Hands-on with the ViewSonic 4" Android Tablet and the GTablet at CES 2011

CES has been crazy this year, especially regarding certain products and one of those happens to be tablets, more specifically, Android tablets. ViewSonic has a few offerings in this field: ViewSonic 4" Tablet, 7" Tablet, 10" dual-boot tablet, the GTablet and the 10S Tablet. We got to fondle the dual-core GTablet and get a run down of the 4" one.

ViewPad 4 Specs:

• Android 2.2 OS
• 4.1" Capacitive multi-touch screen
• 800x480 Resolution
• 1GHz, 2GB ROM
• 512MB RAM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• GPS/AGPS built-in
• Dual webcams (5MP - Rear, 0.3MP - Front)
• G-sensor, E-compass, ambient light, & proximity sensors

The ViewPad for is a 4" Android Tablet running pure Android 2.2, no custom user interface, Android Market access and the whole deal. While ViewSonic is calling this a 4" tablet, it does phone calls as well so it is pretty much an Android phone and not really a tablet. The device itself looks pretty nice and while the front-facing camera is fairly small, the rest of the specs are pretty spot on.

ViewPad GTablet Specs:

• Android 2.2 OS (No Flash support)
• 1 GHz Dual ARM Cortex-A9 processor
• 512MB DDR2 memory
• 2D/3D Graphics processing
• HD Video encode and decode
• Ultra-low power GeForce GPU
• 1080p video playback processor
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• 32-bit LP-DDR2, DDR2

The GTablet also runs Android 2.2 but is layered with their own user interface which actually is pretty slick looking. Not overly heaving on the customization in most parts except for some of the back-end stuff and their applications. This is their dual-core Tegra 2 Android tablet and for the most part it is pretty sweet. Speed was great just flipping through stuff and the screen was pretty responsive as well.

Even though it does not support Flash, unless you visit a lot of sites with Flash or play Flash games a lot, this shouldn't really bother you. Future Flash support is a possibility though. Check out our video of our awkward hands-on with the GTablet. It was a bit crowded in their booth.

You can, however, customize the GTablet to include things like the Android Market (does not come with it) and Flash. There is a whole guide regarding this over at Android Police. Just follow the instructions and you're set.

Developer Website: ViewSonic