I'm severely disappointed

[number13]

Received my Extreme this morning from eBuyer and left it charging all day so that I could ensure I didn't mess the battery up.

Was a bit alarmed that the box's shrinkwrap was not sealed (but loosely wrapped around it, as if it'd been opened) and there was an existing wi-fi connection listed which definitely wasn't anything to do with me. Was someone's name, too, not even a generic "factory 1" or something similar.

So, having noticed that, I thought I'd start off with a factory reset, just to make sure there was nothing problematic needing flushed away.

First impressions seemed good. The screen is gorgeous and the viewing angles are superb. The tablet itself feels nicely weighted and aesthetically feels like a more expensive model than the £180 it actually costs.

However, that was about the end of the love affair. I encountered three deal-breakers (for me) which mean I've already contacted eBuyer to request a refund;

1) The wi-fi connection will not stay up. It wouldn't seem to go more than five or ten minutes at a time without vanishing. Not from idleness either - often when in the middle of attempting to browse (I'll come on to that) or on the Google Play store. None of my other devices have any problems with my router, and I even tried sitting right next to it and connecting my old router (which had been gathering dust in the cupboard) to see if it was a router communication issue of some kind. No joy. Pretty much a killer right from the get go, really.

2) Web browsing is chronic. I'm on a fibre line, so my speed is not an issue. The responsiveness of the Scroll Extreme, however, was. Even the most basic of sites was lagging like crazy and giving "the browser has not responded" style pop-up boxes something like twice a minute. Again, I was not browsing anything particularly intensive - more just idly wandering. Even Wiki, for goodness sake, was barely capable of response. I tried downloading Dolphin and Opera, but both had the same issue. Opera was a little less frequent in the lag stakes, but still pretty damn bad.

3) The last straw was streaming performance. I'm a big fan of Netflix and it was, in fact, one of the reasons I wanted a tablet in the first place - being able to use it wherever in the house I was appealed massively. So downloaded the app, it all seemed good - picture quality was superb (when the wifi stayed connected), however the videos would not play more than a few minutes without then completely stopping. The app itself didn't crash - I could hit 'back' and go back to the program selection. It's just that the video would completely stop dead, not even a 'buffering' - generally the picture stops first, with the audio carrying on for a few seconds before stopping too.

So has anyone else experienced these problems?

I've tried to raise an RMA with eBuyer this evening, however it's telling me I need to call their tech support line first. I have this horrible feeling I'm going to be stuck with a £180 paperweight because they'll completely disown my issues.

I'm pretty gutted, as I've been dying to get my hands on my Extreme since they were first announced months ago.

[wantefc]

The wifi issue you mention is a fault....ive had 2 extremes and never one lost connection.
Web browsing is ok ...ive not really had a problem.
But the dealbreaker for me was the streaming ....your netflix behaved the same as mine..complete stop after a few minutes.
Also anything else i streamed would go glitchy and unwatchable after a few mins.
My 1st i sent back because of the buzzing speaker....ive now given up and returned my 2nd with the 7 day return rule as its not doing what i bought it for....ive no complaints about ebuyers customer service though.

[Topman]

Do you have the same streaming problems on YouTube?

[number13]

On YouTube it was more like it was continually playing catch up. The audio would get ahead of the video, then stop, then the video would randomly speed up until it caught the audio, then it would work ok for a few seconds, then repeat...

[Topman]

First you must sort out your WiFi connection. Try when close to your WiFi router, restart the tablet and see if it still drops.

[cantisque]

Generally the WiFi is pretty good. Netflix I think doesn't work properly anyway according to some people, but you can't return the unit because it won't do something it wasn't advertised to do .
Would have to be returned with faulty WiFi, but you need to confirm whether it's the device at fault or your wireless network otherwise they will just send you back the same unit if they cannot replicate the fault.

[Mitre]

download wifi analyzer from play(crapname) then seehow many other routers are overlapping your signal if its crowded change the channel on your router http//192.168.?.? password usually admin admin
you will have to check that it has not dropped any of your other devices

[number13]

First you must sort out your WiFi connection. Try when close to your WiFi router, restart the tablet and see if it still drops.

As stated in my original post, I've tried with two different routers. No other devices have this problem.

I've got a tech support background, albeit a fair while ago now, so I'm not a total luddite. I've tried changing channels on the router(s), I've ensured nothing else is accessing, tried DHCP and fixed IPs.

[number13]

Generally the WiFi is pretty good. Netflix I think doesn't work properly anyway according to some people, but you can't return the unit because it won't do something it wasn't advertised to do .
Would have to be returned with faulty WiFi, but you need to confirm whether it's the device at fault or your wireless network otherwise they will just send you back the same unit if they cannot replicate the fault.

I know it wasn't advertised to specifically work with Netflix, but it was certainly (I'd say) advertised to actually work with basic internet browsing without ridiculous amounts of lag and crashing, the wifi problem notwithstanding.

[cantisque]

Basic browsing seems to work fine. Perhaps it's the WiFi issues that are causing the browsing to be slow? Or an underlying issue with your device? It wouldn't surprise me, considering the fault rate on these units seems to be pretty high.