The first thing I realized about the WonderMedia WM8650 tablet was that the Android Market was fake (this tablet is also sometimes falsely sold as Flytouch, Superpad and/or ePad). It had very few apps (in fact I don’t recall being able to find any of the ones that I wanted such as Gmail, Skype, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger). I was also suspicious about the 2-point touch screen since all the apps that I initially used did not allow me to pinch zoom (later I found the hardware does allow 2-point touch but is not compatible with many apps). So here is what I wrote to the seller expressing my dismay:
“Hi. This item is not as described because of the following reasons:
- It does not have the REAL Android Market and does not allow me to link a Google account to the device. I need some way of installing many new software on it, NOT your FAKE Android Market because it does not have the programs that I want.
- It does not let me pinch zoom. You said it is 2-Point touch screen but this does not seem to be true.
Please tell me SOON how to fix these 2 problems. Otherwise I will have to give a very negative eBay feedback because item is not as you have described. I hope we can solve these problems.
Thank you.”
After sending the eBay message I immediately got a few auto responses saying that the seller is out of office. They read:
“Dear customers:
This is an auto reply, I received your email. As we will be day off at weekends, your message will probably be replied on next week. I will deal with your problem when come back for work, please check your message box later. Thanks for your understanding. Have a nice weekend!
ps: in order to provide you better customer service we set this automatic message to tell you what happened and we will give you solution for your problem when we are back.”
“Oh boy,” I thought, “What have I gotten myself into?” I did receive a response the very next day though. Seeing the message in my eBay Inbox I was temporarily relieved, although the joy lasted only a few seconds and you can understand why after reading what the seller wrote:
“Hello friend,
When you enter the Android market you should create an account and must do again and again. So when you use it you can enter into and download the software.
About the two point, when you take photos you surely can use your two fingers to make it large or small we have a test before we send out.
So could you tell me more about it then I can feedback the points to the manufacture is this ok? Do not worry we surely solve for your problems.”
I realized that perhaps the seller did not even realize that he was selling a fake/pirated product, and this was going to be a big problem. Rather than the seller educating the buyer, I would have to do the reverse! Read what happened next as I attempted to do this.
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Read full: An eBay Buyer’s True Story
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Real Deal Behind Fake Android Tablet on eBay
The title of the eBay item was “7" Google Android 2.2 Tablet PC WM8650 800MHZ HDD 4GB WiFi Flytouch 3 SuperPad ePad G-Sensor Flash10.1 C1212.” As you will learn, this title really does not tell you much about what is being sold since a variety of products are being sold with these brand names and attributes linked to them. Here are the specifications that were mentioned on the item page for what I paid approximately $72 for on eBay with notes describing what I really got:
Operation System: Google Android 2.2 – Although when you power on the tablet it does say Android 2.2 (Froyo) and a build number at the start-up screen, the operating system is not the real genuine Android. It is in fact some other very poor operating system being sold under the name of Android, making it a pirated OS.
LCD: high-definition WVGA wide-screen, 800*480 (16:9) – The screen quality and resolution was actually not that bad, but I don’t think it was high-definition. I’m confused because the description says high-definition but also says WVGA which I think is a lower resolution.
CPU: WonderMedia WM8650, high-performance 800MHZ CPU +400MHZ DSP, supports Flash10.1 – I don’t know whether this information is correct or not. I don’t see why they’d lie because a WM8650 processor is nothing to boast about. The tablet did support Flash video although it was a trial version of Flash.
Memory: 256MB DDRII – Information is unverified.
Storage Device: 4GB internal, support external TF card, maximum capacity of 32GB – The tablet did have 4GB internal memory and the micro-SD card slot did work. The maximum capacity I used was 4GB for the micro-SD but it may well support higher capacities.
G-sensor: 4-dimensional gravity sensing – I rotated the screen 360 degrees and the display adjusted after showing an upward arrow sign showing which side the sensor is detecting as the top side. Did not test out the G-sensor with games.
3G: TD-CDMA: TD368; WCDMA: Huawei E220/E230/E160X/E169G/E1750, Alcatel X060S/X200; CDMA2000: Bora 9380/AWIT-U8 – Information unverified since these features were not important to me at the time.
Screen: 7" LCD widescreen – The screen does measure 7” diagonally. However since it is a wide-screen aspect ratio you get less viewable area (it is a thin and long rectangular display).
High-sensitive 2 points resistive touch-screen – The 2-points touch-screen works with some photos for pinch zooming but does not seem to work with all apps.
WiFi and Internet: WIFI: IEEE802.11b/g/n wireless network; Cable Internet: 10/100M connector – I did not have a problem staying connected with a decent signal. I have a D-Link wireless 300N router.
Camera: 0.3 megapixel camera – Camera worked but I’ve heard it doesn’t work for streaming (mobile video chatting on Skype, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, etc.).
Audio Support: MP2, MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA – Ran into problems before I could test this out although the audio streamed from the Internet worked fine.
Video Support: [MPEG1/2/4,MJPG,H263](1280×720) resolution, H264 (720× 480) resolution – Did not watch any internal videos on it.
Picture Support: JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG – I viewed some images on the Internet and those were displaying fine.
Language: English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Norwegian, Russian, Polish, Turkish and Greek, etc. – I only used US English.
Certificate: FCC CE RoHS WiFi – This certification is engraved at the back of the tablet.
Softwares: Browser, Email, Image-Viewer, My video, My Music, Camera, YouTube, Wi-Fi setting, App Market, etc. – This was a major problem since most of the apps are fake/pirated. I was able to install Opera Mini by transferring the .APK file through the micro-SD card and that worked very well. If you buy one of these fake Android tablets on eBay that are usually shipped from China I suggest you install another Internet browser on it because the preinstalled one is of very poor quality. The preinstalled browser and pirated YouTube apps lagged in playing flash videos but they played very well through Opera Mini.
Speaker/MIC: 3.5mm headphone jack, High-quality stereo loud speakers, Built-in microphone – These were all there but when you hold the tablet horizontally to watch videos both of the speakers are on one side which I didn’t like since then there is no left and right speaker.
Battery: Li-Polymer, 1800mAh; Last time above 10 hours; Video play lasts 4 hours – Perhaps last a little less but it is a manageable situation as long as the life of the battery does not deteriorate with usage over time.
Next post -->: Fake Android Market on WM8650 Tablet
Read full: An eBay Buyer’s True Story
Operation System: Google Android 2.2 – Although when you power on the tablet it does say Android 2.2 (Froyo) and a build number at the start-up screen, the operating system is not the real genuine Android. It is in fact some other very poor operating system being sold under the name of Android, making it a pirated OS.
LCD: high-definition WVGA wide-screen, 800*480 (16:9) – The screen quality and resolution was actually not that bad, but I don’t think it was high-definition. I’m confused because the description says high-definition but also says WVGA which I think is a lower resolution.
CPU: WonderMedia WM8650, high-performance 800MHZ CPU +400MHZ DSP, supports Flash10.1 – I don’t know whether this information is correct or not. I don’t see why they’d lie because a WM8650 processor is nothing to boast about. The tablet did support Flash video although it was a trial version of Flash.
Memory: 256MB DDRII – Information is unverified.
Storage Device: 4GB internal, support external TF card, maximum capacity of 32GB – The tablet did have 4GB internal memory and the micro-SD card slot did work. The maximum capacity I used was 4GB for the micro-SD but it may well support higher capacities.
G-sensor: 4-dimensional gravity sensing – I rotated the screen 360 degrees and the display adjusted after showing an upward arrow sign showing which side the sensor is detecting as the top side. Did not test out the G-sensor with games.
3G: TD-CDMA: TD368; WCDMA: Huawei E220/E230/E160X/E169G/E1750, Alcatel X060S/X200; CDMA2000: Bora 9380/AWIT-U8 – Information unverified since these features were not important to me at the time.
Screen: 7" LCD widescreen – The screen does measure 7” diagonally. However since it is a wide-screen aspect ratio you get less viewable area (it is a thin and long rectangular display).
High-sensitive 2 points resistive touch-screen – The 2-points touch-screen works with some photos for pinch zooming but does not seem to work with all apps.
WiFi and Internet: WIFI: IEEE802.11b/g/n wireless network; Cable Internet: 10/100M connector – I did not have a problem staying connected with a decent signal. I have a D-Link wireless 300N router.
Camera: 0.3 megapixel camera – Camera worked but I’ve heard it doesn’t work for streaming (mobile video chatting on Skype, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, etc.).
Audio Support: MP2, MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA – Ran into problems before I could test this out although the audio streamed from the Internet worked fine.
Video Support: [MPEG1/2/4,MJPG,H263](1280×720) resolution, H264 (720× 480) resolution – Did not watch any internal videos on it.
Picture Support: JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG – I viewed some images on the Internet and those were displaying fine.
Language: English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Norwegian, Russian, Polish, Turkish and Greek, etc. – I only used US English.
Certificate: FCC CE RoHS WiFi – This certification is engraved at the back of the tablet.
Softwares: Browser, Email, Image-Viewer, My video, My Music, Camera, YouTube, Wi-Fi setting, App Market, etc. – This was a major problem since most of the apps are fake/pirated. I was able to install Opera Mini by transferring the .APK file through the micro-SD card and that worked very well. If you buy one of these fake Android tablets on eBay that are usually shipped from China I suggest you install another Internet browser on it because the preinstalled one is of very poor quality. The preinstalled browser and pirated YouTube apps lagged in playing flash videos but they played very well through Opera Mini.
Speaker/MIC: 3.5mm headphone jack, High-quality stereo loud speakers, Built-in microphone – These were all there but when you hold the tablet horizontally to watch videos both of the speakers are on one side which I didn’t like since then there is no left and right speaker.
Battery: Li-Polymer, 1800mAh; Last time above 10 hours; Video play lasts 4 hours – Perhaps last a little less but it is a manageable situation as long as the life of the battery does not deteriorate with usage over time.
Next post -->: Fake Android Market on WM8650 Tablet
Read full: An eBay Buyer’s True Story
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