Storage Options Scroll Excel review

The inclusion of a USB host port is welcome, as it allows you to attach more external storage. It accepts both FAT32 and NTFS disks, as well as a keyboard or mouse – it’s a shame you can’t attach both at once, even if you use a USB hub. Our only gripe was that the USB port felt wobbly, and its connection sometimes cut off. The battery lasted for five and a half hours in our video test, which is about average for a 7in tablet.

While the screen is bright and colourful, viewing angles aren’t great so contrast suffers if you don’t view it straight-on. It uses a capacitive touch interface which isn’t very consistent – normally it feels quite responsive, but every now and then we found our taps activated an entirely separate part of the screen from the one we intended, which could be frustrating.

At first, we didn’t think the Scroll Excel came with the Android Market pre-installed. In fact, it is there, but there just isn’t an icon for it. If you press and hold on the home screen, choose Shortcuts, then Applications, and select the Market, you can access it as normal, although not all apps are compatible with the Scroll Excel so you may notice a few omissions.

There’s more than just the Market missing, however. There’s no way to access your account details, so while you can add your Google account, you don’t get control over which data is synchronised with the tablet. Despite the inclusion of the standard Android Calendar app, you don’t get access to your Google calendars, and there’s no Contacts app – and none is available via the Market either. Other Google apps work with your account, such as the Music app (if you’ve managed to get into the Beta), but the Calendar will only synchronise with an Exchange server, so there’s little consistency.

Storage Options has pre-installed the Advanced Task Killer app, which you shouldn’t use as Android handles its own memory better – you should stop it from automatically starting via its Options screen, but sadly you can’t uninstall it. We’d also highly recommend installing the ICS keyboard from developer VLLWP – it gives you much larger keys that better suit a tablet screen.

With the Market installed, even though some account options don’t work, you still get a far better choice of software than without it, and it certainly makes the Scroll Excel far more useful than it would be otherwise. However, we can’t overlook the Scroll Excel’s hardware faults – inconsistent performance, an inaccurate touch interface and poor viewing angles can make it frustrating to use.

Despite its low price, the hardware just doesn’t seem reliable enough for us to recommend it wholeheartedly. It has potential, though: with a DLNA client installed, you could plug it into your HDTV and use it as a media streamer, and for casual web browsing or email, it handles itself fairly well.