SmartQ T7 3G Open Review. Thoughts. Videos Available. Firmware Update News.

Posted on 27 August 2010, Last updated on 27 January 2015 by

IMG_4404 The recorded videos from our live, open review with the SmartQ T last night are available and shown below. Ustream have put a pre-roll and ads on them but I guess they have to pay for 2 hours of 500kbps streaming somehow.

More info, videos, links for the SmartQ T7 in our tracking page.

Remember that this is a preview device and isn’t fitted with final firmware although it’s close and SmartDevices are constantly working on firmware upgrades. We have some issues we’ll take back to the reseller, HOTMID, so that they can talk to SmartDevices in China. Those issues include: (See UPDATE below)

  • Adobe Reader very slow. Almost unusable.
  • Unable to reset the device to remove private data and Google account
  • Will the Market and Google apps be distributed?
  • Stream audio fails on Last.fm and XiiaLive.
  • USB OTG not working.
  • Market only able to download one app. Further downloads fail to start.
  • Video playback only works with H.264, will there be accelerated WMV, MPEG2 and Xvid support?
  • 3G software unable to work with PIN-locked SIM cards.
  • In high brightness settings with lots of colour on the screen, a slight flicker is seen in the backlight or LCD refresh
  • Will there be a model with GPS?
  • Cell Standby uses a lot of power when 3G is supposed to be of.

Update: From HOTMID.com we’ve just recieved this quick reply to feedback from our live testing: New firmware will be released before August 31st and will ‘solve’  Market and Google apps, USB OTG, Video playback, Cell Standby

On the positive side, we see good build quality for the price, a usable 600-wide portrait mode, excellent value 3G version, loud and clear speaker, good quality controls and a battery life in the 5hrs+ region. Actually we suspect there’s some improvement that could be made to the battery life as we’re seeing the 3G using battery while its supposed to be off.

Highlights on the applications we tested:

  • Kindle (works very well used in 30 minute bedtime test!)
  • Opera Mini (not shown in video produces significant browsing speed improvements)
  • 720p H.264 playback worked
  • NewsRob as offline Google Reader
  • Acast as podcatcher.
  • Google Maps and search for local information.
  • 4-way auto ratate working.

Target audience:

Those looking for a very low-cost handheld 3G 7 inch internet tablet (the SmartQ T7 is unique in the sub $300 bracket) a flexible and cheap ereader with internet and multitasking, holiday device (location-based services work through Google’s location services if available on final firmware) a low-cost SD card reader for photographers. (TX files, edit and share very quickly.) Standard browsing is very slow but Opera Mini works well to improve basic browsing speeds. Works well as a social networking tablet. Works well as a bedside companion. Taxi drivers and truckers should check this out too!

The resistive touchscreen is going to put some people off for sure but for the price and target audience, we think you’ll get used to the resistive screen without any major issues.

8 Comments For This Post

  1. Mike Cane says:

    Here in the US we have two Android tablets with 800×600 screens: the Pandigital Novel with Barnes & Noble tie-in and the Cruz Reader (released soon) tied into Kobo books.

    Neither of these are impressive. The Pandigital particularly is slow and its Nook software doesn’t even have the pagecurl anim!! And it is very slow turning pages and the screen is hard-touch resistive.

    Really, what I’ve seen of the SmartQ T7 by you and other videos on YouTube makes it the superior device right now. But that will probably all change next bloody week with Archos and Samsung and others.

  2. chippy says:

    Yeah. Rather unfortunate timing for SmartDevices. By end of next week there’s be more on the table i’m sure.

  3. Chuck Daly says:

    The firmware on your T7 sample (With google suite, but non working market) was released by SmartDevices for its Q and V series MIDs 2 months ago. So while that may not be the final firmware for for the T7, it is an official firmware.

  4. Chippy says:

    Chuck. Thanks for the info but I guess the fact remains, this isn’t final f/w for the T7. Its f/w from another device!

  5. Chuck Daly says:

    Not to play with semantics, but all SmartDevices products utilize the same firmware, at least for all intents and purposes of the review. If there is a firmware upgrade to the T7, then SmartDevices will port it to the rest of their product line.

  6. serwei says:

    v2 of the firmware was released last week.
    try it?

  7. Joao says:

    The bug with USB OTG port is still there. A pen drive isn’t read

  8. etoh says:

    chippy,

    for the update,

    which kernel that supposed to be the fix

    is that new kernel or firmware like 2.1 update2 ?

    i wanna buy want but wanna sure that it had updated by the newest one

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