Hey, I'm Donald Bell.
And today we're taking a First Look at the ViewSonic G Tablet.
This is an Android tablet running a heavily modified version of Android 2.2, and priced around $400.
There are some cool things here.
One thing I noticed is that it has a 10-inch screen which is something we haven't really seen on a lot of Android tablets yet.
Mostly, we've been seeing that 7-inch size, so 10-inch puts it right next to that iPad sweet spot.
Another cool thing here is that there's more ports on the side
than we're used to seeing.
There's a full-sized USB port, which allows you to connect a keyboard or any other kind of USB devices directly in here.
Another thing I liked about the G Tablet was video playback- supports up to HD resolution quality, and it also has good format support.
Another one of the things that G Tablet does well is the web browser.
With a 10-inch screen, you really feel like you're getting the full browser in the window instead of having to zoom in a lot like you would on a 7-inch or a 5-inch tablet.
There's no flash support yet, but it should be
coming.
And that'll enable to watch YouTube or even CNET TV videos.
So everything the G Tablet does right; there's still a lot of things that are disappointing.
You don't get the official Google App marketplace.
Instead you have to use this unofficial workaround that's a little bit of a bare to use.
And even when you do get them working, a lot of them seem to hang up or crash.
The bottom line is, it's nice to see an Android tablet finally branch out into that iPad-like size.
But to get there, ViewSonic had to gut a lot of what's fun and familiar about the Android
Operating System- the customizable desktop, Google apps, and being able to reliably install third party apps.
The $100 you'd save choosing this over an iPad just isn't worth the headaches.
So that's the ViewSonic G Tablet for CNET.com.
I'm Donald Bell.
