First, thank you to all who posted before I received my unit-you saved me hours of trying to figure out some of the details when my unit arrived yesterday. My impressions of the Pinetab:
1. The build is better than I thought. It has a solid feel-perhaps due to its slightly thicker construction.
2. The ports worked, and I figured out how to get to the SD card slot (I thought it was a tray initially). The USB port ended up being very useful (next item).
3. I started out with the installed UT. It was okay, but the tracking issue was a big distraction. I couldn't get my BT mouse to connect with BT, so I used a USB BT adapter. The mouse worked, but the same issue occurred as with using the track pad-I could only use small areas of the screen.
4. I moved on to Mobian, and was impressed with the performance. BT didn't work with Mobian either, but at least the mouse tracked correctly as does the trackpad. The problem is I haven't figured out how to force a rotation out of portrait, if that is possible. The portrait view was fine when I used the Pinetab to read part of an ebook last night. I did bit of web surfing too with FF. Overall, it worked pretty good.
My main reason for purchasing was to replace an Android tablet-a Fire tablet that I just couldn't stand anymore (the FireOS is the worst, in my opinion). I didn't want to be trapped into the planned obsolescence of another Android tablet. I also wanted to be able to distro-hop just like I do on the desktop.
Overall, worth the money and waiting. Hopefully the distros will mature soon so the experience is a bit more fluid.
Update: I figured out that I overlooked the rotation icon..so disregard my comment about rotation! Also, I read afterward that BT wasn't working yet on any OS. For now, I will keep using Mobian. UT is usable, but the trackpad issue is just too distracting for me.
1. The build is better than I thought. It has a solid feel-perhaps due to its slightly thicker construction.
2. The ports worked, and I figured out how to get to the SD card slot (I thought it was a tray initially). The USB port ended up being very useful (next item).
3. I started out with the installed UT. It was okay, but the tracking issue was a big distraction. I couldn't get my BT mouse to connect with BT, so I used a USB BT adapter. The mouse worked, but the same issue occurred as with using the track pad-I could only use small areas of the screen.
4. I moved on to Mobian, and was impressed with the performance. BT didn't work with Mobian either, but at least the mouse tracked correctly as does the trackpad. The problem is I haven't figured out how to force a rotation out of portrait, if that is possible. The portrait view was fine when I used the Pinetab to read part of an ebook last night. I did bit of web surfing too with FF. Overall, it worked pretty good.
My main reason for purchasing was to replace an Android tablet-a Fire tablet that I just couldn't stand anymore (the FireOS is the worst, in my opinion). I didn't want to be trapped into the planned obsolescence of another Android tablet. I also wanted to be able to distro-hop just like I do on the desktop.
Overall, worth the money and waiting. Hopefully the distros will mature soon so the experience is a bit more fluid.
Update: I figured out that I overlooked the rotation icon..so disregard my comment about rotation! Also, I read afterward that BT wasn't working yet on any OS. For now, I will keep using Mobian. UT is usable, but the trackpad issue is just too distracting for me.