Viewsonic ViewPad 10s review

The ViewPad 10s is virtually identical to the Advent Vega except that it comes with a 16GB memory card rather than 4GB. The rest is the same: a 10.1in screen, a dual-core 1GHz processor and Android 2.2 (Froyo) are the highlights, and the price is slightly higher, partly reflecting the cost of the larger microSD card. It’s not to be confused with the standard ViewPad 10 (part code VPAD10_AHEU_50) which is a dual-boot tablet running both Windows 7 and Android 1.6.

Although it’s running one of the latest versions of Android, the ViewPad, like many other Android tablets before it, doesn’t include all the standard Google applications including the Market. It comes instead with the App Center, which is run by a German company called AndroidPIT and includes forums, a news blog and app reviews. Although it contains a large selection of apps, it’s not a patch on the real Market, and didn’t include a number of our favourite apps.

It is possible to install the Android Market by following some easy steps. This lets you install some other Google apps such as GMail, Google Reader and YouTube. However, while you can install Street View for Google Maps, you can’t install Maps itself. Other apps are missing too, such as the official Facebook app.

If you want to stick with AndroidPIT, you’ll have the choice of 3,149 apps (at the time of writing). The only apps already on the ViewPad are a task manager, a file manager and Fring, an instant messaging aggregator that promises video calling. We’ve seen it on a number of tablets with front-facing cameras, as it’s one of the only apps that supports video calls. We’ve had mixed results with it, however, and it’s no match for Apple’s Facetime on the iPad.