The recorded videos from our live, open review with the SmartQ T last night are available and shown below. Ustream have put a pre-roll and ads on them but I guess they have to pay for 2 hours of 500kbps streaming somehow.

More info, videos, links for the SmartQ T7 in our tracking page.

Remember that this is a preview device and isn’t fitted with final firmware although it’s close and SmartDevices are constantly working on firmware upgrades. We have some issues we’ll take back to the reseller, HOTMID, so that they can talk to SmartDevices in China. Those issues include: (See UPDATE below)

• Adobe Reader very slow. Almost unusable.
• Unable to reset the device to remove private data and Google account
• Will the Market and Google apps be distributed?
• Stream audio fails on Last.fm and XiiaLive.
• USB OTG not working.
• Market only able to download one app. Further downloads fail to start.
• Video playback only works with H.264, will there be accelerated WMV, MPEG2 and Xvid support?
• 3G software unable to work with PIN-locked SIM cards.
• In high brightness settings with lots of colour on the screen, a slight flicker is seen in the backlight or LCD refresh
• Will there be a model with GPS?
• Cell Standby uses a lot of power when 3G is supposed to be of.

Update: From HOTMID.com we’ve just recieved this quick reply to feedback from our live testing: New firmware will be released before August 31st and will ‘solve’  Market and Google apps, USB OTG, Video playback, Cell Standby

On the positive side, we see good build quality for the price, a usable 600-wide portrait mode, excellent value 3G version, loud and clear speaker, good quality controls and a battery life in the 5hrs+ region. Actually we suspect there’s some improvement that could be made to the battery life as we’re seeing the 3G using battery while its supposed to be off.

Highlights on the applications we tested:

• Kindle (works very well used in 30 minute bedtime test!)
• Opera Mini (not shown in video produces significant browsing speed improvements)
• 720p H.264 playback worked
• NewsRob as offline Google Reader
• Acast as podcatcher.
• Google Maps and search for local information.
• 4-way auto ratate working.

Target audience:

Those looking for a very low-cost handheld 3G 7 inch internet tablet (the SmartQ T7 is unique in the sub $300 bracket) a flexible and cheap ereader with internet and multitasking, holiday device (location-based services work through Google’s location services if available on final firmware) a low-cost SD card reader for photographers. (TX files, edit and share very quickly.) Standard browsing is very slow but Opera Mini works well to improve basic browsing speeds. Works well as a social networking tablet. Works well as a bedside companion. Taxi drivers and truckers should check this out too!

The resistive touchscreen is going to put some people off for sure but for the price and target audience, we think you’ll get used to the resistive screen without any major issues.

I’m not going to call the SmartDevices SmartQ T7 an Android tablet because I think it comes in just under the bar in terms of being a flexible, fully-specified tablet but despite that, it has some legs.

I missed it in my round-up at UMPCPortal the other day and nearly ignored it again when Eletroworld emailed me about it; I assumed it was the SmartQ R7, the Ubuntu version running on a 600Mhz ARM11 CPU. The only thing that saved it from being just another Chinese tablet was the 3G option. It’s very rare to see that on a tablet and at $280, it’s a rare price too.

Unfortunately the T7 is still only running the Telechips ARM11-based CPU but this one is the 720Mhz version also found on the Smartbook Surfer which should be enough to drive mobile versions of websites. It’s got Android 2.1 and an 800×600 touchscreen with auto rotate. We don’t expect any Google Android apps or Market but with some side-loading of apps (see this article) it should be possible to fit this out with enough software to handle any ebook format. With a 600-wide screen we expect Google Reader (in the browser) and NewsRob to look great too.

On top of the basic Android build it looks like Smartdevices have used some of their video playback skills to enable 1080p and support of a wide range of formats. It’s got the correct Android buttons on the frame and a 17Wh battery in a weight of 430gm, it could make a good value holidaying or e-reading product.

Eletroworld have offered us a loaner and we’re expecting to get this on the operating table, live, as soon as it turns up. Expected around 20th August.

Latest specifications and links for the T7 are in our database. The price for the non-3G version is $230 and also note that the 3G version doesn’t include the BT module found on the base model.