lenovo is a great company and their tablets have competitive specs. why do their tablets have such little dev support compared to the other major android tablets?
I ask because the lenovo tablets coming out this year look very nice, but I hesitate to buy a tablet that won't have good dev support.
I'm on the same boat man. I got the tablet as a christmas wish from my gf... now I found out from timmyDean and other sources that the K1 will not have its bootloader unlocked. Not sure if there will be a way to hack it anytime soon.
I'm going to see if I can sell this thing to buy a transformer prime. Ill be calling lenovo to express my concerns as well. I have a laptop from them with high DPC Latency. Sent it in and came back with same problem and a wiped system with an extra partition.
No more lenovo for me.
If someone somehow manages to hack this thing, then I guess I'll keep it. For now I'm planning its resale value to pick up a different brand.
theoilman said:
lenovo is a great company and their tablets have competitive specs. why do their tablets have such little dev support compared to the other major android tablets?
I ask because the lenovo tablets coming out this year look very nice, but I hesitate to buy a tablet that won't have good dev support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can give you my opinion. We develop software for commercial clients and government and we write drivers for these devices. Unfortunately, most of our business clients want an application that cannot be removed by employees and has all the social networking stuff removed. My NDA does not allow me to say exactly what. But, let me give you an example: Lets say a hospital was looking for a hand held device for reading and signing medical records with an interface to medical equipment. Or traveling salesmen, a delivery driver having someone sign for a package. An application you load on your teenagers device to determine how fast they are moving, etc. Anyway, the list goes on and this is just the business side of it. But you get the picture.
Now, I have a real business need to root every tablet on the market therefore I can tell whomever buys our application that they can buy any tablet they want. Some applications only require root so we can install it so it cannot be removed and we delete the stuff the company doesn't want employees using (like Netflx, Facebook, etc). Or, if the software needs to interface with a particular piece of hardware, we flash a new ROM with custom hardware drivers in the kernel to interface with a particular piece of medical equipment.
So, myself along with other programmers working the business side of it stay away from Lenovo because from the start they lock the bootloader making it difficult to develop for. So we tell ever business to stay away from them.
Then you have individuals like myself that program on their own and I want to tweak something myself. So, when I look around for a tablet to develop on, I look for one that makes it easy to flash(or root). For example, currently my favorite is Motorola Xoom (not the FE) because you can simply unlock it.
So, everyone I know writing business applications stays away from Lenovo or anyone looking to develop a custom ROM as well. Lenovo did come in and meet with management, last year, and what they wanted to sell us was a custom solution. So, they were more than happy to work with us to build a solution. But, we cannot sell something and then tell the buyer that they have to buy a special tablet from Lenovo.
story:
So, what started all this for us, was we were working on a big sale to a Fortune 500 Insurance company and they wanted to use Lenovo. Their IT person loved them. Management in a haste, bought me a K1 to load and play with (mostly because it was cheaper than the TPT or ignorance I guess). So, when I got it, I loved it. And at first it was unlocked. Then the real horror started.
I told management how great the K1 was and within days we had the K1 loaded with the insurance application. They came in, we sold them, I got a bonus and life was good. Then we took an OTA, and the Insurance company started ordering K1's and TPT and to our surprise NOTHING WORKED because Lenovo went to a locked bootloader (Note: The org K1 had root(#) access by default when you connect to it via adb shell and we had not tested it on the TPT).
As you can imagine all hell broke loose. That's when we discovered Lenovo's position on things. During the meeting, I asked them why they locked it. They replied, because they are offering a consumer solution with the K1. It is not just hardware but software (in other words they want to make money off all the bloatware they load) and that the TPT was their business solution. If we partnered with them, we could do what we wanted on a secure platform (then they went on and on about how we really need their solution because you cannot root it, it's secure, blah blah blah).
Anyway, I had to fly out (along with the suits) to the insurance company. I personally meet with their CIO and convinced her that 'Lenovo' could NOT be trusted and if she insisted on using the TPT that we would now have our hands tied to Lenovo. I showed her several other tablets that were just as good and cheaper. She put a pencil to it and realized that she could be the hero here saving the company money. So, she kissed Lenovo good buy and went with another tablet.
Anyway, my story, take with it what you want.
TD
---------- Post added at 05:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 PM ----------
Let me further add something. A Kindle Fire is a great little tablet, but it is designed specifically to access Amazon. It is an extension of Amazon's business. There are others too. But, the Kindle is the most known.
So, these are NOT really tablets being designed to run everything. They are designed to sell services. For example, the Kindle Fire is to sell and expand Amazon services.
The Lenovo products are the same thing. They are designed to expand Lenovo's services. They want you coming to their Marketplace, using their services. In other words, they want to make money not only off selling the hardware, they want to make money off the software and services.
You can read some articles on the net about company's saying there's no money in hardware sales. This is why HP stopped making tablets and wants to become a software solution provider. This is what Lenovo is trying to do. If they sell you a tablet and make $10 profit it's not the same as $10 plus another $30 for applications you use.
That's what's going on here. It's not that they are evil not wanting you to brick your device, void your warranty, and then you want them to fix it. They are going after the services and they believe that's where the money is. Locking the boatloader is just their attempt to keep you locked into their services.
History lesson: If you believe you should learn from history then if you go back to the late 70's and early 80's, you will see the same thing. If you had bought brand xyz then you had to only buy xyz's printer, if you wanted to print. I remember buying floppy disks just to find out that they weren't compatible. Can you imagine that happening today? You buy a blank thumb drive and discover it doesn't work on your Lenovo, it only works on HP.
What changed all this was MS. So, if you're a believer in history repeating itself then Windows 8 will revolutionize the tablet and phone market. Google has realized the threat and is why they are pushing ICS and trying to stop the fragmentation. However, this does not stop Lenovo locking the bootloader and forcing you to go to their Marketplace. However, under Windows 8 this is going to be harder to do.
TD
I've got a TPT, got it for free from Lenovo, but it doesn't force you to go to Lenovo's market, essentially you can uninstall it and just use the regular market.
That being said, even with the optional external keyboard (that rocks), I mainly use my Samsung Galaxy from work, since I have it rooted and can do what I want with it.
And really not being able to root the TPT is why I'm glad I didn't actually buy it. I definitely wouldn't buy a tablet that I can't root.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
well locked bootloader is a deal breaker. too bad lenovo, you won't get my business. it's a shame, they looked great.
I have the TPT since September now. I have HTC's Sensation as my phone. I have root and a custom rom on my Sensation. So I do know the advantages.
I don't really miss root on my Tablet. Most apps don't need root. One thing that requires root I miss though. Titanium Backup or some other backup-solution. I just don't get why Lenovo does not provide one. Besides Adblock and Titanium Backup I can't think of any other program that requires root, that would provide any real advantage in using my tablet.
It is actualy quite good not too have root and custom ROM's. I'm a kid at heart and I put on new ROMs on my phone like I put on new clothes...
PS: You can lock down the tablet for users with the Mobility Manager. Just google for it.
Awesome post by jimmyDean.
I have a Thinkpad and that post explains alot of how Lenovo is thinking. Its a shame since the Thinkpad can be one great device with its digitizer and stylus if it wasn't so locked down. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and accept that they won't change their position.
It will be the last Lenovo I will own though that's for sure.
TS
Very good read read. Disheartening, to say the least. I really like my TPT, but my next tablet will be either a transformer prime or the next nice sized tablet to offer an integrated pen solution with Tegra3. I wont swear off Thinkpad notebooks though, my x220 is a BEAST, and I have been using Thinkpads since my parents got me an IBM T61 in college.
But yeah, tablets from Lenovo is out of the question. Its a shame though, I don't think they've realized they've doomed their fate in the consumer tablet market. Sony realized this and righted the ship in 2011 line of devices. One can only hope that Lenovo smells the coffee and wakes up.
I hate to be the dissenter but all of these companies are out to make money and while Lenovo's model (and amazon's, barnes and noble's, apple's, etc, PS3/Xbox/Wii's, etc.) is a bit duplicitous but it isn't out of the norm. I'd love to have a transformer or a xoom with an unlocked bootloader but I've never seen those anywhere near the $250 I picked up the K1 for. I'm not saying I'm going to support that business model but I will use it to my own advantage (ie, pick up the device on the cheap and find a way to do what I want while paying as little as possible). Lenovo will likely have to shift out of this model because there's no reason to use their market instead of the android one and they have nowhere near the sort of exclusive content that the others using this model have.
The Nook Color was a shining exception, both cheap and completely unprotected but B&N corrected that mistake in the Nook Tablet that replaced it.
In the end, we have to decide if we're willing to pay more to leave the walled garden. Given how US consumers have condemned themselves to it in the console gaming and cellular phone markets (both in choosing the iphone and in long contracts for free phones), it's not that clear that they won't choose to give up control in order to pay less upfront.
Wow thanks timmyDean, that clarified a lot of things... I'm going to need a tablet with a decent stylus soon, and I've been looking at TPT for some time now... but root is also very important to me, already because I don't trust Lenovo to bring OTA ICS update for it... I think I'll tough it out with my old tablet PC until something better comes along. HTC flyer is just too small (and with old android).
Anyway, I've been hearing some rumors that Samsung might come up with a stylus solution (S-Pen) in the next Galaxy Tab, perhaps in the MWC 2012 in at the end of february. It's the same tech as in the new Galaxy Note. Hopefully it's also a 12" tablet! It's interesting to note that Sammy's allied with Wacom, while TPT and Flyer use n-trig.
IfIf you ask me. this is the best Android tablet on the market. I took chance and sold my galaxy tab 10.1 and have had nothing but positiv things to say. Love the stylus and once you pick up the MyScript app, this is just perfect! All other tablets feel like toys compared to thrsp
siggehandf said:
IfIf you ask me. this is the best Android tablet on the market. I took chance and sold my galaxy tab 10.1 and have had nothing but positiv things to say. Love the stylus and once you pick up the MyScript app, this is just perfect! All other tablets feel like toys compared to thrsp
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't get the thinkpad tablet, but the ideapad K1. For the price I got it at, US$400 for 3G version, it was a good US$150 cheaper than the nearest similarly speced 3G android. For the price, no complaints!
Next up, unlocked bootloader please!
I'm working in Marketing and was looking into tablet devices for eDetailing for our company. I personally compared every Android device that was available in our country: Motorola Xoom, Acer Iconia A500, ASUS Transformer, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and also Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet. I was very eager to get my hands on the Thinkpad Tablet, as connectivity (USB host etc) and the digitizer seemed like a huge advantage. But soon, I was very disappointed; in comparison to the other tablets, there are some MAJOR shortcomings:
- software: the firmware is buggy and seems unfinished
- performance: the TPT clearly reacts slower to input than other tablets; this seems to be confirmed in benchmarks
- locked bootkloader: that was the death blow! I don't blame Lenovo that the Citrix Receiver won't accept "untrusted" certificates. However, installing missing certificates is just one of the many things I expect from a decent device; there's plenty of other good reasons you need root access and it was a "must have"
As Lenovo has only delivered minor firmware updates that don't really address the issues mentioned above, I have abandoned the device completely.
Root has just been received and we are just verifying it over in the ThinkpadTablet forums. There should be a instructions for it soon enough. Hang tight.
btw the bounty is now up to $800
TS
With root on the way....
Bootloader also unlocked?
---------- Post added at 07:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:37 PM ----------
When Root is enabeled i try to write a script to remove all the bloatware stuff
theoilman said:
lenovo is a great company and their tablets have competitive specs. why do their tablets have such little dev support compared to the other major android tablets?
I ask because the lenovo tablets coming out this year look very nice, but I hesitate to buy a tablet that won't have good dev support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great company? Perhaps in the past. Lenovo support issued a statement, that the tablet does not have a locked bootloader. Once the device was rooted, writing recovery was as simple as having write access to the partition. The locking of nvflash was a **** move however (as the only external interface to the bootloader), and since they would not provide tools to provide the needed functionality, the bootloader was for all intents and purposes locked. Additionally, since IBM sold the thinkpad brand to lenovo, their support response and turnaround is nightmarish. The organization I work for purchased 10 thinkpad tablets for our desktop technicians to use in the field. 6 had the charging/data usb port break within 2 months. I purchased a thinkpad tablet prior to the organizations purchase for personal use, and within 30 days, my port stopped connecting via data. It took numerous phone calls and a few weeks to get lenovo to repair the device under warranty, and then an additional 27 days to actually get the tablet repaired and returned. The tablets for the organization endured similar rigmarole, with only a 2 week difference in repair turnaround. Reports all over the thinkpad and lenovo forums report similar stories. It seems only recently that lenovo has even decided to acknowledge the defective usb port as a manufacturers defect. I don't know what happened to the company, but the shady support statements combine with customer unfriendly technical support has ensured that both my organization and myself will not be doing future business with them.
---------- Post added at 02:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 AM ----------
siggehandf said:
IfIf you ask me. this is the best Android tablet on the market. I took chance and sold my galaxy tab 10.1 and have had nothing but positiv things to say. Love the stylus and once you pick up the MyScript app, this is just perfect! All other tablets feel like toys compared to thrsp
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That might be true once custom firmwares start rolling out. As it stands, in the same class, the thinkpad is a hardcore underachiever compared to almost every other tegra 2 tablet on the market. The ntrig digitizer is also the reason I put up with the sluggish buggy behavior. Luckily with root, one can hope these problems can be fixed. However without kernel source, we may be limited to honeycomb in order to keep full hardware functionality. Thats also not to say that a poorly configured kernel or bad drivers aren't part of the reason for the periodic lag, touch issues, and general poor performance.
Can someone clarify on the bootloader/nvflash issue?
Is the bootloader locked or not, and if not, can we now put custom ROMs on it or not?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1231771
From this we can see that ThinkPad Tablet's bootloader ISN'T locked.
Nice. So who will be first to build an ICS ROM?
I'm going to try
I am just coming off 2+ weeks of frustration with the Transformer Prime. I was lucky enough to get mine from Amazon so I returned for a full refund. Despite all the frustration, I realized that an android tablet is a handy gadget that I really would like to own. I am beginning the process of researching for my next purchase and now that I have dealt with Asus, I have a better idea of what I need to figure out before I make a purchase. I am looking into Acer and toshiba.
Can anyone who's owned an Acer tablet answer the following:
I have read Acer is coming out with the A700. Anyone have any thoughts on it?
Do Acer products typically have good quality? Do they last?
How is Acer's RMA process? Do they require you to pay for shipping if the problem is due to manufacturer defect?
Is Acer customer service easy to work with?
How frequent does Acer provide firmware updates?
As with all companies, the quality of the support depends entirely on which country you're in, as well as local legal requirements. Some countries have far better consumer protection than others (UK vs US, for example).
Updates are kinda hit and miss, Acer tend to lag behind some other OEM's.
I generally find build quality to be fairly good, certainly had no complaints on my two tabs.
The above post is exactly true in all ways.. Acer support in the us is outsourced. and that STINKS.. COMPUTER COMPANIES CAN LEAR FEW THINGS BY TALKING TO OR FALLOWING HP Support.. i send them a email of my issue. they call me within a few hours with a answer. I Had a issue with this notebook im typing on. It was a problem with compatibility with a win 7 update to usb. CAMERA ISSUE. A Microsoft tech called me on behalf of hp.. two days later they issued a global wide fix. apparently i was the first to have the issue . I was treated like a person with tech experience not like a dumb customer..
I TO LOVE MY A500. THERE UPDATES When we do get them seem to not break things as with other devices. And less over all issues. With that said who knows when or why they send them.. there is no logic to there update system. I Just wish they would give us the choice to unlock this device or not..
sorry for being so long winded
I found my A501 to be a near-perfect piece of hardware... My main criteria were UMTS and USB HID support, fastboot (for easy recovery if bricked) was a secondary criterion. This tab has all of these (I don't know of any others that do). Also, the device's shell is fairly robust (I have it with me at university almost every day)... The main point of criticism about the HW would be the somewhat weak WiFi antenna (though there's a good remedy for that, search the forum).
About the software... Acer tend to take their time to get things right on the first update, which means that they are somewhat slow to release updates. Then again, I'd rather have something that actually works later than something that doesn't work now...
Customer support is fairly expensive via phone (haven't tried the other options), but friendly and competent here in Germany... Way better than some others I had to deal with.
Hi,
I recently bought an Asus Zenpad Z300C.
Apart from not feeling a strong performance improvement from my previous Asus MemoPad the most annoying issue is that the android-standard multiuser manager seems to be disabled.
The local technical support guys replied a very client-unfriendly: "device does not support that function". Even after told that the previous generation MemoPad had it supported...
If you own this device please complain through Asus support if you feel that they are removing basic functions from the core OS as I do.
If you are thinking in acquring one, beware of the fact that you will not be able to share the device with your family or guests in an sensible way.
I read this post explaining a workaround for a similar problem in other device,
http://dev-viraj.blogspot.com.es/2015/02/enable-multi-user-setting-in-lollipop.html
it could be tested only if the Z300C can be rooted, but currently seems not clear how to do it... see link below
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/how-to-root-asus-zenpad-10-z300c-t3214802
Regards!
I've rooted my Zenpad 10 using this guide.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=65188654&postcount=45
jokerigno said:
I've rooted my Zenpad 10 using this guide.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=65188654&postcount=45
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But then, how had you add multiuser account????
I haven' t understand it, can you explain it, please?
Okay so far the past week ive been very very happy with my phone but was appalled by the amount of bugs that the phone came with at release, most noticeably the audio video synchronisation issue. For the past few days i have been bugging everyone i could to get this issue resolved.
So here are the results:
The ZTE UK page got back to me about the issue and this is what they said:
Hi Rikin, thanks for your message. We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing problems with your Axon 7. We have raised this with our tech team who are working to solve the issues. Thanks for your patience. Thanks again, the ZTE UK team.
Hi Rikin, We do not have an exact date of when this issue will be fixed but we are working to sort this as soon as possible. Thanks, the ZTE UK team.
Got a similar response on twitter as well, this shows me that they now do know about the issue as multiple users are reporting it and are doing something about it to get us a software update soon.
Then i suggested we Europeans get a community board like this and the response was:
Thanks for your comment, we'll take this on board.
Its clear to me that we probably wont get a community board due to the vague answer.
Now i contacted the amazon seller EKEYUK as well to see if they could escalate the issue with ZTE, this is what i got in response:
First of all, ZTE shipment version is the official version. Regarding the voice is not picture - synchronization issues: (1) please make sure to use the player is watching video, playing is a mobile phone video or online video?Through what Internet access in the review, the network signal is normal? (2) please replace the replacement of different sources, is still the same problems, eliminate sources. (3) please try to use the other player to watch, see if there is the same problem, can be ruled out the problem on players. (4) if the problem still exists, please feedback usage scenario, whether can help ZTE developers use tools to catch the LOG?Assist in problem. If there are other questions, can send emails directly to this email ([email protected]), ZTE will arrange someone to answer you.
Clear to me they believe its a software bug as well instead of a phone defect which is probably true, i suggest we all email the VIP email to sort of escalate this issue to get it sorted.
Now heres the good part, this is direct from the Amazon seller.
And we just confirm that ZTE supplier provide the 2.0 passport service for sure any issue.
Now this is great news, this is what i was hoping for, it looks like all the complaining has got us this warranty. I dont know how true it is as i have not heard it from ZTE themselves but the seller seems to be acknowledging it so looks like we are getting the same warranty as the USA! Now if only ZTE could roll out the same ROM as the USA for the UK/EU users. I will try get a more indepth answer/confirmation about this, but results are looking promising.
I will keep everyone updated about how i get on, and if you would like me to pester about any other software issues to ZTE please post a comment here!
~Rik
Nice effort and good job from you.
I think giving an option for flashing the US rom to European version will be great news
Or much better being included out of the box with new units shipped from now to customers that pre order the device.
Also having the same Passport 2 warranty as US customers is really great news but better have official statement from ZTE and not only by the third party seller.
Sent from my iPad Air 2
paatha13 said:
Nice effort and good job from you.
I think giving an option for flashing the US rom to European version will be great new.
Or much better being included out of the box with new units shipped from now to customers that pre order the device.
Sent from my iPad Air 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol just cos u got the grey version What about us who got the first ones haha