First, let me start with this:

Whenever I visit the shops, my trip usually goes like so: What I came for --> Tech shops --> Food or home.

Since I get so much hands-on with gadgets, I think I might as well do some reviewing. They'll be rather short and probably not too extensive, but, I think, they'll cover the important bits. So, off I go!

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Specs:

• Underclocked 768MHz Snapdragon processor
• 512MB RAM
• 7-inch resistive touchscreen display at 800x480
• Kickstand
• 2MP rear camera, Unknown MP camera on front (probably 0.7 or 1.3)
• SD card slot with 2GB card standard
• Telstra NextG support, GSM 850MHz (supports EDGE and AT&T 3G)
• Wi-Fi b/g
• Bluetooth
• GPS reciever
• Android 2.1 with a Telstra custom UI

Availability:

On Telstra for AU$299, or US$295, with a prepaid SIM and 3GB data.

Review:

Simply put, the Telstra T-Touch Tab is one of the worst devices I've ever had the displeasure of using. It's sub-par hardware combined with it's even worse software makes for a bad experience.

Hardware:

In general, the Tab has a fairly low build quality. It's mainly plastic, with a plastic back, front, even the screen. Because of this, the weight is a mystery to me.

The tablet weighs 500g, which, compared with the iPad's 730g, sounds reasonable, until you remember that it's less than half the size. This makes it heavy when it's compared to an iPad, despite the weight. As another comparison, the similar-sized Galaxy Tab weighs only 350g. The tablet does not feel nice in the hands.

The buttons are situated on either side, and are deceptively physical. It took me a few moments to realise that simply tapping them would not suffice. The actual button is hidden under a layer of false brushed metal to make it perfectly flush, being seen only with it's icon. Considering that, on most devices, this means the buttons are not actually buttons, but capacitative, the intuition I got was to tap them rather than press them. This design will, I think, do nothing to help the device's popularity. As stated above, also, they are situated on either side, with the standard Android keys (sans search) on the left, and three others, call, hang up, and select, on the right. The redundant call and hang up buttons are ones I have found nothing but annoyances on most touch-based phones, as you usually have a phone button on the home screen, and hanging up is always possible on-screen too. But I can see the point of them on the T-Touch Tab, which I'll go into in more detail in the software section.

The kickstand, as opposed to the kickstand of the EVO, or the HD7, is massive. It's a U-shaped strip of metal running from end to end of the device on the back. The kickstand adds more weight and could easily have been handled better. I wasn't able to test the functionality, however, because it was actually taped on to the device I was using. Also, the device was secured to a stand.

The screen also leaves more to be desired. Compared to the iPhone 4's high-density display, the Nokia N8's polarised AMOLED screen, the Super AMOLED of the Samsung Galaxy S, or even the relatively low-density LCD on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the screen of the T-Touch Tab is pitiful. It has a 800x480 screen, compared to the Galaxy Tab's (same sized) 1024x600 screen. The screen is, while approximately three times the size, the same resolution as the HTC Desire, Galaxy S, and most 3.7 to 4.3 inch phones. The lower resolution is noticable, certainly, and really lowers the quality. But that's not the main problem. The main problem is the colours. The screen looks very washed out. Every colour looks too light. It could be because of the plastic screen, but I doubt it. It seems to be just a bad quality screen.

The best thing I can say about the hardware: The 7-inch form factor is a good one. This was my first experience of a device this size, and, contrary to Steve Jobs' espousal, it works. I quite like the size of the screen. It's good for portability, it's big enough that it's more useful than a phone.

Software:

The T-Touch Tab is running a heavily skinned version of Android 2.1. The skin is very strange. It manages to optimise the OS for a tablet, albeit badly, while also removing most of the familiar Android functions.

The biggest change is the notifications. In Android, when you pull down from the top of the screen, a sort of 'curtain' drops down with your notifications on it. On the T-Touch Tab, the notifications are opened by tapping an 'i' button in the top right corner. This button only comes up when there's new notifications, and as far as I know, the notifications don't show up in the bar. The top bar has the normal right-side info, such as battery, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, etc. It also contains a totally redundant back button, which is right next to the physical back button. The notification bar is at least twice the size of the regular one, and takes up screen space, quite a lot of it, too, because it is landscape by default.

The home screen, too, is quite skinned. Instead of 5 homescreens with very little on them, the T-Touch has some homescreens with custom widgets, and preset icons, and one blank screen. They are navigated not through swiping, but by pressing buttons, labelled "Home", "Entertainment" "Web", "Communications" and "Favourites". Favourites is blank, and the rest are full of icons, useless added widgets, and stock widgets that were cut off oddly. I found the swiping to be laggy, perhaps explaining the implementations to stop people doing it, but, I think, if people know Android at all, they'll swipe.

The browser is unchanged. This is odd, because the extra screen real estate is a good reason to make the browsing experience easier, with tabs, back-forward, refresh buttons, etc. The unchanged browser puts it at a disadvantage, and makes it harder to use. The browser was probably the most important modification they could have made, and it's odd that they didn't. The other big non-change is the keyboard. This is an even bigger problem. The keyboard is stock Android, which is already critisised, and it isn't helped by the stretching, and especially the resistive touchscreen. The hard pressing required (no stylus is included) pretty much prevents fast typing. The keyboard is a pain to type on.

As I said earlier, the physical call/hang up keys work on this device. This is because, for some reason I cannot fathom, they didn't skin the phone app. To answer a phone call in Android, you need to drag a slider along from the left to the very right, which, on this landscape screen, is over 5 inches. I was having trouble dragging my finger along to switch homescreens, so answering calls with the slider would be, I imagine, difficult at best.

Overall

The T-Touch Tab is a device that combines bad hardware with bogged-down software for the worst user experience possible. If this was the first experience I had of Android, my opinion of the platform would be significantly lowered, especially with two WinPho devices sitting next to me, blazingly fast. I would not recommend this tablet to anyone, ever. If you want an Android tablet on the cheap, I'd recommend the Nook colour over this. Really, don't get it.

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Well, that's that. Next, I think, either a WinPho or the Nokia N8.

Rav