Ask Slashdot: How to Pimp My Android Tablet? 154
New submitter capsfan100 writes "At Christmas I got an $89 Android tablet by MID. The 7" tablet has sufficient RAM, etc. The battery, however, was rather pathetic out of the box. It's already fading, so we know where this is headed — decent tablet, but it constantly needs the plug. How would you take this 'old' tablet and turn it into a rockin' stereo component? Is there a ROM build out there titled Pimp My Tablet Into An MP3 Player? The current music app can look up lyrics on-line. I'd like to keep that feature. Any ideas on a good app for syncing music videos with my *ahem* random music collection? Any fun, off-beat party apps this middle-aged suburban dad hasn't heard of? Since the Android security nightmare is so well documented, I'd rather not use services that require passwords. I also need top-notch security and monitoring software so I can see what my kids and their friends are doing with it next year when I'm not home while keeping them anonymous and safe on-line. As for my living room stereo system, how best to mount a sleek MP3 tablet? I was thinking velcro, but it would ruin the feel. Maybe a wall-mount arm like my HDTV has? We want to be able to unplug it and move around the room, so I'll need to upgrade the speakers to wireless. Any thoughts there? I'm not afraid of the command line — indeed, I insist on one — but no Gentoo-type projects, thank you. Just a good sleek and secure ROM for optimal tunage with all the top apps the kids are using today."
That's a seriously underpowered device (Score:5, Informative)
It has 200M of RAM available to the system.
Expect that most of it's capability is going to be used in running the display. Here are the stats in case someone else needs to understand how limited it is:
http://www.osnews.com/story/24619/Review_MID_M80003W_Tablet_with_Android_2_2/ [osnews.com]
Re:That's a seriously underpowered device (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong device I'm sure. There's an M9000 that was available for $89 this year (that one you linked is from 2011). The newer one has Android 4.0 and 512MB RAM (same as iPad 2, for comparison). No idea if it's any good, but definitely not the same as the M80003 you found.
Re:Well, of course. (Score:5, Informative)
yeah.. asking for help AFTER showing evidence of trying yourself is one thing. We aren't paid, so the pay off is in personal reward for helping someone who has shown interest and a desire to learn on his own. This article reads like a half assed forum post by someone who wants it fed through a needle and didn't bother reading "How to ask questions the smart way" by ESR. Lazy, lazy, lazy..especially in this era of easy to use search.
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html [catb.org]
Re:Don't forget .. (Score:5, Informative)
The Android-derived tablet he got is horrible! The battery is the least of its problems.
As a rule of thumb, if someone offers you a tablet for Christmas with resistive touch, you shouldn't even open the box and you should try to return it for a full/partial refund as soon as possible. As to the security issues, the article he pointed to talks about apps being "security risks" or "malware" for requesting GPS permissions when they shouldn't (which is really FUD). In any case, since his tablet doesn't have a GPS chip in it, that issue doesn't apply to him.
Also since he doesn't have access to the official Android Market/Google Play, he should just look on the XDA forums, root his device, install Cyanogen on it, and go through the Cyanogen repo for apps. And he should refrain from installing apps from other locations.
His tablet will still be horrible after that, but it should be more bearable. And frankly, I don't think he should be spending any more money on this tablet to try to customize it, spending money on it will just be throwing good money after bad. Even if he resolves the battery issue and the app store issue, and makes a kick ass stereo out of it, the tablet will still need to be rebooted every hour or so.
Next time, he or the person who gave him this tablet should just spend twice the money initially, and just buy an Asus Nexus 7. That one is really good. And he won't even need to root it to do all the things he wants to do with it.
Re:Does anybody know (Score:4, Informative)
If you can't access playstore, get a friend who can to make backups of the apps, and copy them over to a microsdcard and install the apps from the card.
THIS.
My wife and I have tablets which will access the Play Store.
Our daughter has a tablet which will not access the Play Store. This was intentional, because we want to vet what she uses on the tablet.
When we have an app that our daughter likes, I use SaveAPK on my tablet to export the apk file and then copy it to her tablet across the network.
It works very well.
Re:Don't forget .. (Score:5, Informative)
A music purist doesn't regard your $60 music system as a good alternative. The "power of the magnets" has nothing to do with how good you think it sounds, that's all to do with the DSP inside that will artificially boost the sound by adding a third harmonic component and widening the depth of field by adding negative difference to opposite channels. In fact, if you were to add those "huge expensive speakers from 20 years ago" to that system to replace those awful little cube thingies and you would use proper speaker cable (fine OFC copper) of a little bit more thickness, your $60 system would sound a lot better. The amp in your $60 system is a cheap class D thingy that will horribly deform the sound once you turn it up to volumes that would potentially have neighbor-pissing-off capabilities. The wire adaptor you are using will induce hum if it's anything over 2 or 3 feet long. The analogue bit of your tablet will be positively horrible since it also uses a class D amplifier and your audio resolution will be comparable to about 10 bits on a proper DA converter.
Any audio purist would not get "wireless speakers" since it will take dedicated wifi channels to guarantee phase correct transmission and even then it will be prohibitively hard and expensive to get stuff running. Setting up a proper system when you have moved around your speakers will take at least 15 minutes with an entry level audyssey fully automated configuration so moving around speakers is a no-no. Actually, if you have set up your system properly, you won't need to move the speakers around, since the entire listening area will already have a rather good sound quality. Most audio purists-on-a-budget would probably get something like an entry level receiver that has audyssey DSP functions and HDMI, second hand "huge expensive speakers from 20 years ago" and a raspberry pi to play their MP3s. The raspi will send the music to the receivers 24bit DA converters via HDMI and the cheap tablet that started all this can be used as a remote for the raspi. This all will set you back over $60, but less than $1000 and you'd probably amaze yourself, your visitors and your neighbor with the sound quality.
Word of warning: second hand receivers with audyssey and hdmi often suffer from manufacturing defects like bad solder joints and dried out capacitors. Make sure yours isn't one of the many models effected and if so, make sure that you, as a 2nd hand buyer, will get free repairs from the manufacturer. If you buy new, make sure you live in a country that has proper laws about this so you're covered, or get some form of extended warranty/insurance.