VIZIO VTAB1008-B 8" Refurbished Tablet

Pros: Plays downloaded movies well. Speakers are good.

Cons: This tablet is incredibly slow if it works at all. Trying to open apps takes forever and I have to attempt it multiple times. It'll just come up with a blank screen and then ask me to wait or force close. Connecting to the internet is just not worth it. I just spent 15 minutes trying to connect to a page (definitely the tablet because everything else on the wifi is fine).

Other Thoughts: If you just want a portable player it's ok if you download the files somewhere else. You want the full experience of a tablet then don't bother with this. Spend the extra 50 bucks for a better one.

Pros: Inexpensive.

Cons: Sluggish! Heavy. Freezes.

Other Thoughts: So sluggish that I can't tolerate it and am going to try to return it and get a refund. Really ridiculously unusable. They must vary though. The first one I got was refurbished and was ok, really fine for the price, but the plug for the power cord stopped working. So, replaced with a new (not refurbished) one and - it's so slow it's hard to use! Ugh.

Pros: Excellent application availability and great fetures on the device. Battery live was so-so depending on how much the display and radios were turned on. Excellent multi-touch responsiveness. (A screen protector significantly reduced the touch capabilities and had to be removed.)

Cons: The only real con I have is Vizio's warranty/customer support. My tablet quit charging after a time making it useful only as a paerweight. Vizio's request, albeit odd, was to send pictures of the device and how they were going to determine why it wouldn't charge from that is a little vague. Regardless, I was not told of any time restrictions and since it took me a while to get pictures and send them, that time had expired, so no warranty. Another fine case for zero eggs.

Other Thoughts: I did hear of other problems with charging and a friend who purchased a Vizio tablet encountered it within a month or two and didn't have any issues returning it, but for some reason, my tablet worked almost to the end of its warranty... good in most cases, but bad for me this time.

At least it will make for an interesting display when the kids dismantle it.

Pros: Great tablet for the price
Built-in IR remote control function is a great addition

Cons: Battery stopped holding a charge after just a few months

Pros: I bought 2 refurbished vtabs. I noticed that micro USB cable was not sitting properly in the tab port (the metal connector was not going in all the way and was moving from side to side too much). I read a lot of reviews about bad charging port and was worried that I would end up in same situation. What I did to avoid this issue was - I bought a half inch hard plastic washer at home depot, sliced about 2 millimeter piece from it and cut it in half. Cut it so that it would sit around the top part of metal connector (top part meaning - facing same way as the screen) and glued it to the plastic part of the connector (be careful so the glue does not leak inside the connector and wait until it fully dries up). This way I made the metal connector shorter so it would sit snuggly against the tab and also made the plastic part of it wider to prevent the connector from moving too much from side to side. I have the tabs for a year now without problems. Vizio could have added tons more happy customers if they made this minor adjustment to the USB cable. By-the-way - the tabs are of great quality otherwise and I definitely recommend them to all who don't want to spend too much money and still want to get a very good quality tab.

Cons: I feel that Vizio should have shown more action in resolving charging port problem. It appears that minor re-design of USB cable could have made a big difference for alot of frustrated users.

Pros: Cheap, worked OK for a while.

Cons: Died about 8 months after I bought it. It would continually cycle through the start up phase.

It is not supported by Visio any longer, so no fix available.

Other Thoughts: It worked fine, but it was slow and (as others have noted) would time out while playing videos occasionally.

My recommendation: not worth the money for somebody who wants a tablet to do serious work. Might be a nice toy for the kids, as long as you don't mind their cries of dismay once it ceases to function. If you have limited funds, there are much better tablets out there for a comparable price.

Pros: Flash horsepower: Don't know why it is so much better than my other tablets of similar horsepower at rendering Flash video, but I don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. Full-screen Flash from stingy websites like Viacom properties play like a dream in full-screen compared to my other devices. Was not expecting that from the CPU and RAM specs.

non-widescreen ratio: While only modestly larger than any 7" tablet, the 4:3 ratio makes it a lot easier-going for reading large-format books or comics anthologies. The screen is shaped like a page is supposed to be. It actually leads to LESS frustration while reading, despite the added weight of the physical device.

Cons: Weight: Too heavy. I know 8" tablets simply do not weigh in at 11 or 12-oz. like the lightest 7" tablets can, but even at a middle-of-the-road 1.2 lbs., I personally will not be using this as my preferred e-reader. (in bed).

Default launcher forbids Android widgets on your custom home screens. You can only add them to a dedicated widget "board", which you can then add to any home screen. The POINT of widgets is supposed to be one-touch action, but this software is organized to make any widget access a two-step drill-down process.

Other Thoughts: At $139/refurb'ed from Newegg, I'm extremely happy. There was a scratch on the back out of the box, so I'm glad I didn't gift it, but it was only for me. I have other tablets I prefer for extended use and consider my multi-purpose companions, but for certain applications as itemized above, those much-loved, lightweight devices don't really cut it.

I don't mind the old Android OS. IME, the newer the Android OS, the more the drag on the old hardware they typically load in these bargain tablets, before you tap your first icon. I haven't yet run into a roadblock because this isn't Ice Cream Sandwich.

Pros: Worked as a low cost tablet.
The IR remote built in was a nice addition and not found on even more expensive tablets.

Cons: - Battery no longer held a charge after about 6 months. Since it was a refurb, it was out of warranty by that point.
- Sub par performance for video watching. If you have lower res movies, this works fine, but it doesn't have the cpu horsepower to play higher quality HD content.
- If you don't use a custom rom (I didn't, I was running stock), the OS is a modified Vizio version and seems less optimized in a lot of ways from stock android.

Other Thoughts: Worked as a streaming device for pandora/music and the occasional movie...but not much else.

Pros: Setup simple
battery life good
Mostly works
Clear screen (except for scratch)
Android (Honeycomb, not upgradeable)
Solid build
Good quality, loud speakers

Cons: Apps launch very slowly. Time from tap to fully loaded is discouraging.

Video load time is long, connection times out frequently trying to play Youtube videos.

Skype connection is laggy, and misses words. I got this tablet for my sister who is stationed overseas and calls home with Skype. This won't do it.

Screen came with scratches on it. And yes, I know it's refurbished, so the wear and dents on the speaker grills is not an issue, but the screen clarity is essential in a tablet, so scratches are out.

Very slow - not sure if it's Honeycomb's fault or the hardware, but my experience with Ice Cream Sandwich on similar tablets lead me to believe this would work well.

Description states only "Android" for a reason. Vizio has given up on this model. It is Honeycomb, and you will not see an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich on this unit, so forget Ice Cream Sandwich.

Must hold tablet sideways to Skype, cannot seem to hold it to get camera angle right and see screen at the same time.

And yes, I tried resetting it to make sure the lag wasn't a software problem. This is just the way it is.

THE RETURN POLICY STATES YOU ARE STUCK WITH THIS IF YOU BUY IT. YOU CANNOT RETURN IT FOR A BETTER TABLET.

I cannot help but think there are no reviews for this thing yet because NewEgg doesn't want people to find out about this. I don't know if this review will see print.

I should've read CNET's August 2011 review of this tablet, which states it "isn't the thinnest, fastest, prettiest, cheapest, nor the most up-to-date tablet we've seen, and the viewing angles on its screen aren't great."

That about sums it up.

Other Thoughts: My Nook Color is faster than this thing, and cost less.

Pros: Works great, Great for the price

Cons: I had purchased this device in November. When I received it everything was good until I found out the audio was not working. I replaced it with an RMA and almost one month later, to the day, the audio on the replacement quit also. Its an error in the headphone jack. It will play sounds through the external speakers that are required, such as the sounds for emails and other notification sounds, but no music or movies.

Other Thoughts: I wish Newegg was more helpful in the process, it took a long time to get a straight answer. Almost a couple days and several almost-auto responses later I found out what I wanted.