I didn’t open it until Christmas day but I certainly wasn’t disappointed.
From the word go it gave the appearance of good design and competence and after a week of substantial usage nothing suggests otherwise.
Moving from a resistance screen to a capacitive one meant certain adjustments to the pressure applied. In fact now, when I go back to the old tablet, I am surprised how much pressure must be applied to the resistive screen to get it to work. The obverse of that is that to start off I was having some problems with the screen, but it didn’t take long before my touch was adjusted and away we went. Unlike the old tablet there does not appear to be any parts of the screen that don’t work so the whole of the screen is usable.
The screen itself is clear and bright and easy to read.
Sound is always going to be a problem with this price of machine, and a backwards facing loudspeaker doesn’t really help, but to be honest if I want to listen to music I will use headphones anyway so it’s not really a problem.
The only real problem with sound is not having a physical volume control. Initially it was a pain having to drop out of an application, go into “Settings” and adjust the volume. However there always seems to be an “app” to fix anything and now I’ve got a volume control widget which makes it easier to adjust the volume quicker.
Wifi seems to be good. So far I’ve not had any problems with Wifi dropping. I’ve not done any serious range tests but it certainly gives better performance than my old tablet.
I’m not interested in 3G so I can say nothing about that but I have no reason to think that there would be any problems with it.
I bought a 16mb micro SD card for extra storage and so far there have been no problems with storage capacity. I’ve already loaded up the apps that I want and there is still plenty of room.
I would have liked a full size USB port but with a machine this small it’s not a practical consideration. However I did have a problem with the mini to full size USB converter plug that was included with the tablet. I’m not quite sure why but it failed after a few days and I needed a quick delivery from Amazon to get a new one sent to me. (I mainly needed it to be able to use the external keyboard that I had bought separately. For someone with clumsy fingers like mine the keyboard is much easier to use!)
I’d not come across the OTG usb’s before but I was able to use the OTG USB port with no problem to download files from my laptop to the tablet.
I haven’t tried the HDMI and so can’t comment but I have no doubt that it will work.
There are quite a few applications that come preinstalled. The BBC iPlayer is a bonus as is Skype. I have my own preference for File Managers but they are easy to download from the Market.
Summing up: I am very pleased with this machine and I anticipate that it will serve me well for a substantial time in the future. However I also know that if there is a problem a quick email to QS will get me an answer.
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|Excellent value for money,
I received this tablet one week ago and took the time to play around with it for a bit before posting a review. The tablet is neat and comes with several apps pre-installed – BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, Amazon Kindle, Aldiko and ebay, to name a few. And it is running Android 3.0, as advertised. The screen is very responsive and setting up wifi was a straightforward process. Navigating is fairly intuitive, especially for someone who is used to Android.
I’ve had no problems with it – I’ve downloaded apps from the UK Android Market, both free and paid, without a hitch. I’ve streamed content directly from the BBC and 4OD, and thought the quality was excellent. I’ve only briefly looked at the camera and video but the quality seemed decent enough. I’ve used the pre-installed browser to surf the internet, and it’s been generally very good – there seem to be occasional gremlins but restarting the browser usually solves the problem. The speakers are adequate in terms of volume, i.e. in certain cases the volume can be a bit low, but the overall quality is very good.
All in all, an excellent little tablet which provides good value for money. It clearly isn’t a high-range tablet, and neither does it pretend to be, but it has exceeded my expectations. I’d happily recommend it to family and friends.
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|A Real Ipad Alternative – Smaller Yet Full Skype, Flash Plus Android Market,
Cambridge Sciences G7 III Review
I have been using pc’s since the days of the ZX Spectrum so no stranger to technology, and carried out a lot of research before deciding to buy this tablet. My impressions were that this was a great tablet for the price but at least one amazon customer had posted a review saying they had received the earlier model (Vector G7 II) which runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. As the hardware and front-end O/S are identical it is impossible to tell without checking in the settings; on the plus side the G7 II reviews (8 & 16GB) are as informative as the G7 III ones because of this.
Customer Support
Quick and polite response from Martin at Quality Stores when I emailed them to find out when the tablet was arriving (delivery took 6 days including the weekend).
After I emailed QS about my model version concerns I had a phone call two hours later from Karl, a Cambridge Sciences rep (this was a Saturday afternoon). He was extremely informative and helpful and ascertained that I did have the right tablet by checking in settings / about device/kernel version (which for my tablet was 2.6.35.7).
How this relates to my Android version is unclear – I think I will be typing `Linux’, `Kernel’, `Android’ and `Baseband’ a lot in Google search over the next few weeks.
RAM – 512MB, wish it was at least 1GB but haven’t encountered any freezing or slowness yet
Processor: Karl stated that the 1.6GHZ rating is a combined rating of a 1.2GHZ CPU and a 400MHZ graphics processor.
He emphasised several times that if I was unhappy with the tablet I should return it within the seven day period, but also said that these are the best value quality capacitive tablets in the UK market at the moment, and I am inclined to agree.
Advertised features checked out so far:
Capacitive Screen – a joy to use after getting the hang of it, although sometimes too sensitive, and easy to scroll down or up too fast; also easy to press on a menu option or icon while scrolling, swiping etc. My girlfriend prefers playing Plants v Zombies on this tablet to playing it with a mouse on a laptop. NOTE: if you want to use a stylus it needs to be a good quality capacitive model, resistive type styluses will not work.
Video Skype – Skype installed with the tablet didn’t support video calling but after installing the one from Android marketplace I can confirm this tablet supports and runs it.
Internet browsing – Quick, no incompatibility issues so far
Camera – basic, one of the features which should be improved
Wi-Fi – Good signal and range from my Sky router, continued a Skype conversation down several flights of stairs and out on the front doorstep.
Battery life – Followed the manual instruction to charge for at least 8 hours before first use; I estimate 4-6 hours use before charging but it really depends on:
– what you run on the tablet
– how efficiently you use standby mode or full shutdown
– managing which applications and background tasks are active.
Speaker and volume level: advertised as `high quality speakers’ there is in fact only one `functional’ speaker on the back of the device (two on the front would have been preferable). It is adequate rather than great and I found volume levels to vary depending on the media being played (songs were quite loud, a film was too quiet and on both occasions settings volume and player volume were set to max) but that is also down to the source volume level being played.
Applications / Interface
The applications provided range from occasionally useful to brilliant. I also recommend downloading Thinking Space Pro, Adobe Reader, Whiteboard and the latest video version of Skype to get a small idea of the potential of this tablet. The interface is quick, smooth and intuitive with a few `hiccups’ eg jerkiness or imprecise screen typing but some of these are down to the user as much as the machine.
Other Points
External volume control dial would be a definite plus, though not a deal-breaker; the tablet has a physical on / off switch which many other tablets do not.
3G: no SIM card slot but the tablet has 3G settings, possibly for when using a dongle though I can’t confirm this. The same applies to GPS and Bluetooth functionality.
Tablet connected to the PC and USB memory sticks OK, although my PC occasionally says it doesn’t recognise the device (possibly due to the PC trying to identify inaccessible tablet drives / storage).
C S will be issuing an upgrade to Android 3.2 at some point (although being Android 3.0 means there are now many apps available for it)
USB charging – the tablet does not support USB charging, only through the mains adaptor supplied
Information about these tablets is sparse or scattered – C S…
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