Ainol Novo 7 Fire - Page 2

I just finished charging the battery first time and did that over the USB connection from my PC, took about 6-7 hours alltogehter. The tablet went flat at approx 20% battery left so probably some-kind of calibration issue - granted it did install new firmware with 40% battery left so this might have messed something up. I'm also happy to report that I got Holux M-1000C bluetooth GPS dongle working with google maps. It did not work right out of the box with the firmware 1031, however, after I installed from playstore a small program called Bluetooth GPS the google maps were able to utilize the GPS dongle. Indoors the accuracy was not stellar but it did manage to get pretty reasonable area pointed out (a 30 m radius sphere).

So to conclude I'm reasonably happy with the device and it seems to be doing what I wanted it to do - that is allow me use google calendar, google maps and do so with good quality IPS screen. I'm probably will find some other uses for the device as well in the future - atm just one function is not yet working which I want, thats being able to do remote desktop into my PC, however, there is several more programs to try for that purpose and I'm not yet fnished with poking at teamviewer either ...

Edit:

Got TeamView working - apparently it does not like Eyefinity resolutions for some reason. Here you can see MATLAB 2012b "running" on Ainol Novo 7 Fire It's in 1080x1920 resolution (single screen portrait) in there. This solves btw also the problem of no reasonably working truecrypt client for the Android, as I can access the crypted containers on my main PC if needed.
And one with main sceen at 1280x720 as well with better camera

TeamView apparently drops color depth substantially as well (by the looks of it 16 bit color) and full screen stuff seems to not work properly (tried to run Crysis at 1280x720 for showoff). But productivity stuff should be possible to get done remotely if really needed if I'll get a real keyboard and mouse attached to that thing. Perhaps I'll give later a try to some other remote desktop program, main point against teamview is that I would be needing to set dektop to low resolution before leaving if I want to use teamview.

And some more pictures, a real GPS trying to get a fix (as opposed to aGPS) and some sample youtube pictures. Once it get fix on about 6 to 7 sats it will zone down to approx 3m accuracy although with the half day i have had it this seems to be taking a minute or two.







Oh - one more thing - the "5 MP" "camera" is kinda crap, at least in the usual slightly dim lighting conditions. Probably low quality optics on it or something like that. The few sample shots I did are quality wise similar to Nokia C2 (which is rather cheap "dumb" phone). In a dire need you can ofc take couple of snaps of your car for insurance or something like that but its no match against your average point and shoot camera, like Nikon Coolpix S5100 and the likes. An example shot with the back camera:


Edit 3:
Splashtop 2 HD is atm free and seems to be able to handle the Eyefinity resolutions, however, unfortunately I have not yet noticed ability to switch on an ssh tunnel in it so its not suitable for my purposes probably. It's also a bit laggy at 5400x1920 even over wlan.





Edit 4: Adding an example shot with the built in 5 MP camera at the back. Thats my workplace.


Also, it seems that the issue with TeamView not being able to connect a PC what is running large Eyefinity array is memory. I tried to connect with the PC at my workplace and it was able to log in regardless of the eyefinity, however, I was immediately presented with an pop up message telling me that the proggram is running low on memory and that I should lower the PC screen resolution or there is risk of having the program to crash. At workplace my main array resolution is 3240x1920 + a single 1920x1080 screen. So apparently 5400x1920 is just too high resolution for the teamview to handle.

As far as remote desktop goes I just uninstalled Splashtop 2 HD, as on top of that it seems indeed to not support ssh by defualt it also tried to sell me a subscription for accessing my own computer (at work the wifi spot I use is public while the internal net is wired and far more secure setup, so splashtop told me that I need and subsription to access my computer in different network which makes this program useless for my purposes).
Edited by Carniflex - 11/5/12 at 2:13am

One "tip" I picked up from another forum regarding the Ainol Fire's camera. Out of the box, there is actually a protective film on the lens. Remove it carefully from the edges with a toothpick or something small! The cam is still crap after the removal but slightly less so. The battery calibration issue is also a known problem for this machine (as is a "pop" sound from the speakers during sleep, frequency of which depends on what apps you have on and running). Some people have fixed it with more updated but unofficial firmware. I am not too adventurous and is awaiting new official firmware to come up. I actually lost all the levels and credits in a game when power died while I was playing it (and it was saying about 20 somewhat %). This is the thing that bugs me most. Otherwise, it is quite a bargain.

I should really try to remember to check for these protective films more often Ofc mine had one on - I even earlier noticed some glue on the "lens" so I carefully rubbed that way but still did not remove the film. Reminds me when I put my 6770 under water and it was hitting like ~100C under load - I was really buzzled as I made sure the contact was good. Until I took it apart again and noticed the "please remove before using" sticker under the thermal paste when cleaning the block before reapplying it.

Thanx for the hint. I'll have to give a try to one of these battery calibration things. Also, I'm happy to report that I managed to get TeamViewer functional even for my desktop resolution by increasing the VMheap size from the default of 48m for that tablet up to 128m. Ofc actually using an 5400x1920 on a 7'' tablet involves substantial amount of scrolling but if its really needed it gets the stuff done. BTW I also noted when nosing around the system properties that this tablet still thinks that it's a 160 dpi device while its actually closer to ~ 220 ppi which would explain why some buttons start out a bit on the small side to be comfortably hittable with an finger without some zooming.

Got some of the cables I ordered and among these was mUSB OTG cable so I used it for attaching a 3G dongle to the tablet to test it out - apparently its capable of using these. I tested with HUAWEI E173 and after installing ppp widget it asked for the PIN as its supposed to do (dunno if its actually capable of data connection as my prepaid SIM has ran out atm)

Got Ainol Hero today, Hero is basically the same as fire/flame but with very good 10" screen (LP101WX1-SLN2 Screen of LG).
Runs smooth and was cheap as hell (180$ + cheap accessory bundle).
Small Slatedroid review.

Actually, I got 2 heroes. 1 for me and 1 for my twin.
With the updated 1115v2 firmware antutu benchmark gave ~9400-9500 scores for both tablets.
And CM10 for hero is already in the making.
Edited by Tiihokatti - 12/7/12 at 4:42pm