ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro review

Dual-boot Android 2.2 and Windows 7 on a slate tablet sounds clever, but does it work?

ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro
This 10.1-inch tablet runs an Android OS designed for smartphones

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ViewSonic viewpad 10pro

One of the weakest links on the ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro is the built-in camera. For starters, it doesn't work at all with the Android 2.2 virtual operating system.

There's no bundled camera app at all, so to even to use the camera you'll need to add an app such as Windows Live Messenger. There's something archaic about this approach: the device seems blissfully unaware of modern times when people routinely use tablets to snap photos.

Photos we snapped with the Messenger app looked dark and unusable.

Since there's no camera app dedicated to touch control, using Messenger is awkward at best. There are no large buttons for quickly setting white balance or exposure.

There isn't an app that enables you to switch quickly between photo mode and video recording, either.

And, there isn't a touch app for editing recorded videos – you're stuck with Windows Live Essentials and the lame Movie Maker app.

What could ViewSonic have done to fix these problems? A proper camera app for Windows 7, that uses a touch interface, would have helped. Making the camera work in the Android interface would have also helped.

Using the touch interface to even browse through photos depends on the mouse-driven Windows operating system.



John Brandon
Contributor

John Brandon has covered gadgets and cars for the past 12 years having published over 12,000 articles and tested nearly 8,000 products. He's nothing if not prolific. Before starting his writing career, he led an Information Design practice at a large consumer electronics retailer in the US. His hobbies include deep sea exploration, complaining about the weather, and engineering a vast multiverse conspiracy.