My Journey Into LePan

[LePan69]

I got my 1st tablet this week: a used LePan 2 off of Amazon. It is a long story from my consideration of a BlackBerry PlayBook & more that can be found in the in-stock thread.

My 1st impression is that this a very nice tablet. Well built & love the aluminum back but I did notice scratches on it. My Targus case has not yet arrived.

The screen is very responsive, bright & sharp; it does easily smudge tho. The speakers are plenty loud altho I think that they would be better facing forward or outward as they are likely to be blocked with them in the back.

This is my 1st Android product & it is very similar to my Nokia N8 Symbian OS, altho as of right now I prefer Symbian. Perhaps bc I am just more used to it and need to learn my way around Android more. Symbian lets me have a different pic for each homescreen instead of 1 big 1 that moves around when you swipe. Symbian also lets me prioritize my wifi instead of having to forget them.

1 big dream option is a micro-usb port - 1 that lets you charge it. This would be so much more convenient in the event that you use lose/break/forget the 30 pin connector.

My biggest problem thus far is the wifi. It works well at home, no issues. However, at work/school it has been a nightmare. The signal has to be very strong before the LePan detects it & even then, it keeps dropping in & out. It is a very long "scanning ..." process where the wifi will keep appearing & disappearing. After this, I go thru several cycles of "connecting ..." just to disconnect. They it moves from "connecting ..." to "obtaining IP ..." a couple of times before it finally connects. This whole process takes about an hour. After that it stays connected.

So far it has randomly rebooted itself a couple of times but the boot times are pretty quick. Have not tested the life of the battery but after 2 hours of use I am still ~80%.

The Android Market is a bit overwhelming. Sooo many similar apps - I thought getting 1 for FaceBook was going to be easy but still not sure which to try.

YouTube works just fine but Hulu & other sites like watch-series.com do not .. yet. Still have not had much time to play with it. This weekend I will have time to delve deeper into the fun.

So far I am mostly satisfied. Great tablet for the price but the wifi problem at school/work is a problem since that is where I spend 75% of my time. Hopefully this story will have a happy ending as buying used, I doubt that I can return it.

Thanks!

 

[J515OP]

There are apps that let you have a different picture for each screen and you can find them in the market. You can also find web browsers with better features than the stock browser which may help you view the sites. Be sure to change the user agent to desktop to get the full version of the site. Also make sure you have the latest Flash loaded if you are trying to view sites with Flash. That should help with a few of your mentioned issues.

JP

 

[LePan69]

Thanks for the tips - I downloaded FireFox with AdBlock (as I use on my laptop) & much better - the pre-installed browser had ads everywhere. nost sure how to do the user agent thing but will play with that more later. I downloaded the latest Flash 11 but still cannot get anything but Youtube to work. Oddly, it woks on Youtube's site but if there is an embedded Youtube video somewhere - it does not work.

The Targus Truss case arrived & it does fit nicely - not covering any ports. It is a bit on the thick heavy side but that just means more protection, I guess. There are a couple of threads on the corner loops that are loose & hope do not come undone. Major complaint being the elastic fastener - this will probably go bad with time so I only use it when necessary. Hopefully this tablet will become more popular & get dedicated covers/cases as I am jealous of some of the sleek ones on other brands that I see.

Have not tested the full life of the battery but after ~5 hours of use, I still had ~50%. The flipside of this is that it takes a long time to charge. It would be nice if the cord were a little longer. Probably going to buy a backup - hopefully Amazon will have them soon.


Still think that I prefer Symbian a bit more as it communicates more with the user (not sure if that is an Android or LePan trait). When I tell it to scan for wifi or try to connect, it visually shows me that it is trying. When I hit those options on the tablet, sometimes nothing changes on the screen. Also, Symbian lets you kill tasks whereas I am not even sure if they are or not running on my tablet (I also dislike how on some apps there is no "quit" option, I have to keep hitting the back button & some of them will ask if I want to quit while others will just disappear). I may download a task manager but I have read mixed reviews on this (some say that the apps really are not running in the background, they just popup when I hit the shortcuts button because they were recently used) & claim that it just eats up your memory/battery.

In sum for this update: still not regretting this purchase but still not sure if I need a smartphone, tablet & laptop. I do like being the only person around with a LePan tablet (much like I am the only person around with a Nokia N8).

 

[LePan69]

So this past weekend I forgot my charger at work/school & I really did not feel like driving back on a 3 day weekend.

As fate would have it, I had a 30-pin Apple charger. I own no Apple products but I ordered an extra Nokia micro-usb cord with my N8 from Amazon - never got it the 1st time so the seller from Hong Kong sent it again with an extra Apple cord for free. I also had an extra wall charger w/ a USB port by chance to attach it to.

It took some shaving/scraping with a fork & steak knife of the extra gray plastic but finally got it fit in my LePan 2. So I can now confirm that an Apple 30-pin will charge, altho it does seem to charge more slowly.

 

[J515OP]

That is probably due to the usb port you used rather than the cable.

 

[LePan69]

Just discovered that the USB charger/cord that came with my old Sansa E250 fits my Le Pan! So anyone else who happens to own one of those MP3 players is also in luck ...

​

 

[Brian.Kelleher]

Just got my le pan II today. I love it, and I can't wait for ICS to be available. Major selling point to me was upgradeable to 4.0 because as a computer tech I'm lacking mobile OS experience, and with the upgrade I'll be familiar with 3 androids now. Froyo,honeycomb, and soon ICS.

Tablet streams Netflix perfectly and surfs the web beautifully. Gmail synced up flawlessly from my phone so Google apps is a go go. Best investment I've made in awhile.

 

[LePan69]

Just thought that I would give an update: After a few months I became disenchanted with my LePan2 due to the wifi connectivity problems on campus but ICS fixed it - so now things are all peachy keen. Upgrading the OS was not that hard & so far it works great. I like how ICS is more communicative with user (like my Symbian phone) - for instance when I tell the wifi to scan/connect, it visually shows me that it is doing something, unlike Honeycomb where nothing would happen.

The only major quirk is that wifi seems to drop often but reconnects a few seconds later - which can get annoying at times. Again, small price to pay for my wifi actually working now.

Odd that you can only mute it w/ the physical volume button - even if you set the volume all the way down thru the settings or try to tap on the speaker icon - you still get noises (like when you type).

I am torn between using FireFox or Chrome (the new default browser). For ICS, there is only the Beta version of FireFox which seems to crash/stall (the circle keeps spinning but no page loads) but on the plus side, AdBlockPlus works (this does not work on Chrome with an Android OS). I am so used to not seeing ads & not getting commercials when I watch shows on MTV or more recently the Olympics. So right now I am playing with both but cannot make up my mind - hopefully AdBlockPlus will soon be available for Chrome, which I find to be faster & more reliable.

Speaking of FireFox, I finally fixed the problem I was having playing Flash videos (previously would only work in the YouTube app) -there is a setting to enable plugins & that did the trick (not sure why that was not the default).

So 5 months on, I am very pleased w/ my LePan2 now & not looking to replace it (gotta love the 10+ hour battery) which means I can now divert my attention to the new line of ultrabooks due out this spring which will have Win8 & a touch screen.

Hope everyone else is enjoying their LePans as well!