[Pandigital Inc. (Official)]

Greetings everyone! My name is Jonathan with Pandigital. I’m excited to see the interest and enthusiasm for our new “Planet” Media Tablet. I’d like answer a few of the questions I’ve read here… I‘ll continue to monitor for new questions/feedback and feel free to message me with questions and I’ll do my best to get back to you quickly.

The Pandigital Planet is a media tablet built off of Android 2.2. The everyday retail price is expected to be $179.99. All KOHL’s retail locations in the United States have received their initial shipments of the Planet….though we have had instances where they have been sold out, often it is just that they need a little encouragement to bring the product out of the back room. Please ask one of their customer service employees to confirm whether they indeed are out of stock.

Some “Planet” specs…

-Android™ 2.2
-Advanced processor: Pandigital PAN1G6 Coretex advanced 800MHz processor with 3D GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
-VGA forward-facing and 1.3MP rear-facing cameras
-Microphone
-Back-lit Android buttons
-2 axis accelerometer
-B/G/N wireless
-Mini-HDMI out to big screen TV
-USB –OTG port (supports peripherals)
-Resistive Touch Screen (ActiveTouchTM) which does support Multi-Touch (often mistaken for capacitive given its’ performance)
-Many apps preloaded. The on-board “update app” makes accessing our future firmware updates much easier.
-Currently this model is shipping with 2GB internal shared storage.

Apps & Content
Though we will include access to a new app store in a future firmware release, you can also secure apps from many other sites. Among these is Amazon’s new app store. If you load your Gmail account to either the email client or email feature of “InTouch” on the device and then insert this email address into the proper field on the Amazon website (do this step on a computer –after selecting the Amazon App Store, there is a field to the far right where you enter your email address). This email will include a link to download the Amazon App store APK. Install this and you will now have access to their free featured app a day –as well as Angry Birds and others.

You can view PDFs as the 800x600 resolution display is more than sufficient for displaying them.

Accessories & Cases
AC adaptors and new leatherette cases will be available August/September.

Firmware Update
We plan to release a FW update in the coming weeks which will feature full Flash support along with an enhanced resource for Android Apps. Future updates scheduled to include Android™ 2.3.

[Miss Dragon]

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

Greetings everyone! My name is Jonathan with Pandigital. I’m excited to see the interest and enthusiasm for our new “Planet” Media Tablet. I’d like answer a few of the questions I’ve read here… I‘ll continue to monitor for new questions/feedback and feel free to message me with questions and I’ll do my best to get back to you quickly.

The Pandigital Planet is a media tablet built off of Android 2.2. The everyday retail price is expected to be $179.99. All KOHL’s retail locations in the United States have received their initial shipments of the Planet….though we have had instances where they have been sold out, often it is just that they need a little encouragement to bring the product out of the back room. Please ask one of their customer service employees to confirm whether they indeed are out of stock.

Some “Planet” specs…

-Android™ 2.2
-Advanced processor: Pandigital PAN1G6 Coretex advanced 800MHz processor with 3D GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
-VGA forward-facing and 1.3MP rear-facing cameras
-Microphone
-Back-lit Android buttons
-2 axis accelerometer
-B/G/N wireless
-Mini-HDMI out to big screen TV
-USB –OTG port (supports peripherals)
-Resistive Touch Screen (ActiveTouchTM) which does support Multi-Touch (often mistaken for capacitive given its’ performance)
-Many apps preloaded. The on-board “update app” makes accessing our future firmware updates much easier.
-Currently this model is shipping with 2GB internal shared storage.

Apps & Content
Though we will include access to a new app store in a future firmware release, you can also secure apps from many other sites. Among these is Amazon’s new app store. If you load your Gmail account to either the email client or email feature of “InTouch” on the device and then insert this email address into the proper field on the Amazon website (do this step on a computer –after selecting the Amazon App Store, there is a field to the far right where you enter your email address). This email will include a link to download the Amazon App store APK. Install this and you will now have access to their free featured app a day –as well as Angry Birds and others.

You can view PDFs as the 800x600 resolution display is more than sufficient for displaying them.

Accessories & Cases
AC adaptors and new leatherette cases will be available August/September.

Firmware Update
We plan to release a FW update in the coming weeks which will feature full Flash support along with an enhanced resource for Android Apps. Future updates scheduled to include Android™ 2.3.

Welcome to SlateDroid Jonathan , I'm so glad that you are here to support our users and community.

[fewt]

Is it possible to split this into a new topic?

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

Greetings everyone! My name is Jonathan with Pandigital. I’m excited to see the interest and enthusiasm for our new “Planet” Media Tablet. I’d like answer a few of the questions I’ve read here… I‘ll continue to monitor for new questions/feedback and feel free to message me with questions and I’ll do my best to get back to you quickly.

Thank you for the post. My first questions:

Will Pandigital have a permanent presence here in the SlateDroid forum? One of the issues I have had in the past is that I have found it difficult to communicate with Pandigital through support incidents. This would be better for everyone.

There have been many requests for the source code, as you probably know it is required by GPL license (backed by sufficient case law) that you release the source code. Delaying it claiming that it will be released later does not excuse Pandigital from their legal compliance requirement.

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

-USB –OTG port (supports peripherals)

I've tried a keyboard and mouse, neither were detected. Is there a method to turn this port on in host mode?

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

-Currently this model is shipping with 2GB internal shared storage.

Is there a way to re-balance this so there is more storage assigned to applications?

Can you make it dynamic, and empower users to set it the way that they want?

Updating firmware often requires a factory reset, this is time consuming and it formats the internal storage. If we don't do this, we find we have lots of bugs. Is there a way to preserve the data partition in the future?

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

Apps & Content
Though we will include access to a new app store in a future firmware release, you can also secure apps from many other sites. Among these is Amazon’s new app store. If you load your Gmail account to either the email client or email feature of “InTouch” on the device and then insert this email address into the proper field on the Amazon website (do this step on a computer –after selecting the Amazon App Store, there is a field to the far right where you enter your email address). This email will include a link to download the Amazon App store APK. Install this and you will now have access to their free featured app a day –as well as Angry Birds and others.

I probably speak for everyone when I say that we would prefer the Google Experience over everything else. Is there a way that Pandigital can move in this direction?

Some additional firmware requests - We would like it to expose root out of the gate, we shouldn't have to hack the device to play with it. Since we are probably the most significant of your user base, how can we work with you to make sure you are delivering a product that we are happy with?

I'd prefer to be in the business of being a user, there shouldn't be a need for detailed how-tos to empower users of your device.

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

AC adaptors and new leatherette cases will be available August/September.

Cool!

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

We plan to release a FW update in the coming weeks which will feature full Flash support along with an enhanced resource for Android Apps. Future updates scheduled to include Android™ 2.3.

Please include Netflix support .. it almost works, I'm certain that you can work the kinks out before the next release.

Thank you for your time.

This post has been edited by fewt: 19 July 2011 - 01:34 PM

[greenlaptops]

WOW! Welcome to SLD, Jonathan

There are some very important issues which needs to be addressed ASAP
1) Touch screen craps out with your pinch of finger.
2) Media (Gallery) files cannot be accessed in most of the FW updates.
3) Host port
4) Low memory
5) Screen Calibration Problem
6) Our beloved Angry Birds is almost unplayable
7) Unrealistic Battery readings
8. Force Closures on most of YouTube Videos. See my detailed post HERE

and list goes on and on

200) The Source Code

I think that's all for now. But please, these are some very important issues needs to be addressed ASAP, if you guys are planning for an update please make sure that these issues has been taken care of in next forthcoming Firmware update.

Thanks
GL

This post has been edited by greenlaptops: 20 July 2011 - 10:28 PM

[Mark Adams]

Greetings and WELCOME!!

You no doubt are about to be inundated with requests and bug reports, so I'll understand if it takes a while to fulfill everyone's needs -- just don't forget I specifically asked for a pony.

[mrsburnout]

@Mark

@Jonathan

Thank you for your introduction. I look forward to seeing your involvement with the SLD community.


Welcome to SlateDroid.

[nvrpayretail]

Let me add another welcome to you Jonathan. Along with the comments others already made I'd like to add my support to the concern over the limited memory (256M) that the Planet has. This causes it to frequently bog down to the point of being unusable unless you run an auto task killer to keep freeing up memory - something that the user shouldn't need to do.

You'll also note that folks have found it necessary to open the unit and reroute the antenna wire in order to take pressure off of the touchscreen. That's something that should be easily corrected on the manufacturing line and will significantly improve satisfaction with the touchscreen.

Last one from me - pleeeeeease ask someone to focus on wifi. We're all extremely happy with the improved wifi stability, but now signal strength is pitiful compared to the Novel.

Thanks for joining the community.

[ritchea]

Welcome, Jonathan. Please stay with us--except for iteration re SOURCE CODE, I'll just keep reading everyone else's questions and--more importantly--your responses. First we have an "official Pandigital" presence, now we have an official person.

[Spz0]

Greetings Jonathan!
I am a fellow Developer, as well as a fellow Jonathan. hehe

Great to see some official support interest in our community.

I have 5 queries that would go volumes to development on the PDP, most of them mentioned above, so I will reiterate for importance.

1) When is the Kernel Source planned on being released? This is holding up some major developments on this great device.

2) The touchscreen is way oversensitive. It responds well to a stylus, and your fingernails, but fingerpads it jumps around like crazy. This is a pretty serious issue, as the display is one of the most important aspects of any tablet. This issue also causes keyboard errors constantly, amongst other various errors (I feel I should point out the fact that it is next to impossible to pinch zoom because of this issue). _Everyone_ here is waiting in anticipation for a fix.

3) A recently discovered bug we have found has to do with the SDcard nerfing out. It is still readable, but for some reason (and quite randomly) apps like Gallery, and Music will not be able to read content from the SDcard. I full unmount, and remount usually fixes the issue, but not in all cases.

4) 256Mb RAM. I feel this should be re-adjusted to a higher value (512). The low RAM impacts performance on this great device, causing us to use task killers, and memory management apps (which impact the natural mem. management of the Android-OS). On my OpenPDP ROM, I have stripped the 07/06 fw of all bloatware, and rebuilt the OS to better resemble a Tablet, more-over an Ereader (as that is the true potential of this tablet). Even with the OS stripped, there is still only about 25Mb avg. free RAM without a task killer/mem. mgt. app. With a mem. manager app in place, I can increase it to approx. 60Mb free RAM, but this is still a low number, with the growing number of apps that are based on systems with 512Mb RAM and higher.

5)Please,, PLEASE!! Keep the 800Mhz CPU Kernel!!! 99% of users do not care about battery performance, as their are TONS of apps out there for battery management. Even upping the CPU to 900 or 1Ghz would also be an option to keep up with competitors (if your guys don't do it, someone here will most definitely will ).


A lot to digest, especially with all the above posts, but Welcome to our little community none-the-less.
I look forward to hearing back from you.

Cheers.

edit: Feel free to contact _me_ via PM if you have any questions.

This post has been edited by Spz0: 20 July 2011 - 12:03 AM

[Pandigital Inc. (Official)]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome to Slate Droid! I see that there are a lot of questions about the current product’s hardware/capabilities as well as potential future enhancements. Over the next few days I will do my best to address as many issues as I can officially. Please know that we don’t have a dedicated “forums” resource and so we’re working extra shifts to make this important link.

One question we want to address right away is in regards to the mini-USB and getting peripherals to work. This is an issue we are both passionate and frustrated about due to the various quality and abilities of adapters in the marketplace. We’ve purchased 5 different mini-USB male to USB female adapters from Amazon and only found 1 that worked (the others didn’t carry the full signal/power across). We’re re-ordering more to confirm our results however, the adapter which we believe to work across various peripherals can be found here:

http://www.amazon.co...11187567&sr=8-1

Thanks for all your input, it has been noted and passed along..much appreciated.

[Spz0]

thanks for the USB Update Jonathan.

Could you add an extra star to the touchscreen issue? The more I think about it, the more Im thinking it needs to be addressed as a critical issue. Its next to impossible to type on the PDP as the touchscreen stands now.

Thanks.

[iyccyi]

Spz0, on 20 July 2011 - 04:49 PM, said:

thanks for the USB Update Jonathan.

Could you add an extra star to the touchscreen issue? The more I think about it, the more Im thinking it needs to be addressed as a critical issue. Its next to impossible to type on the PDP as the touchscreen stands now.

Thanks.

Hi Spz0,

For me, out of my two Planets, I initially had the touch over-sensitivity/inaccuracy issue on my first tablet till I applied the rewiring mod while my second tablet had no problem with the touch from the start. Granted that I tend to use my finger-tips for typing, but I find that I can consistently type faster on the Planet than on my iPod Touch (the bigger screen helps). If you are still having a lot of inaccuracy after moding and calibrating and haven't tried exchanging for a new one at Kohl's, I'd highly recommend make the exchange and hopefully you'd be rid of issue.

Also, for the SD card reading/mounting issue, I found that it varies with the SD card that you use. I had absolutely no problem with my 8gb Kingston Class 10 card while my 16gb Sandisk Class 2 card would not be readable following waking up from sleep and requires the full unmount/remount to be read again. This was consistent over both Planets.

[Spz0]

The re-wire I posted helps somewhat, but I'd say its about a 20% improvement out of 100%. Perhaps I'll try for an exchange then -- see if that helps.
Q: What firmware are you running?

This post has been edited by Spz0: 20 July 2011 - 05:24 PM

[iyccyi]

Spz0, on 20 July 2011 - 05:23 PM, said:

The re-wire I posted helps somewhat, but I'd say its about a 20% improvement out of 100%. Perhaps I'll try for an exchange then -- see if that helps.
Q: What firmware are you running?

I'm using your OpenPDN 1.12 on one and FW07062011 (oops, typed wrong earlier) on the other

This post has been edited by iyccyi: 20 July 2011 - 05:40 PM

[greenlaptops]

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 20 July 2011 - 02:22 PM, said:

We’ve purchased 5 different mini-USB male to USB female adapters from Amazon and only found 1 that worked (the others didn’t carry the full signal/power across). We’re re-ordering more to confirm our results however, the adapter which we believe to work across various peripherals can be found here:

http://www.amazon.co...11187567&sr=8-1

Thanks for all your input, it has been noted and passed along..much appreciated.

We will be delighted if "Pandigital" would provide these adapters to all proud owners of PDP, even cheap unbranded Tablets from China comes with these adapters.
Thanks for quick response.

GL

[Spz0]

iyccyi, on 20 July 2011 - 05:35 PM, said:

I'm using your OpenPDN 1.12 on one and FW07062011 (oops, typed wrong earlier) on the other

ok. Test this for me if you would.

Go to swype through your homescreen, but just hold the screen and slowly swype it --- does it jump around randomly? Or is it smooth?

This post has been edited by Spz0: 20 July 2011 - 05:49 PM

[sainthooligan]

Pandigital Inc. (Official), on 19 July 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

Greetings everyone! My name is Jonathan with Pandigital.

Welcome Jonathan!

It's definitely refreshing to see that Pandigital is reaching out to customers.

Though it appears you're here for the primarily for the PD Planet, I'd still like voice another request for the "elusive" source code for this device (as well as the WPDN, BPDN & other Pandigital devices out here).

With all due respect- with my personal experiences with Pandigital, the BDPN & the WPDN, I had decided I would NOT be purchasing (or recommending) another device from Pandigital.
However, after first noticing your membership, now viewing this thread and your expression of interest in the community input, you've re-captured my attention (at least for the moment).

Thank you for "listening".

[iyccyi]

To Spz0:

It is smooth as butter for me

[Spz0]

Really odd. I'll dig up my receipt and get an exchange. I'll report back on a separate thread so Im not railroading this one (sorry. )

*edit: if I press firmly, then it seems to register a little more stable, but that shouldnt be...
I've even tested with the hood up (case cracked open) to see if it was the battery causing problems, but nada.
I _am_ use to a capacitive screen, which requires little pressure, but I've had multiple resistives before and never had to press this firmly to achieve stability in my screen. o.0

This post has been edited by Spz0: 20 July 2011 - 10:26 PM

[redwizard6]

Welcome Jonathan and thanks for showing interest in our community. Good to see the manufacturer actively listening to the users. Hope you have thick skin and like Ponies!!