Eclair 2.1 is best on Scroll 7" Original
Posted: February 20th, 2012, 10:46 amHi all,
After playing with Android for 2 years and having my Scroll 7" resistive since it's UK release I'm going to claim that the Android 2.1 that comes with the tablet is indeed the best option for this tablet.
I know many of you would have read Scroll's reasoning for not upgrading the tablet on their own site and not be convinced with that statement.
Having tried many of the other options, hacks and tweaks, I would really like to offer my opinion that once I put the stock Scroll Android 2.1 back on my platform, it performs much better than the rest.
The 2 biggest problems I find is lack of drivers and available RAM on other operating systems.
Eclair (2.1) being quite old lacks some features but it's also not that resource hungry. On average I have about 86MB of Scroll RAM left over.
With FroYo (2.2) and GingerBread (2.3) I see the RAM fluctuate much more.
Now, using almost all of your RAM is not actually a bad thing if the operating system has got it right.
The RAM is not going to be filled with garbage. It's going to be filled with the cached file system, recently opened applications and background services. All make for a better "instant" experience.
So, the more advanced memory management for 2.2 and 2.3 are a good thing but not with the limited amount of RAM in the Scroll.
Hardware drivers....
The Scroll is next to useless without camera, hardware accelerated video and ports. You may limp along for a few months like I but in the end, you have half the tablet you originally purchased.
I'll give you the most recent example.
2 weeks ago I took my young family to Orlando.
On the drive to Gatwick airport, the Scroll was attached to the headrest of the car and provided 1.5 hours of "In the night garden" video to my 2 year old. Parents will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Whilst waiting in departures, the Scroll was used to browse the web by myself until the battery died.
When we got on the plane, we had the disadvantage of flying with Delta who still operate a 1980's style single big screen on the cabin wall. The movies are impossible to see for a 2 year old and also inappropriate.
Out came the scroll again, attached to the headrest of the seat in front and plugged into a "New Trent 6600mAh" USB power supply. Great, another 8 hours of entertainment for the 2 year old watching "Ice Age", "Ants" and some more of her favourite "In the night garden"
And finally, we get to our Orlando room and I plug the Scroll mini-HDMI into the Marriott LG screen and we have all those programs and movies available to play on the big screen in full acceleration mode. 32 gig's of bliss.
How can I ask more of my little Scroll.
So, a big thank you to Scroll for joing this forum, providing a great and cheap alternative to the iPad and giving me a great user experience.
For those of you out there tempted to delete APK's, flash CyanogenMod or mod the hardware, it's honestly not worth it. It's nice to play but in the end it's not the best solution and breaks more than it fixes.
Perhaps the best you can do is root the Scroll and add back some services that are missing like sshd, Android Market or a good file sharing stack.
Android Market is a big issue for me because my Scroll came with a sicker telling me all about the G-sensor, 1080P, 2GB of flash memory and "Android Market Compatible"
Legally, Scroll would have to honour the market license or refund the product costs, inside or outside warranty but I'm not complaining if I can get Market working myself using my own Eclair 2.1 AndroidID. There is no possible customer relations excuse when a product is advertised with a feature that it does not deliver on. "Fit for use" applies.
But Market is working on my Scroll and I have all the access I need.
My only niggle is GoogleTalk does not work. So for example, if I log into to Android Marketplace on the web and select to install an app on my Scroll, it never appears on the scroll in the downloads section. Anyone know how to fix this?
Other than that, all great and thanks to this forum for providing my with an interesting 18 months of playing.
Regards,
TonyMac.
After playing with Android for 2 years and having my Scroll 7" resistive since it's UK release I'm going to claim that the Android 2.1 that comes with the tablet is indeed the best option for this tablet.
I know many of you would have read Scroll's reasoning for not upgrading the tablet on their own site and not be convinced with that statement.
Having tried many of the other options, hacks and tweaks, I would really like to offer my opinion that once I put the stock Scroll Android 2.1 back on my platform, it performs much better than the rest.
The 2 biggest problems I find is lack of drivers and available RAM on other operating systems.
Eclair (2.1) being quite old lacks some features but it's also not that resource hungry. On average I have about 86MB of Scroll RAM left over.
With FroYo (2.2) and GingerBread (2.3) I see the RAM fluctuate much more.
Now, using almost all of your RAM is not actually a bad thing if the operating system has got it right.
The RAM is not going to be filled with garbage. It's going to be filled with the cached file system, recently opened applications and background services. All make for a better "instant" experience.
So, the more advanced memory management for 2.2 and 2.3 are a good thing but not with the limited amount of RAM in the Scroll.
Hardware drivers....
The Scroll is next to useless without camera, hardware accelerated video and ports. You may limp along for a few months like I but in the end, you have half the tablet you originally purchased.
I'll give you the most recent example.
2 weeks ago I took my young family to Orlando.
On the drive to Gatwick airport, the Scroll was attached to the headrest of the car and provided 1.5 hours of "In the night garden" video to my 2 year old. Parents will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Whilst waiting in departures, the Scroll was used to browse the web by myself until the battery died.
When we got on the plane, we had the disadvantage of flying with Delta who still operate a 1980's style single big screen on the cabin wall. The movies are impossible to see for a 2 year old and also inappropriate.
Out came the scroll again, attached to the headrest of the seat in front and plugged into a "New Trent 6600mAh" USB power supply. Great, another 8 hours of entertainment for the 2 year old watching "Ice Age", "Ants" and some more of her favourite "In the night garden"
And finally, we get to our Orlando room and I plug the Scroll mini-HDMI into the Marriott LG screen and we have all those programs and movies available to play on the big screen in full acceleration mode. 32 gig's of bliss.
How can I ask more of my little Scroll.
So, a big thank you to Scroll for joing this forum, providing a great and cheap alternative to the iPad and giving me a great user experience.
For those of you out there tempted to delete APK's, flash CyanogenMod or mod the hardware, it's honestly not worth it. It's nice to play but in the end it's not the best solution and breaks more than it fixes.
Perhaps the best you can do is root the Scroll and add back some services that are missing like sshd, Android Market or a good file sharing stack.
Android Market is a big issue for me because my Scroll came with a sicker telling me all about the G-sensor, 1080P, 2GB of flash memory and "Android Market Compatible"
Legally, Scroll would have to honour the market license or refund the product costs, inside or outside warranty but I'm not complaining if I can get Market working myself using my own Eclair 2.1 AndroidID. There is no possible customer relations excuse when a product is advertised with a feature that it does not deliver on. "Fit for use" applies.
But Market is working on my Scroll and I have all the access I need.
My only niggle is GoogleTalk does not work. So for example, if I log into to Android Marketplace on the web and select to install an app on my Scroll, it never appears on the scroll in the downloads section. Anyone know how to fix this?
Other than that, all great and thanks to this forum for providing my with an interesting 18 months of playing.
Regards,
TonyMac.
