When The Solution Isn't So Obvious

ViewPad 7

You can almost imagine my excitement when I got an email from my ViewSonic representative that I had a ViewPad 7 on the way to show to clients. I copied the FedEx tracking number and checked on it’s ETA about every five minutes. I have to admit that I’m like a little kid at Christmas when I have new technology on the way, but this one is just a little bit different.

More than six months ago I was asked by my clients to find an iPad alternative. They wanted something that played Adobe Flash, had a USB port, offered Bluetooth and could be controlled in an enterprise environment – preferably with Group Policy. So, I did my good deed and put the challenge out to the manufacturers.  This ViewPad 7 is the first to arrive and I anticipate a 10″ dual boot (Win7/Android) ViewPad 10 from ViewSonic in a few weeks. Samsung has a Sliding PC 7 in route and ever elusive HP Slate is still on back order…but I have confidence it will get here.

So, here is the ViewPad 7. As it’s name implies, it has a 7″ 800 x 400 screen. It’s running Android 2.2 with multi-touch, but I’m sure before I relinquish this device I will be testing to see if it will run Honeycomb. It has both a front and rear facing camera, Wifi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1, 3G + Quad-band GSM (cellular network connectivity), G-sensor, AGPS, and a Micro SD slot for up to 32GB of storage.

Out of the box the ViewPad 7 comes with a leather case, international wall charger, and a set of headphones. Take a quick tour around the outside of the ViewPad 7 and you’ll find the power button on the left side just under the left speaker. Volume controls, SIM card slot, and micro SD card slot are located on the top. The right side only has the right speaker. The bottom edge contains the headset jack, integrated microphone, reset button and a USB port.

That’s right, a USB port. I believe that was one item on the “must have” list. Flash was

Web Browsing

another item on the list and I have to tell you the Android OS handles it flawlessly. Likewise, it plays video across the internet like a champ too.

Keep in mind that all of my internet browsing and testing was done across a wifi network and not a cellular 3G network. While the ViewSonic ViewPad 7 comes with 3G capability, basically making this a large cell phone, my test model does not have a SIM card installed. Without the SIM card, you can only make emergency 911 calls. Or, you can always use Skype across the wifi….which I did and thoroughly enjoyed. Having forward and rear facing cameras is pretty sweet too.  It does a pretty good job of taking pictures and recording video.

The Android OS is so new that in the time-line of OS development you could say it is still coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential. It’s that signs of future potential that brings it into the enterprise. Not yet ready for native active directory control, there are ways to control this device in an AD environment. An important part of an enterprise computing device is the ability to take notes, check your calendar and receive/send emails. The ViewPad 7 running Android was able to connect to my company’s Exchange server as well as my Gmail account without any difficulties. Calendaring and email are fully functional.

If you’ve already experienced the Android OS on a cell phone, you know the Android Marketplace has thousands of apps.  While the ViewPad 7 will run each and everyone of those apps, this is more than a big cell phone…it’s a full featured portable computer.

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