Product Review: ViewSonic ViewBook 730

The ViewBook 730 from Viewsonic is a great tablet with eReader, app store, video player and much more in a fully featured but inexpensive tablet device.

Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25

Look & Feel: 22/25

Features 22/25

How much I enjoy 23/25

Total: 90/100

Operates on Android 2.2, Flash 10.1 and 802.11 b/g network capable with 8 GB internal memory and an SD Card slot allowing for an additional 32 GB of memory. Not too shabby for some basic features and specifications but all these numbers and listings for devices does not amount to much when you get down to performance.

The ViewSonic ViewBook 730 is the third tablet I have received for reviewing and I have to say that it is shaping up to be a much better tablet than the Nextbook offerings. Tablets using Android are not that old in comparison to other Android devices like smartphones and their history is a short one so problems are inevitable.

The ViewBook 730 is billed as an eReader tablet but it does run on Android 2.2 which also allows Flash based video which is a main feature for android tablets. The eReader works well but the other features like apps and video are much more important and of course any problems with the device.

The ViewBook 730 has a 1GHz single core processor under the hood along with 512 MB of memory and 8 GB of internal storage but you can add a micro SD card for up to 32 GB of additional storage. The 7 inch touch screen is a resistive type which is a less expensive screen compared to capacitive types but good enough for a responsive touch device.

The screen is large enough to be comfortable for reading and viewing videos while not quite large enough to enjoy movies but you can watch them while traveling or on the go. You really can watch full length films but it does require transferring the movie file to a micro SD Card for playback.

You also have to transfer the movie file into a file format the player can use such as H264, MPEG4 or MPEG2 but this is relatively easy with programs like Slysoft’s CloneDVDMobile, you can find other programs online that will work as well. The transfer looks great and even sounds great in full surround sound when connected to a speaker system like my Logitech Z5500 but stereo headphones and speakers also work.

Audio is also nice and with apps to view videos and listen to music the ViewBook 730 does make a very nice entertainment device but can be handy for other uses. On the go productivity like checking email and doing some quick writing is possible but not exactly all that handy for business or daily work use.

The main problem with the device is being able to sync emails, projects like presentations and other documents with other devices so you can continue to work on them. If you want to transfer files like emails from the ViewBook 730 to a computer it is as easy as connecting the USB connection and copy pasting the saved documents you want.

Files like Microsoft Office documents can be synced and instantly transferred from a portable device running a mobile Office or in conjunction with cloud based programs like Google Docs easily. But with the ViewBook it may take a few steps and setting things up can be a bit confusing, this is why tablets are not very business useful.

You can go through steps like getting your emails forwarded to a Gmail account but the main problem here is you have to set things up with various programs and apps. Business users are still left out in the cold when it comes to easily transferring or syncing your data from one device and tablets.

With things like not easily opening mail and documents across different devices use of a tablet for business users and day to day work is probably out of the question for most business users. I would have a hard time relying on a tablet to read mail and then have to spend minutes every time I wanted to sync or transfer my emails from the tablet to my desktop.

Apps have come a long way in a short time and you can get a lot of helpful and useful ones but along with tablets in general the apps to use them are relatively new. It will take time before tablets and the apps that go along with them mature enough to make business and work productivity useful with a tablet.

The ViewBook 730 does make a great entertainment device and apps like email, games and general internet surfing work just fine, I really had no problems that uninstalling bad apps didn’t solve. I did try to install Googles app market on it and had to perform a factory reset but things went just fine after the reset and this was the only real error I had.

The ViewSonic ViewBook 730 has performed well for all my entertainment and general web surfing so a recommendation is pretty easy. The ViewSonic ViewBook 730 is a great eReader and tablet with plenty of choices for apps that work well from the Amazon App Store.

You also have plenty of entertainment options with full Flash video support and movie playing for H264, MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 so movies and videos are available for fun and entertainment. Connecting to your PC or devices like speakers is rather easy with built in Bluetooth as well as the 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi wireless.

The ViewBook has some pretty impressive specs that work well for this tablet and it does come with all the basics like power adapter, USB cable and I especially like the stylus. The ViewSonic ViewBook 730 is an impressive tablet at the lower price range and it does have a lot going for it even if you can’t do some things like watching Hulu.

The ViewSonic ViewBook 730 is a great tablet and well worth the cost of only $230 or so from the internet, check out the ViewBook 730 at the ViewSonic website.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *