The Spam Thread!

[huckleberrypie]

After several delays and paying a little bit more than I wanted, I acquired the Menards Black Friday tablet.

Details coming soon...

Noice... I'm sure it's yet another one of them Mediatek ones, yes?

I mulled about getting a defective Nextbook Windows tablet once, but idk if I'd be able to pay my attention to it tbh.

According to the manual, it's a Rockchip 3126 with Mali 400-MP graphics. 1GB DDRIII RAM, 16gb flash storage, 1024x600 screen, and Android 8.1 Go edition.

I will do more testing tomorrow. I got CPU-Z installed and will be able to tell if the actual specs lineup with the manual. I will also do some general performance tests with various games, and seeing how an e-reader app runs on it as the specs listed in the manual are rather dated now, hence the tablets low price. And given this particular model is aimed at kids, I wonder how well it will work with simple educational titles like the one it comes with.

Sounds reasonable enough I guess. Though given how it's in the same league as the Nabi tablets running off an MT8127...

[cpd2009]

I acquired screenshots of CPU-Z on the Sylvania kids tablet. Will be making my review tomorrow and posting it before Christmas Eve.

I can report that battery life is very poor. Battery was at 80%, and I decided to play a bit of Fruit Ninja, one of my go-to games when trying out odd Android tablets. After only about 10 minutes of general play in Classic Mode, the battery was down to 69%. This was with the Wifi off.

A more thorough battery test is needed, so I will make one using a video file. I will place the video on a MicroSD card and run the video for several hours to see how long the battery holds up in general non-gaming use.

[huckleberrypie]

I acquired screenshots of CPU-Z on the Sylvania kids tablet. Will be making my review tomorrow and posting it before Christmas Eve.

I can report that battery life is very poor. Battery was at 80%, and I decided to play a bit of Fruit Ninja, one of my go-to games when trying out odd Android tablets. After only about 10 minutes of general play in Classic Mode, the battery was down to 69%. This was with the Wifi off.

A more thorough battery test is needed, so I will make one using a video file. I will place the video on a MicroSD card and run the video for several hours to see how long the battery holds up in general non-gaming use.

'Tis very typical with them bargain-bin/shit-tier tablets anyway. The Nabi one I have only lasts for far less than a day on normal use, and would shut itself down just below 50 percent due to the anaemic battery that came with it. And to top it all off, the pack that came shipped with the device bloated up without warning:



The glue residue was from a screen replacement I did before tho. The one it had reminded me of the RTV stuff used to glue the aluminium lids on a typical Intel/AMD CPU.

[cpd2009]

So yeah, I dropped the ball on the Android tablet review, but the week of Christmas I just decided to take a break from most online social media and simply relax. The review is nearly typed up and ready to go; all I have to do is just add the photos/screenshots and it's ready to go gold.

In other news, I decided to switch my internet provider in a bid to cut my monthly bill around $30. Old provider was Midco, and new provider is Vast Broadband. Already, the STB Vast gives you is a far improvement over the old one. The new Android box itself is identical to the old one in terms of the physical specifications (AFAIK), but the software is far better. The previous box had a rather slow and kludgy Tivo app running on AndroidTV, while the new one also has AndroidTV yet it seems far more responsive and the actual IPTV app is much faster and easier to navigate. I also get cloud DVR service like the old one.

[cpd2009]

Well, I now feel a bit ripped off by my former ISP, Midco. Look at this:



I now have the 200mbps package through Vast Broadband, and I am actually getting very close to the advertised upload/download speeds. This past October, I "upgraded" to Midco's 200mbps package when I swapped out my old cable box with their streaming Android box. While the streaming video worked fine, I specifically remember the speed test only showing little improvement with the supposed upgrade, if any at all. I can download a 2gb Linux distro in under 5 minutes, whereas with Midco, it took around 10 to 15.

And yeah, Vast's streaming platform is miles ahead of Midco's in terms of usability. That Tivo software Midco was using kinda sucked.

[huckleberrypie]

Those upload speeds tho. Regardless, having over 200MBPS, hell, a gigabit, would be a blessing to those who download stuff heavily.

[cpd2009]

Those upload speeds tho. Regardless, having over 200MBPS, hell, a gigabit, would be a blessing to those who download stuff heavily.

Still, uploads get done much quicker than what I had with the crap CenturyLink DSL. If only Vast would get fiber installed to my apartment building...

Also, fun fact. Midco is half owned by Comcast/Xfinity.Customer service with Midco was fine, but if I would have known that my upload speed was half of what was advertised, I'd complain. I may still complain if Midco ever sends out a survey to my email, along with pointing out the issues I encountered with their Android box.

[cpd2009]

Okay, this is weird.

A little backstory... as much as I want to keep my old Dell, it's been literally sitting unused for months, and I doubt I will ever have a use for it again. So I have decided to sell it after all and I'm nearly done preparing it for resale at the flea market. The original Dell Win10 image will be cleaned and a fresh vanilla Win10 will be installed along with basic drivers and documentation sheets. I will sell the system "as-is", complete with working monitor, mouse and keyboard.

The Dell came with a 256GB SSD Boot Drive along with a 1TB Toshiba HDD. I also added in a 500GB Seagate disk as additional storage, and I plan on keeping the 500GB HDD to use as a scratch disk for video editing. (I only do 720p right now so 500gb is plenty for that). I go to the computer store downtown and purchase a Rosewill RX356-U-LCD enclosure with the appeal being USB 3.0 connectivity. My original plan was to take my current WD Blue 2TB external disk out of it's existing enclosure (a cheapo iMicro USB 2.0 model) and placing it inside the Rosewill. Afterward I would use the iMicro to hold the older 500GB disk.

But when the 2TB disk is in the Rosewill, it will not mount under Mac OS. The box states Mac OS compatibility, and the device does show up in System Information in the USB 3.0 tree. The 2TB HDD even appears in Disk Utility with proper hardware IDs, but I cannot mount the disk there either. Trying repair brings up an error saying something along the lines of "partition table is the wrong size for the device" or similar. Rebooting the iMac did nothing.

I place the 2TB disk back into the old iMicro enclosure, and the same HDD mounts just fine as it always has. This suggests that the chipset in the Rosewill has a size limit for HDDs, or isn't compatible with certain brands of drives. I looked at the manual and box and there is no HDD size limit listed anywhere. A date on the PCB is from 2013, so I wonder if this is an older generation chipset that doesn't like 2TB drives?

I need to put the 500GB disk inside the Rosewill and I will see if it can mount or not. If not, then there is something wrong with the device and I may need to take it back for a refund....

[huckleberrypie]

'Tis a shame you'd have to let go of the Dell, but it's what it is I guess.

And as much as I wanted to get a new graphics card, the current state of affairs with them GPUs is appalling with even the most basic of gaming GPUs being jacked up in price for no good reason. But I guess the RX 570 should be more or less capable enough for my modding and video encoding needs.

[cpd2009]

Update on the enclosure... the 500GB disk mounts fine in the Rosewill. That confirms either the chipset has a size limit or doesn't like certain HDDs. I guess I could throw the Toshiba 1TB disk inside to see if it will at least mount. That way I can know if I am able to upgrade it later on.