Just got the hottest gadget around this weekend from K-Mart in the form of the Augen 78 Tablet PC? Bad News, it does not have access to the Android Market place yet.
A message posted on their website explains the issue in detail;
Thank you for showing your support and interest in our Augen GENTOUCH78 Tablet. We became aware of the technical difficulties over the past 24 hours, and we will be posting an update for a patch to the software at the following link: http://augen.helpserve.com/ under latest download files within the next 48 hours. Some issues that will be resolved are;
The memory size of 284mb not being shown as 2GB will be corrected as this is a glitch in the software.
Android Market place not being able to download apps will be fixed in this patch, as this is a glitch in the software. As of right now the operating system and pre-loaded applications are using .5 Gb so the available space displayed should be approximately 1.5GB.
To solve the issue with the headphone jack being too small for a 3.5 mm headphone connection, we ask you to send us an email to support@augenus.com with your Name, Adress, eMail Adress along with a proof of purchase. We will be sending you at our expense the 2.5 mm headphones to go along with the unit within 15-20 days. All future products that will be manufactured will have the new patch and a 2.5mm earbud to go along with the unit.
We want to make it a great experience for our customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to make it a great experience at Augen.
Although the Augen 7 is one of the best entry level Tablet PC’s and is available at most K-Mart locations. It has just come into stores yesterday and they can’t meet the ravenous demand by the public.
The GENTOUCH78 has an 800 pixel wide resolution and a 7” screen, allowing web browsing in full width. Unlike the experience on other mobile devices( small screens and slow speeds), the GENTOUCH78 offers a true web browsing experience, with web pages displayed in full screen. No need of zooming in and out as the text is easily viewable on the 7” screen.
It has a 800 MHZ CPU, which won’t break any speed records, and has a paltry 256 MB of Ram. It does have 2GB of internal memory and an SD card slot to expand to 32 GB of memory. If you want to download any of the E-Reader applications from the Google Market place you can read your E-Books purchased from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Kobo or a number of other stores. If you want to just read ebooks, it supports TXT, PDF, ePub, and HTML.
It ships with Android 2.1 and one wonders how long we will have to wait to see 2.2 available, or if someone roots it. Suffice to say at an entry price-point of $149.00 its a solid buy. Also thanks to Frank for the scoop.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
