Scroll 7″ Storage Options Tablet Device – Review and Advice
Is it it worth a punt?
The answer to that question is do you have the time and patience?
I recently bought one of these devices off ebay for £51 including P&P
This review comes in 3 parts.
On start up I was pretty suprised at how well it worked, that is until I decided to try and download an app from android.marketplace.
Be aware this device doesn’t have this facility from the get go.
It’s also only Android 2.1 with no future dates for updating to 2.2 – investigate before you buy and decide if it’s worth it.
Some apps will not work on 2.1 – and think hard about the future.
It takes some work – see part 3 below.
Also I found scrolling on the device pretty difficult(ironic seeing as it’s called the ‘scroll’).
You’ll find yourselves opening items that you don’t want to.
But those problems aside here is the cool part and what makes the Scroll worth the dosh:
Part 1: Out of the Box
1. Kindle App – if you can get it downloaded you’ll be able to turn the scroll into a cheap kindle with access to all of Amazons books available in the kindle store. (free classics) – you can download from slide.me an app already installed on the device.
2. PDF viewer – If you’ve got a google docs account you can save all your pdfs and view them online.
3. Browser – Works well and with the device being wifi means you’ve got access to the web and networking.
4. Email – Really easy to setup – sync from your gmail account.
5. Calendar – As with email.
6. Contacts – Again as with email but be aware there is no app to see them! That said you can use the search facility to enter a name and the contact details with appear. (took me a few days to figure that one out)
7. Networking – If you can get apps downloaded there are some very cool ones that allow access to other pc’s allowing printing, sharing, streaming and remote control – see part 2 – Printing
Accessing more:
To get apps on your device you can side load them – this is where you plug your Tablet into your pc and download straight from the internet and copy the files to your device.
(See Side Loading Files) [ref] Side loading files is a process where you can download apps direct from the interent to pc and then over to tablet.
The Android tablet has an installation file called a n .apk file – this you will need to search for(google is thy friend)
Also there are some websites that allow you to download to pc to sideload:
Pocketgear and Slide.Me
Just download file to folder you can access – usually called downloads(huh!)
Now plug in your tablet use cable into pc -the socket on the Scroll is next to the charger socket and is called USB
using host won’t work. (sorry but that’s what I tried!)
Next you’ll hear the Scroll beep – you need to mount the Scroll device.
If you look at the top of the Scroll there is a grey bar that stretches across the screen,
it has battery and time on the right hand side.
If you grab the bar by pressing you finger down on it and then drag it to bottom of screen
this will open up your notifications.
It will now say USB connected(Internal) and USB connected(External)
Underneath each instance it will say ‘Select to copy files from your computer’
Choose which one you want to transfer to.
To keep things simple we are going to cop our file to the nand directory on the internal storage.
Press below USB connected(Internal) ‘Select to copy files from your computer’
It will now ask you Mount. Press that button.
An AutoPlay popup will now appear on your PC. Open to view folders. Keep window open.
Now goto where you downloaded .apk file copy file(ctrl c) and paste to tablet folder.
DO NOT UNPLUG YET!
Go to tablet and drag notification down again it is not already in that state.
USB connected(Internal) Select to turn off USB storage – press and press Turn Off button.
Next look for grey TAB at bottom of screen that opens application list.
Look for App Installer – open that and it will scan your folders.
Hopefully the app you copied over will now be there. Press and it should install.
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Part 2 – Cool Stuff! – *Installed after Rooting see part 3
(note) You’ll need to read instructions on how to setup each item. This article is just a quick run through of what you can do and where to get files.
Record Sky* – if you’ve got SKY+ you can get access to your sky recorder with a couple of apps, if you’ve got marketplace working search Sky+ and find the free app – I have it working at the moment and it’s very cool.
Control Windows Media player – I have pc in my office but it’s audio output is wired to my stereo in my front room – my house being open plan means I can control my media player from the kitchen.
You’ll need WMP remote for android and HomeMedia for the pc.
Printing* – This was a hard one to do – All my files for lessons are saved as jpg – (TABs and Chord sheets) – these are hosted on my pc so I needed access to them.
1st Option Remote Access of PC:[ref] You’ll need androidVNC for Tablet and TightVNC for PC – this way you can access files and print remotely.[/ref]
2nd Option Print from Android:[ref] The previous option was a bit like trying to paint through a letter box and quite slow but worked –
Even so I wanted something a bit quicker.
You’ll need a Dropbox account , Dropbox for Android and Sync Folder+Wolshon’sAccount for Dropbox
This is convoluted and uses space on your SDCard – when you setup sync state which folder you want to sync
and also you’ll need to point to sdcard/Dropbox folder.
This now means that you’re files on your pc are setup to sync with you wherever you go.
To print – to your printer from anywhere – you’ll need Filelinx for android and Filelinx for PC
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Control Your DAW – TouchDAW – Control surface emulation & MIDI tools. Works directly with native MIDI drivers.TouchDAW is a full-featured DAW control and general purpose MIDI control app. It allows you to tweak a large set of parameters in popular digital audio applications as accessible through standard hardware control surfaces.
You’ll need drivers for your DAW – http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/rtpMIDI.html
Of course these are just a few nice little additions and there are many more but for the cost of a couple of pounds each I now have some serious power in my tablet.
Some other apps that I like are:
OurGroceries*which is a program that syncs to my Blackberry over the web.
Taskos which syncs my Google Tasks
Part 3. – Serious hacking and getting Marketplace to work.
To get the most from the Scroll I had to go through some serious processes.
Do not do this unless you are desperate, the Scroll has it’s limitations but for £50 what do you want?
I’m going to list these in the order I installed. This fixed the marketplace problem and made my device faster.
I take no responsibilty for your decisions from now on in.
Market Fix for Android 2.1 – This fixed the downloading problem for some apps but not all – it did however give me an Android id for marketplace.
Rooting and Slimming Down – After I did this the Android became faster it also made marketplace work better allowing me to install lot’s more software including SKY+ – be aware though this buggers up youtube – there is a fix though on the same link.
Well that’s everything feels like I just emptied my brain.
Time for a coffee.
Hope some of this nonsense helps – sorry no screen shots – maybe I’ll come back later!
Maybe not.
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