Did I get a lemon?
March 24, 2017 7:31 AM Subscribe
I have 13 days to return a tablet I got, should I?
I got an LG GPAD 3, on promotion. I like it because it's relatively light (compared to other budget Android devices). So far, 1) it didn't turn on normally. Tech people told me I had to press the volume down + power key to "reset" the software. Ok... 2) Out of nowhere, the screen went black and white (but casted in colour via Chromecast). Checked accessibility, that was where it should be, checked another thing that might have caused it (forget what now), wasn't that. Factory reset fixed it.
But that's one too many shenanigans for a day and a half, imo - should I just swap it for another unit, or are these things within the range of expected occurences?
(If I go with another model, that's more than I want to pay/month. Really just got this because my HP had to go back for repairs & I wanted a temporary computing solution that might be ok with the Amazon Kindle app later. The other option is a Samsung that just weighs too much for my wrists to be happy about.)
I got an LG GPAD 3, on promotion. I like it because it's relatively light (compared to other budget Android devices). So far, 1) it didn't turn on normally. Tech people told me I had to press the volume down + power key to "reset" the software. Ok... 2) Out of nowhere, the screen went black and white (but casted in colour via Chromecast). Checked accessibility, that was where it should be, checked another thing that might have caused it (forget what now), wasn't that. Factory reset fixed it.
But that's one too many shenanigans for a day and a half, imo - should I just swap it for another unit, or are these things within the range of expected occurences?
(If I go with another model, that's more than I want to pay/month. Really just got this because my HP had to go back for repairs & I wanted a temporary computing solution that might be ok with the Amazon Kindle app later. The other option is a Samsung that just weighs too much for my wrists to be happy about.)
Android tablets(other than kindle) are almost always pretty awful. You're better off getting an Apple or Windows tablet.
posted by empath at 7:52 AM on March 24, 2017
posted by empath at 7:52 AM on March 24, 2017
Best answer: Well, I don't know about *that* - cheaper tablets do seem to sometimes freeze a bit more just due to memory constraints, processor power, etc. - but this behavior does not sound normal for a brand new device. The black and white display sounds like hardware issues
I'd try an exchange first for the same model and then if you aren't happy, you've got to look at sending it in for credit and upgrade to something with more power.
posted by randomkeystrike at 8:01 AM on March 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'd try an exchange first for the same model and then if you aren't happy, you've got to look at sending it in for credit and upgrade to something with more power.
posted by randomkeystrike at 8:01 AM on March 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Exchange it. This kind of thing isn't likely to get better with age.
And there's nothing wrong with Android tablets per se. Cheap tablets often are bad. And a lot of Android tablets are cheap. But that doesn't mean all Android tablets are bad.
posted by cnc at 9:16 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
And there's nothing wrong with Android tablets per se. Cheap tablets often are bad. And a lot of Android tablets are cheap. But that doesn't mean all Android tablets are bad.
posted by cnc at 9:16 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Did you get an LG Gpad III 8.0 (Settings -> About tablet -> Tablet Name) rather than a Gpad 3? The Gpad 3 is pretty old and Rogers and Fido have recently been doing deals with the III 8.0 and I seem to recall you're in Canada. Yes, having both a gpad 3 and a gpad iii is stupid. If you do have the gpad iii 8.0 , I've got the same tablet. LG and Rogers/Fido locked this puppy down. It's "recovery" is pretty minimal - don't bother trying to get into it (I.E. the volume/power boot thing). The Canadian version (v522) doesn't even support fastboot.
For the screen going black and white, Does your device have 3 physica buttons? The top one is power. The middle one is vol +, vol - . The bottom one is an action button (Settings -> QuickButton) that by default is setup to "reader mode" (black and white with lowered blue values for the greyscale). Pushing it again should make it normal.
What do you mean when you said that it didn't turn on normally? If it just went through a long boot while "updating apps" - that will happen on pre-android 7 OS updates when the OS is updated. More details on how it didn't power up.
I've been using this device since I cracked the screen of my Nexus 7 LTE. It's a little bit faster than my N7, and I like being able to use the SD card as adoptable storage (the menu's don't allow this, but the commands are available via terminal, and the full size USB port just begs you to plug in a keyboard to make terminal access that much more convenient if you don't want to access via ADB). It's all right, and the best thing currently available for the price.
One thing super weird that occured was one night after I took it off of the charger, all of the physical buttons stopped responding. And plugging in the device no longer would charge, and I couldn't access via adb. However, I could use an app to lock/turn off the screen, and use double tap to wake up the device. But there was no way to do a reboot or shutdown. I needed to remove the sim card to open the case, and this caused the system to reboot. With the reboot, the buttons started working normally, and the charging port / adb worked fine too. So if this is your device and your buttons magically stop working, either run down the battery to shut it down, or hopefully taking out the sim (if you use one) should reboot it and you should be good to go again.
I'm never going to buy a tablet/phone that can't be rooted in the future again, but if I look beyond the locked down nature of the device that might now annoy most users I don't find much wrong with this device. And again, in Canada for the price/size/performance combination there isn't anything close for a tablet with a mobile connection.
posted by nobeagle at 9:33 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
For the screen going black and white, Does your device have 3 physica buttons? The top one is power. The middle one is vol +, vol - . The bottom one is an action button (Settings -> QuickButton) that by default is setup to "reader mode" (black and white with lowered blue values for the greyscale). Pushing it again should make it normal.
What do you mean when you said that it didn't turn on normally? If it just went through a long boot while "updating apps" - that will happen on pre-android 7 OS updates when the OS is updated. More details on how it didn't power up.
I've been using this device since I cracked the screen of my Nexus 7 LTE. It's a little bit faster than my N7, and I like being able to use the SD card as adoptable storage (the menu's don't allow this, but the commands are available via terminal, and the full size USB port just begs you to plug in a keyboard to make terminal access that much more convenient if you don't want to access via ADB). It's all right, and the best thing currently available for the price.
One thing super weird that occured was one night after I took it off of the charger, all of the physical buttons stopped responding. And plugging in the device no longer would charge, and I couldn't access via adb. However, I could use an app to lock/turn off the screen, and use double tap to wake up the device. But there was no way to do a reboot or shutdown. I needed to remove the sim card to open the case, and this caused the system to reboot. With the reboot, the buttons started working normally, and the charging port / adb worked fine too. So if this is your device and your buttons magically stop working, either run down the battery to shut it down, or hopefully taking out the sim (if you use one) should reboot it and you should be good to go again.
I'm never going to buy a tablet/phone that can't be rooted in the future again, but if I look beyond the locked down nature of the device that might now annoy most users I don't find much wrong with this device. And again, in Canada for the price/size/performance combination there isn't anything close for a tablet with a mobile connection.
posted by nobeagle at 9:33 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Can a cheap Android tablet be ok? (Specifically the LG GPad III (8)? Didn't find major issues with it on a quick search done while in my carrier's store... I don't know if I've got anti-good tech karma, or if the various issues I've had with Things relates more to my cheapness. But I've had a lemon Mac, too. Btw I have *never* spilled anything on anything.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:37 AM on March 24, 2017
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:37 AM on March 24, 2017
Best answer: If it's this tablet, then it's decent and isn't really cheap. It should work fine. And Nobeagle's answer here is excellent.
posted by cnc at 9:42 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by cnc at 9:42 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: nobeagle - am on my phone so answers may be choppy :)
Yeah it's the III 8.0, the Rogers deal. Only gpad I have. Yes, it has those 3 buttons! Why would they do that, with the third... Ok, good to know, thanks! All your tips are good to know!
So bottom line, you're saying this model will just do cray things & it's the best at this price (given the constraints) & I should just stick with it?
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:43 AM on March 24, 2017
Yeah it's the III 8.0, the Rogers deal. Only gpad I have. Yes, it has those 3 buttons! Why would they do that, with the third... Ok, good to know, thanks! All your tips are good to know!
So bottom line, you're saying this model will just do cray things & it's the best at this price (given the constraints) & I should just stick with it?
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:43 AM on March 24, 2017
Response by poster: >What do you mean when you said that it didn't turn on normally?
I plugged it in & pressed power to turn it on. Got a *still* image of a battery (no indication of % charge, nothing happening whatsoever. The adapter was hot, electricity was moving.) Support told me to use the vol down + power trick to get it started, and that worked.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:46 AM on March 24, 2017
I plugged it in & pressed power to turn it on. Got a *still* image of a battery (no indication of % charge, nothing happening whatsoever. The adapter was hot, electricity was moving.) Support told me to use the vol down + power trick to get it started, and that worked.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:46 AM on March 24, 2017
I plugged it in & pressed power to turn it on. Got a *still* image of a battery (no indication of % charge, nothing happening whatsoever. The adapter was hot, electricity was moving.)
This is what happens on an iOS device that does not have enough battery power to turn on, even though it is plugged in. It may stay like that for several minutes before it has enough power to turn on. If that was the first time you tried to turn it on, I would not be surprised at that behavior. It may have picked up enough charge in the time between when you first pushed the power button and when you pushed the power button as part of the reset to allow it to turn on.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:58 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is what happens on an iOS device that does not have enough battery power to turn on, even though it is plugged in. It may stay like that for several minutes before it has enough power to turn on. If that was the first time you tried to turn it on, I would not be surprised at that behavior. It may have picked up enough charge in the time between when you first pushed the power button and when you pushed the power button as part of the reset to allow it to turn on.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:58 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Could be, Rock Steady - but I left it plugged in overnight and found the same image in the morning? (Thanks everyone for all your thoughts btw!!)
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:01 AM on March 24, 2017
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:01 AM on March 24, 2017
Best answer: The extra button is a feature - if you goto Settings -> QuickButton you can have it start any app you want. I personally found it to be a minimal feature (and when I opened the case during the time the buttons stopped responding, I somehow *lost* that button - and I don't miss it). For the cost of that button they surely could have included a light sensor. (I have an elixr widget on my home screen, one that toggles 0 and 30% brightness and the other that toggles 50 and 80% brightness and I highly reccomend this). Actually now that I think about it, given the lack of light sensor having the quick button call up an app that cycles from 0% and 50% brightness would be pretty awesome - I'm kinda made I didn't think about that.
You can memail me if you want about any other questions if this starts getting chatty, but I'm still wondering about the time that it didn't turn "normally". On preview: On many android devices, if they're off and plugged into a charger they'll display briefly a screen to say that they're charging. Perhaps during the time where it decides to display this it doesn't listen to the power button? That is a bit wierd, and I might have to play with that to see about the odd behavior.
As for it doing crazy things, I've had mine since the middle of October, 2016. It once did the odd button thing in 5 months of owning it. As mentioned I use the sdcard as adoptable storage - I'll say that about once a week it will become read-only. However I just eject it (just via software, Settings -> Storage & USB -> SD card and then unmount it, and I immediately remount it without touching the physical card and it's fine) and it's read-writeable again. Current uptime is 15 days.
I'll say that my Nexus 7 LTE actually gave me more grief; about every 5-10 days it would "lose" the sim card, and mobile data couldn't be used again without a restart of the tablet. At least when the simcard goes read only I don't need a reboot.
posted by nobeagle at 10:02 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
You can memail me if you want about any other questions if this starts getting chatty, but I'm still wondering about the time that it didn't turn "normally". On preview: On many android devices, if they're off and plugged into a charger they'll display briefly a screen to say that they're charging. Perhaps during the time where it decides to display this it doesn't listen to the power button? That is a bit wierd, and I might have to play with that to see about the odd behavior.
As for it doing crazy things, I've had mine since the middle of October, 2016. It once did the odd button thing in 5 months of owning it. As mentioned I use the sdcard as adoptable storage - I'll say that about once a week it will become read-only. However I just eject it (just via software, Settings -> Storage & USB -> SD card and then unmount it, and I immediately remount it without touching the physical card and it's fine) and it's read-writeable again. Current uptime is 15 days.
I'll say that my Nexus 7 LTE actually gave me more grief; about every 5-10 days it would "lose" the sim card, and mobile data couldn't be used again without a restart of the tablet. At least when the simcard goes read only I don't need a reboot.
posted by nobeagle at 10:02 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Could be, Rock Steady - but I left it plugged in overnight and found the same image in the morning?
I wouldn't be able to say for certain, but it seems unlikely. Even if the behaviors you have seen end up being normal for this tablet, as long as it isn't a major inconvenience I'd go ahead and exchange it for another model of the same tablet. For no other reason than now that you are a little suspicious of this one, you'll never be able to shake the idea that it might be at least a little bit faulty.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:12 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
I wouldn't be able to say for certain, but it seems unlikely. Even if the behaviors you have seen end up being normal for this tablet, as long as it isn't a major inconvenience I'd go ahead and exchange it for another model of the same tablet. For no other reason than now that you are a little suspicious of this one, you'll never be able to shake the idea that it might be at least a little bit faulty.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:12 AM on March 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Although I'm still not clear on what caused the issue with powering up initially, the black & white screen issue was clearly down to user error/panic. I'm keeping it! Unless something happens in the next couple of weeks. (If anyone could recommend a lightweight case + keyboard, I'd be grateful!)
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:35 AM on March 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:35 AM on March 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
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