eLocity A7 Touchscreen 7-Inch Android 2.2 Tablet (Black)

First off, I’ll apologize for writing a review after owning this tablet for only one night. I hate these kinds of reviews but I felt this needed at least one review from a real customer.

In my few hours with it last night, I downloaded and installed several apps on it from GetJar, including Facebook and Kindle. I also downloaded several apps from my PC onto a thumb drive and installed them onto the tablet from that, which was very cool. I visited several websites that had flash banners and they worked flawlessly. I was also able to play embedded videos on sites including youtube.com and my facebook news stream.

Pros:
- USB port – I plugged an 8GB flash drive in and installed apps from it.
- Micro SD slot – Haven’t used it yet but plan to soon
- HDMI port – Haven’t used this yet either but it’s a great option
- Video looks great
- Very responsive when touching links or rotating display
- Browser is quick and displays flash
- Great price for the specs

Cons:
- Lack of good, working apps. For the A7, you get your apps from GetJar, instead of the Android marketplace. Some apps refused to install for me, like Angry Birds. Others installed but clearly weren’t made to work on this size tablet. There isn’t a netflix or skype app available (I was hoping to use the webcam with skype).
- Pinch-to-zoom doesn’t work particularly well. Seemed to always go way too far in or out. You’re better off just double-tapping.
- Scrolling – scrolling by sliding my finger seems to cause a lot of unintended clicks along the way. I think there’s just a bit of a learning curve, being used to my ipod touch. It seemed to happen less as the night went on.
- The fixed buttons aren’t backlit so at first it’s difficult to use in the dark. You quickly figure out where they are and it’s not that big a deal
- So far it’s been hard to find any cases or accessories built for the A7
- I wasn’t able to set up my yahoo mail in the default mail client. Instead, I installed the yahoo mail app, which is basically a shortcut to the mobile yahoo mail site, which works fine.

This purchase was for my wife, who wanted something like an iPad but at a size that fit in her purse. This is almost the exact same size as my 2nd generation Kindle (a little thicker). So far she’s used it to quickly check and respond to things on Facebook, check emails and surf the web. Because of the speed and ease of use, it should supplant most of her laptop use, with the exception of sending long emails and working on speadsheets.

I trust there will be more and better apps for android tablets in the near future. It looks like there are A LOT of similar tablets hitting the market now. For me, this tablet looked like the best specs for the best price right now and I imagine it will be even more fun to use as new apps are made for it.

Have had this device for 3 days now and I am more than impressed. This thing is blazing fast and very responsive. Sure there are issues but developer is releasing patch to address these by 12-24-12 according to their web site. Hopefully this fix will address the problems with wi-fi waking ,Nvidia drivers (not able to play angry birds.. etc). True the multi-touch and lack of market are a bummer, but what do you want for 300 bucks? So glad I did not spend double this price on a Galaxy tab that will be outdated in 6 months.

pros
-Fast, fast, fast
-Screen res is great for the specs
-Very responsive
-HDMI out is awesome
-USB and SD card media (Bite me Apple)
-rooted out of the box
-300 bucks!
- Jetflicks streaming on 7 inch screen!
-Flash player rocks (Bite me Apple)
-Great reader

Cons
-No Market (hopefully XDA developers will help with this)
-Wi-fi fails to wake from sleep (workaround available and patch coming 12-24-10)
-Nvidia drivers not up to date (patch coming 12-24-10)
-Not true multi-touch ( not an issue for me, I have no plans on making this into a gaming rig)
-Proprietary connector for dock (not a big issue since there is USB/SD card support)
-Menu buttons have no back lighting

Just got the a7 today and think it is a great device. Even with the original firmware – the device is blazing fast, more below, no WiFi issues and the pinch and zoom is adequate. Firmware Update – Version 2.0121 of 12/24 further improves pinch and zoom – which we will apply tomorrow – and update our review once done. XDA have an Android Market ROM so the a7 can gain access to Market.

Build quality is very sturdy – some have commented on its being plasticky – but it’s a rubberized, non-slip plastic. Perfectly respectable.

We are certain that XDA will do Honeycomb in due course.

First off – we should say we are an Apple shop – iMacs, MacBook Airs, Minis and iPads – so when we say the a7 blows the iPad away on speed – we are not coming from an anti-Apple perspective. Quite the opposite. Example – loading cnn.com on the a7 fully rendered in about a half a second – the iPad 6 seconds.

1080p playback is super fast and very smooth.

Updated Review – 01/17

Just applied new firmware rev Version 2.0121 and then Version 2.0124.

Fixes all outstanding issues – improved pinch and zoom, better battery.

Awesome tablet – almost twice the Quadrant benchmark score of the Archos A70.

I have had the Elocity for two weeks now. It features cutting edge specs(as of December 2010): The Tegra 250 dual core processor is the reference for the upcoming versions of Android; Capacitive screen; 512MB RAM; Android 2.2; Flash 10.1; USB port; bluetooth, etc. I We have had our share of frustrations in unlocking its’ potential, which are common with these products when they are new. The improvements since launch are huge:
Elocity’s firmware update fixed many issues including wifi, Angry Birds installation, and multi-touch pinch to zoom (although there is still room for improvement there).
XDA forum has made great strides with it as well including full Android Market access, Google apps including Gmail, Calendar, and Maps. Quadrant benchmarks are now up to 2400, which blows away any non-Tegra devices. I am loving this tablet more each day. The lack of backlit buttons is a little annoying when using in the dark, but I am memorizing their location. If you buy one, you really should visit the XDA thread to take full advantage of its’ capabilities. [...]
I also posted a couple of videos of it on YouTube in case you are interested.
Is it the perfect tablet? No, but it has a lot going for it and if you want a tablet right now, it’s a great choice that will be able to handle upcoming versions of Android.
As the developer community grows, this tablet is just going to keep getting better,too.

I have to say I was a little wary of the product because of all the negative reviews but after using the product in my hands after trying a few other android tabs before this is the nicest one I have seen yet for the cost!

I think that the screen is awesome. Sure multi-touch is nice and if they said it has it then it should but I see that mentioned no where so I do not know what people were reading.

From a techy users experience though certainly no expert or geek the product works very well. I was able to connect the wifi from a home or business next door from where I work. Through our huge building to the signal. I have tried other devices including laptops and was never able to get a signal strong enough to use and I was able to download and install angry birds. Pretty cool! I have not had this unit very long but I know the Android interface and have had a few tabs in the past and this one is simply awesome.

Are there features to be improved on, will this be an ipad killer, I do not know but as it is now it is a great machine.

I think for the price they did this unit right. If you are a hardcore Android user and want all the bells and whistles then maybe you need to wait for Honeycomb but if you want a tab now and have seen what is available I think price vs value this is about as good as it is going to get.

I have just scratched the surface of what this tab can do and so far I am very impressed. Don’t let the negative reviews fool you.

This tablet works well right out of the box and with a few enhancements will be pretty awesome. Go to the XDA developers forum and find out the Stream TV is talking with forum members to make it a better device and not leave it out in the cold as far as updates go and you have in my opinion the best tab available.

Galaxy is nice, Ipad is nice, Elocity is just as nice in my opinion and a few hundred less!!

I got mine at another tv networks website with 6 value pays! I am paying $50 a month for the next six months!! A god price and flexible payments with no interest!! So far I am a happy camper. I will update after a while but just wanted to give another positive review after reading so many not so positive.

Rob

Love the tablet. Solid as hell. Very well built. If you’re not comfortable with doing a few tweeks get a Galaxy Tab, XOOM or IPad. If you’re good with it, here’s what you MUST do for this little device to shine. Get a couple of Micro SD cards (you’re gonna need them) and immediately go to XDA Developers website and get Dextor’s latest ROM and patches. As of this writing ver. 1.41 is the latest. All you have to do is read the Elocity A7 forum on XDA and you will find everything you need. It’s really fun to do these few things up front because, it’s not difficult, and you get to know the A7. You need to dig in just a little…trust me it will pay off. You will need to buy a case for protection. Search for the Crowncase for the Elocity A7 on Amazon. It’s perfect! After reading the XDA forums I bought a car charger and another AC charger for work. All are very inexpensive. $10 bucks or so for each and all available on Amazon. The car charger and extra AC charger are actuallly for and an Acer Laptop, but same as Elocity ac charger (19volts-1.58amps). Read the “Accessories” thread on XDA. If you do these things, you will have a lot of fun with it. If you don’t want to tinker a little up front, go with one of the three listed above.

mdg

I’ve owned the A7 for about a month and got it to replace an iPod Touch used for two years. Coming from a Windows background, it took awhile to fully learn how to use the Touch and I had to start over learning to use Android with the A7. This learning curve mainly involves understanding how to move around different screens, how to store and retrieve files from microSD and USB Flash drives, and how to download (and then sideload) apps. eLocity has provided several updates since introduction of the A7 and the latest seems to have cured most of the problems that plagued early adopters. It only takes a few minutes to download the latest update onto a microSD card using a regular PC or Mac and then install it into the A7. The Dexter update is also easy to get and install and supposedly allows you to download Android apps directly from the Google Marketplace. So far, I’ve just used the eLocity update from early Feb and am quite happy with almost everything about the tablet. Thousands of apps (mostly free) are available to directly download from the SlideME website. There is a small app to initially download and then you can view and download whatever you want. I found Angry Birds (a silly but highly addictive game) from another website (free, of course) and it runs beautifully, filling out the whole screen as if it was made just for the A7. Pros of the A7 are: (1) fully functional web and email; (2) beautiful screen for games and movies (full DVD resolution on a 7 inch widescreen looks really sharp and crystal clear); (3) plays Flash and all forms of video, audio and photo files; (4) has removable storage using BOTH microSD cards and USB thumb drives; (5) very fast Tegra 2 processor runs games and plays movies smoothly. You can use Handbrake on a PC to save movies at full DVD resolution as MP4 in about 500MB to 1 GB each and store to microSD or USB flash. A $50 32GB microSD card can hold 40+ movies. Cons of the A7: (1) No Google Market without installing the Dexter update (but lots of other websites to get apps); (2) “multitouch” sizing of screen frames could have finer steps (frame sizes increment by about 25% so it is sometimes difficult to get the perfect size for some websites) and; (3) battery life is about 4-5 hours (only a Con relative to 10+ hours for the iPad which has a much slower processor). In summary, I highly recommend the A7 to anyone who will spend a little time getting to know how to use this highly functional tablet.

I originally selected this unit as it appeared it will meet the minimum requirements for the upcoming Android 3.0 – namely 512 MB cache and a 1GHz processor.

I love this unit – but it doesn’t come this way out of the box. If I could have given 4.5 stars this would be the reason for it.

Elocity, the manufacturer has a new ROM download at their website that fixes the major disturbances with this – namely a poorly responsive screen and a WiFi with Alzheimer’s disease. The multi touch is attempted but you may as well just double tap. The larger 7″ screen minimizes the need for it anyway.

After the Elocity download you get the dexter one mentioned here in the reviews and it will open the marketplace for you. Don’t forget to change any ROM file to “update.zip” or it won’t work. And you must use the micro SD chip – you can’t use a USB drive for this. You should have one on hand when you first get it or you will be disappointed that you cannot use it right away. Get two – on at 32GB for regular storage that stays there, and a smaller, cheaper one for flashing.

You will want to put your apps on the chip when possible since flashing the ROM erases everything on the device. You cannot synch this device with your computer to restore it later so the back up is nice there too.

After the two flashes this is a marvelous little device. 7″ might not be ideal for viewing – the 10″ might be a little better, but, it will fit better in handbags AND the tactile touch keyboard is perfect with this size screen. You can hold both sides and type with you thumbs without strain. Any bigger and typing, while holding the device, would be less pleasant.

Video playback is excellent on the screen. Haven’t used the HDMI output – and won’t. I have a WDTV live for that purpose (which I love). The speakers are adequate for a device this size but the volume is insufficient. Ok for minor stuff but if you were going to watch a movie you are going to want to pull out your headphones.

The screen is not as responsive as an Ipod – no doubt about it. But it works well and I consider it adequate as well.

The android market is great, although not as big as apple – give it time. I paid for angry birds on my ipod but it was FREE on Android market. A nice surprise.

There are some wonderful radio apps! All my local stations are there with easier reception than the radio (I live rural). Some of the apps are meant for smartphones and don’t work quite the same way here. For some of you that may be questioning the lack of a GPS, it appears that the wifi is often good enough. I suppose it uses you IP address to know your location. I wouldn’t be using this in a car since I have a GPS already – so I haven’t needed it.

I bought this with some trepidation – but am more than pleased. Don’t expect an iPad – but darn if this isn’t close! My ipod is slicker, but I will enjoy this more just because it is a little bigger and is easily as user friendly. Play with it for a bit. My learning curve was about an hour. You can’t be afraid to push buttons.

With the 10″ version due, there may still be some deals to come with this one – but at $299 I think it is a great deal.

Just don’t judge it out of the box!

March 4, 2011

This product seems to change its price twice a week. I purchased for $299 and it has fluctuated between $319 and $349 since. You might not want to take the first price you see!

There’s a firmware update that came out Christmas Eve which makes this tablet into the device I thought I was buying to begin with. [...]
Out of the box this device was a real clunker, just too many bugs to be usable. But with the update installed this beauty hums along wonderfully; I find it exactly as I expected it to be: absolutely enjoyable. I understand that there will soon also be a workaround to get the official Android Marketplace to work on this tablet; that will be very nice.
The update was very easy to install, I only had to download the .zip file on another computer and put it on the microSD card. The update function was buried in some obscure place in Setttings. And I lost all my data from the device, because, for one, the file system wasn’t working right and wouldn’t backup, and for another, the data might not have reinstalled properly after the update, even if I’d had a second card to do the backup on. But after rebooting and waiting for the update to install, this was a different machine entirely; well worth the minor difficulty.
There’s more about installing the update at the [...]
**Update: It looks like Amazon stripped out all the links I provided. If you want more info on the update, go to Elocity Now (dot com), the comany’s officiall site, then to Support, then to Downloads, and there’s a whole page of relevant info about the fix, as well as the official elocity firmware update file.
Android Forums (dot com) has a good thread, too, where I first heard about the update, titled “eLocity A7: Good News, and More Good News”.**