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Linux

Sometimes you need to take a step back before you can move forward. The previous devices were great pieces of hardware, but with three operating systems installed on the SmartQ V5 and V7, it was impossible for a company like Smart Devices to support them all to the fullest. There was definitely some use for Windows CE and Android, but it was a bit of an overkill for a portable device and all operating systems brought their share of issues with them.
With the SmartQ R7, they decided to drop Windows CE and Android and put the focus back on Linux, which was by far the best optimized OS on the previous devices. On the R7, the Ubuntu based OS is improved even further with a new user interface, which is faster and easier to navigate.
Luckily, it’s still possible to do all the more advanced things, like using the terminal and installing more apps. Most of the thousands of free apps are optimized for desktop computers, so with the previous devices windows were a lot of times too big for the screen. With the increased resolution on the SmartQ R7, this is far less of an issue.

A downside is that screen rotation is only available in the eBook reader application and not in Linux itself, so everything keeps running in landscape mode. Hopefully this will be changed in newer firmware updates.

Software

E-book reader

With the new form factor and a new e-book reader application, the SmartQ R7 is a very interesting option for those who want to have an e-book reader with a color screen. The default application has automatic screen rotation and displays almost every file you throw at it, even comic books in CBR/CBZ format. As expected, large PDFs and comic book files with a lot of images are a bit sluggish, but it’s still much speedier than readers with an e-ink screen. The reader application comes with a web store with a lot of free magazines available to download. Unfortunately these are all in Chinese and download speeds are horrible if you live somewhere else. However, with the internet capabilities of the R7, it’s still very easy to get your e-books from other places.

Internet

As a mobile internet device, you’d espect a decent experience in this area and the SmartQ R7 delivers. The most important internet app is of course the web browser. The SmartQ V7 comes with Midori installed which uses the Webkit engine (which is also used in Safari and Google Chrome) to make sure most webpages are rendered perfectly. Most websites these days are optimized for higher resolutions, but even when zooming out most of them are still very readable. Unlike some other mobile browsers, Midori supports simply most features you’ll find in a full desktop browser: from tabbed browsing to advanced JavaScript/Ajax sites. The only thing that isn’t supported is Flash, but I’ve yet to find a portable device that does without slowing everything down.

Besides the web browser, the SmartQ R7 also comes with a mail client, RSS reader, BitTorrent client and instant messaging software. These all work pretty well. I was particularly impressed by how well it handled torrent files. However, there are a few gripes that might affect some users: the Claws email client doesn’t support IMAP mailboxes and Pidgin IM only supports the Google Talk, MSN, QQ, XMPP and fetion protocols. Those using AOL, ICQ or Yahoo are currently out of luck. Of course, it’s also perfectly possible to install other internet applications, like FTP clients. Because the SmartQ R7 has a built-in microphone, it’s even possible to make phone calls using VoIP applications.

Multimedia playback

The SmartQ R7 uses the well-known VLC Media Player and it plays pretty much everything you throw at it. MKV, AVI, WMV, Quicktime, basically everything plays fine except motion JPEG files. HD playback was pretty smooth, although it seems to drop a frame here and there, especially with 1080p WMV and Quicktime files. Still, this is very impressive for a tablet and it’s something that even the $499 iPad can’t do. Videos also look great on the screen, although it’s unfortunate that it isn’t possible to enjoy them in their full high definition glory using HDMI output.

Audio playback is also good and internet radio works flawless too. The only downside is that the VLC player isn’t the slickest app available, making it a bit cumbersome to browse though your media files.

Remote Desktop

With the Remote Desktop Client, you can control your PC using the SmartQ V7. With Windows Vista Professional, this works perfectly. Vista automatically changed it’s resolution to 800×600, so you don’t have to scroll to view the whole screen. Remote desktop is great to view some heavier websites and documents or to simply control your pc from another room. Don’t expect video streaming, because it doesn’t have sound and the screen refreshes only a few times per second.

Gaming

The SmartQ R7 obviously isn’t designed to be a hardcore gaming device, but there is still some fun to be had. The device comes with two touchscreen Bejeweled-like games and a nice physics based game. However, the best thing is the possibility to install ScummVM. With ScummVM, you can play classic adventure games like Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Broken Sword, Full Throttle and all-time favorite Day of the Tentacle. These all run pretty smooth on the SmartQ V5, even with graphical filters turned on. It’s also possible to use a NES emulator, but with the lack of screen rotation in the current OS, it’s not very comfortable to play with all the buttons on the left side.

1. Introduction
2. Hardware and design
3. Linux and software
4. Conclusion

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Tags: ebook reader, SmartQ, tablet

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 5:21 am and is filed under News, Reviews, SmartQ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.