Thursday, July 02, 2015

A New Toy

My sister sent me a brand new tablet. A Trio 7.8" Quad Core. Why? I guess she likes to buy things for people. I told her I'm not sure I'd use it that much. I would like something small to replace my laptop when we go to UCSF twice a year, but I'm not sure this would handle the few things I usually do with my laptop.

After checking things out, I see it might suffice. It's a pain in the neck getting started. I'm starting to figure it out. Main problem right now is I can't connect to anything. This comes with some free 5 month deal with T- Mobile, but I can't get finish the sign up procedure. It just freezes up. 

I don't have wifi yet so that's out unless I use someone else's. I'm connecting with the Matteoli's wifi connection from across the street, but the signal is weak and I don't have the password. If my bum nephew comes over today he'll show me how to get in. Other than that, I have another friend near the high school with wifi. Maybe I'll go over there in a bit.

This could be fun once I get all the kinks out and can use it. Be a lot easier to throw this in my duffle bag than taking the laptop, keyboard and every thing else I usually take with me to UCSF.

3 Comments:

At 10:37 AM, Blogger Julie Timmons said...

I will follow your progress with great interest. I just bought a new Imac because I didn't think I could reasonably manage a blog with a tablet although I don't do that much video . I'm stuck at home all day, car in the shop. It's like house arrest. Come on over if you need wifi.

 
At 10:41 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Ok. Thanx. I'm probably gonna head over to Annie's in a few. I can use hers, if she's home.

 
At 6:59 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Update: Hooked up to wifi without much effort at Annie's. One problem was I can't read most of the text on the tablet without reading glasses which I forgot to bring along. I was thinking of downloading at least one program once I accessed wifi but, since I couldn't see what I was doing, I cut things short.

My sister kept bugging me to do the free T Mobile thing since I wouldn't need wifi if I used that. I tried setting it up a few times and it didn't seem to work. When I got back from Annie's I sat down and tried in earnest. Spent at least 20 minutes the first time. I could never finish the process.

I'd either boot myself back to the home screen accidentally, or make typos on the form to sign up. Then I had a hard time trying to fix them. I was fit to be tied, actually yelling curse words. Not often I do that but I really got pissed.

I gave up for a while but couldn't stop. Thought maybe if I went out to the garage and took my time it might work. I carefully typed everything in, pressed continue and got a message they couldn't complete my request. Probably the 4th time I gotten that message after getting that far. I gave up again.

My sister kept bugging me to call T Mobile tech support. I finally did. I got an automated menu then was put on hold. I hung up.

My bum nephew came over. He's got his Samsung smart phone thing down pat. He asked to see the tablet and tried the T Mobile application. He quickly got to where I last was and got the same message: Unable to process...

He was not to be deterred. He called tech support and actually waited for a live person. He gets one and then gets put on hold again. Another one comes on the line(I'm standing nearby and can hear). She starts asking for all kinds of identity info for the tablet. Sim card number, and even the battery number.

He found the sim card number easily. He had to tell her the tablet wasn't something you could open up to get the battery number. He told her that at least twice. He finally found some other number she wanted deep inside the Settings. He gave her that. She said that was all she needed but it could take up to two hours for the activation process to finish. This after 20 minutes to half hour on the phone.

We went ahead and tried using it anyway and connected right away. Seems to work fine after all the original hassle. I looked into it and it actually is a "free" deal. 5gb or 5 months free, whichever comes first. After that, it's still free but they limit you to something like 2megs a month, or whatever. I'm not planning to use it much anyway.

I would never use that tablet for blogging or anything requiring a lot of typing, at least from my experience so far. Not too difficult to type a sentence or two once you get used to it, but more than that? Forget it.

The only browser it has, unless I'm missing something is Google Chrome. I'll trying using that. Next job is to see how hard it will be to import my bookmarks from this computer to the tablet.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home