ViewSonic G Tablet

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.