In Use (continued):

In addition to a web browser, there are other Internet based apps to use with the WebStation. Email is fairly straightforward, with a simple and fairly familiar interface for sending and receiving mail. Whether you use a typical provider like Gmail, or you host your own domain, you should be able to configure the WebStation with ease. Then the only issue becomes effectively typing messages with a touchscreen.

There are other ways to communicate with the WebStation, including fring's VoIP application, and a handful of instant messaging applications available for download. While it would be nice to see a unified instant messaging program, like Pidgin, there are stand alone interfaces for popular services like MSN, Yahoo, and AIM. The image below shows the AIM application in action.



Mutlimedia enjoyment is a mixed bag on the WebStation. Music can be played back just fine over the internal speakers or by using headphones. You have to get all your digital music files on to the 8GB SDHC card, and I initially assumed I could connect the WebStation to my PC via USB and simply drag them over. While it seemed I was on the verge of making that happen, Windows 7 Professional couldn't identify the Android device attached, and I had no such luck. (even after trying some unrelated Android USB drivers found elsewhere).

Photo viewing is made simple through the WebStation's "Gallery". The screen is well suited to static images, and you can rotate the screen to have things display in portrait or landscape mode to best suit the image being viewed. The image below shows the main interface of the Gallery, where files are sorted by "All" and "Downloaded". For this test, all were downloaded, as otherwise it meant pulling the SDHC card to load them up elsewhere since I could not transfer to the device via USB.



That leaves video for discussion when it comes to multimedia. Unfortunately there isn't much to discuss. Without Flash you can't enjoy much of what is on the web, and the only formats that are supported are 3GP and MPEG4. I took me a few tries to encode a MPEG4 movie using an acceptable CODEC to actually get something to show, but it wasn't worth watching due to choppy playback. Camangi even includes a movie on the SDHC card as a demo of the device, and you would think they'd do their best to make it look good. Maybe they did, but it still stuttered and lagged. The 7" widescreen seems like video should be a perfect fit on the WebStation, but unfortunately it just isn't the case.

Another issue "in use" with the WebStation was related to the claim that there is a GPS module installed (according to the official list of features and specifications). While I can't prove there isn't one in there at this time, I also can't prove that there is one installed. It isn't listed on any settings page within the device's operating system, and there is no software to make use of a GPS, either pre-installed or available from the Camangi Marketplace.

Overall, the device worked smoothly, although not always as quickly as you might expect. The only other issue I experienced was related to waking the device from its sleep mode. The device will go to sleep to conserve energy after a fixed amount of time, or via a quick tap on the power button, and in general all it should take is two taps of the menu button to wake it back up. Several times so far this has not worked, and thanks to another blog I learned that the trick is to press the reset button with the stylus and then press the power button in order to reboot the device.

Battery life is rated as 4-5 hours with multimedia and Internet usage. I found this to be fairly accurate, as I could surf the web for just over 4 hours before the battery started getting low enough that I'd want to consider recharging. I never let it run all the way down, but since I eclipsed the specified 4-hour mark I was satisfied. I'd obviously be more satisfied with more battery life, as 4-5 hours isn't an overly impressive amount of time. But, if you turn off WiFi, you should be able to go longer for activities like reading an eBook.