I recently imported 3 of the 7" VIA WM8650 from China to US. I thought this would be a nice item to sell here in the states and maybe make a little money. I was going to order 25 of them, but decided to just go with 3 to test performance first. Glad I did. Believe me, I HATE to give any product a poor review. But I have spent no less than 25 hours trying to make this thing work at an acceptable level. No, I don't expect Samsung galaxy quality out of this, but... this thing is awful.
7" VIA WM8650
Android Version 2.2
Kernel 2.6.32.9-default
Build Number generic-eng 2.2 froyo v1.1.1-20110308.162514
Resistive screen
1. The device is slow and buggy. For example, flash DOES work, but it's very choppy and can't keep up when watching a tiny cnn . com Video. Also, the device has locked up 3 three times.
2. It cannot access the GOOGLE android market. This is because the application it comes with, LOOKS like it's the android market, it not. It's a Chinese market where most everything is in chinese. So you can't get facebook, angry birds, or the popular apps. I did get the amazon market on it. There is NO WAY to put the google android market on it. The manufacturer MUST put this on.
3. No windows driver... Can't connect to PC. Can't charge it from USB cable.
4. With the power cord plugged in, you can't plug in both USB cables into the adapter (because the power cord is in the way), which falls out easily.
5. Does not have a regular USB port. You have to use a male to male cable, which is hard to find, and $25 (walmart) when you do find it. Doesn't matter anyway because you can't connect it to your windows PC.
6. Screen capture, says, "Save failed". I have tried it with or without my SD card in. Then later it started working again, then stopped again.
7. I put a movie on my SD card and the device will play the movie (yay), but there is distortion (black pixels) in the light areas of the movie (like sky). The same movie plays fine on my other android devices.
8. I downloaded about 6 different basic games from the app market. Only 1 of them played acceptably. The rest were too choppy and too slow to play. Nope, angry birds is too slow to play.
9. WiFi is weak. The signal is marginal when I'm about 25 ft from my wireless router. My computers and android phone have excellent signal strength from there.
10. Touch screen is flaky. When I tap icons, I usually have to tap them a couple times to get the device to respond. When I scroll up and down, through a list of apps, when I lift up my finger, if it was on an icon, the device runs that icon. I have to swipe a couple times, just on the opening unlock screen. Extremely frustrating, because when you tap an icon, you don't know if you're WAITING for it to open because it's slow, or if it didn't register your tap.
I do not believe this is running at 800Mhz at stated by the vendor. The vendor tells me there is no updated ROM for it.
If anyone reads this and says, "WHAT???? my WM8650 is awesome!" I welcome your comments as to how you got it working.
On the plus side, it makes a great digital photo frame, if you prop it up somehow, and a good MP3 player (that won't fit in your pocket).
7" VIA WM8650
Android Version 2.2
Kernel 2.6.32.9-default
Build Number generic-eng 2.2 froyo v1.1.1-20110308.162514
Resistive screen
1. The device is slow and buggy. For example, flash DOES work, but it's very choppy and can't keep up when watching a tiny cnn . com Video. Also, the device has locked up 3 three times.
2. It cannot access the GOOGLE android market. This is because the application it comes with, LOOKS like it's the android market, it not. It's a Chinese market where most everything is in chinese. So you can't get facebook, angry birds, or the popular apps. I did get the amazon market on it. There is NO WAY to put the google android market on it. The manufacturer MUST put this on.
3. No windows driver... Can't connect to PC. Can't charge it from USB cable.
4. With the power cord plugged in, you can't plug in both USB cables into the adapter (because the power cord is in the way), which falls out easily.
5. Does not have a regular USB port. You have to use a male to male cable, which is hard to find, and $25 (walmart) when you do find it. Doesn't matter anyway because you can't connect it to your windows PC.
6. Screen capture, says, "Save failed". I have tried it with or without my SD card in. Then later it started working again, then stopped again.
7. I put a movie on my SD card and the device will play the movie (yay), but there is distortion (black pixels) in the light areas of the movie (like sky). The same movie plays fine on my other android devices.
8. I downloaded about 6 different basic games from the app market. Only 1 of them played acceptably. The rest were too choppy and too slow to play. Nope, angry birds is too slow to play.
9. WiFi is weak. The signal is marginal when I'm about 25 ft from my wireless router. My computers and android phone have excellent signal strength from there.
10. Touch screen is flaky. When I tap icons, I usually have to tap them a couple times to get the device to respond. When I scroll up and down, through a list of apps, when I lift up my finger, if it was on an icon, the device runs that icon. I have to swipe a couple times, just on the opening unlock screen. Extremely frustrating, because when you tap an icon, you don't know if you're WAITING for it to open because it's slow, or if it didn't register your tap.
I do not believe this is running at 800Mhz at stated by the vendor. The vendor tells me there is no updated ROM for it.
If anyone reads this and says, "WHAT???? my WM8650 is awesome!" I welcome your comments as to how you got it working.
On the plus side, it makes a great digital photo frame, if you prop it up somehow, and a good MP3 player (that won't fit in your pocket).
