Avatar Android Laptop 13.3" display White AVRA-138A1

This notebook gets a bad rep from folks who don't understand what they're buying and/or aren't familiar with the Android OS.

I came into the purchase (from another site, not Amazon unfortunately) with full knowledge that Android was a whole new world for me to get accustomed to. I was previously a Mac user, but had plenty of Windows experience (unavoidable if you grew up in the '90s/aughties) and used a Mac PowerPC G5 at home. That Mac G5 was disconnected from internet duties from about 2007-2012, and when reconnected, needed a new OS...so I installed Linux MintPPC, and had a generally positive experience once I got over the learning curve of installing Linux on a PowerPC. So since Android is an offshoot of Linux, I figured I'd give this notebook a spin.

I'm a freelance writer outside my full-time day job, so I wanted this primarily to write on Wordpress. Once I figured out I should definitely download the Wordpress App from the Google Play Store, it worked like a charm. Trying to do Wordpress entries via the available browsers (either the generic Android "Browser" app or via Google's Chrome app...haven't tried any others yet) was tedious and frustrating.

Browsing in-general can be tedious and frustrating sometimes. If you're moving within a given webpage, you're probably going to get decent speed, but moving from one web URL to the next can be slow and generates a lot of "Chrome is not responding. Would you like to close it?" messages. I usually select "Wait," and almost as soon as I click it, the logjam breaks loose for whatever reason. Someone suggested I try Opera for Android, which I think I'll try soon.

Otherwise, this machine came loaded with Kingsoft Office, which is handy for general writing and note-taking duties and can also handle spreadsheets-but I mostly use Google Drive since Google documents don't use any space from my Drive account allotment, and I can access them on any internet-connected machine including my old Mac desktop. Cloud computing has its advantages, it turns out.

I plan to try using this laptop to stream YouTube videos and possibly Netflix (if I can get the proper app for it) to our living room TV. When viewing video on the YouTube app, even 1080 HD streams smoothly in full-screen mode. This is the kind of work Allwinner SOCs-the guts of these machines-were made for.

So overall I give it four out of five stars. I wasn't expecting a great gaming machine (it isn't...mostly because it doesn't have touchscreen or gyro capabilities) or a perfect web-browsing machine (it isn't, for reasons outlined above), but as a productivity enhancer that I can use while on the go, it fits the bill as well as any full-fledged laptop costing four or five times as much, and its small form factor-just slightly larger than an early MacBook Air-makes it supremely portable.

One last thing: The company-Avatar-is incredible to work with. My power supply crapped out on me after a couple months of ownership, and they expeditiously arranged for an RMA and sent me a new one. They also gave me instructions (and a link!) on how to wipe the Android OS and start from scratch when I inquired about possibly installing a more conventional Linux distro on the machine. All I had to do was ask. That was pretty cool of them. I'm currently looking at buying a compact desktop PC from them that comes loaded with Ubuntu 12.10 because I like the service they've given me so far, and the value in my estimation is unbeatable.

I bought this product for my dad for Christmas. I was trying to show him how to use the internet but it closes the browser every time you try to use it. It seems like it's on a timer to close the browser and I don't know how to change it. The manual sent with the book does not discuss this, it may be an easy fix but I don't know how to change it. There are no other reviews or information online, therefore, currenlty it's unless.

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This is a fine purchase for someone that is on a budget and is looking for email and enternet however out of the box not very user friendly unless u are a smartphone user and know your way around ICS. After finding the Google app store(would have been nice to see this app on the desktop on first boot along with a welcome tutorial for the launcher they use) I was surprised to see many apps unavailable to this device in the google play store. no chrome?? I highly recommend sideloading chrome because the default browser isn't compatible with some websites. The os seems to overload and throw up insert app name is not responding,wait,report or close boxes perhaps ICS is to much or soon there will be a software update?

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