Review of the Smartq v5

I picked up one of these units a few days ago on ebay. There is a seven inch version as well - v7 - they are about the same but the 7 has a bigger battery.

Both come with three operating systems. Android, linux and windows ce 6 which looks a lot like windowsce 21. CE is for the younger generation with eyes that see as they ought. For us old timers you can use it but you probably will want to use a magnifier of some sort over the screen.

The Linux is a little slow due to the limited capabilities of the hardware system but does function fairly well.

The Android is version 1.6 out of the box but there is a 2.1 version on the net that works GREEEEAT as Tony would say. The system is quite responsive and seems to do well for small apps such as work on phones.

The screen is a resistive and fairly responsive, better than some I've used.

Battery life on mine seems a little low but they say 4-5 hours.

I bought it for reading and it works great for that. I found aldiko an ereader that has color/font/background control and all that stuff.

I set up the email very quickly and seems okay, though no contacts built in but then what can one expect for such a small program.

If you want it for reading I think I would probably rather have the 7 inch but the five isn't too bad - just twice the tapping to change pages - yep getting lazy in my old age. :tongue3:

I like Android from what I've seen of it the last couple of weeks and am looking forward to using it more.

 

With further play time I have found the battery to be poor on android for some reason. Even went to the original and it is better but two hours of reading and it was gone.

I tried reading/playing on linux and it was much better though I do not care to use linux - though I may have to :tongue3: