Adam Initial Impressions

     I have had my Adam for a day now and what do I think about it? It's a mixture of good and bad so far. Be warned though, because this post will consist mostly of the bad. Read after the break for Impressions.

     I'll start off on a good not by discussing the hardware. It is fantastic. I may not be as svelte as an iPad, but it is still great in the hands. That curve combined with the large amount of bezel creates an amazing grip. The back button on the side serves little purpose for me. I think the power switch would be better if it has an actual button instead of the slide switch that it is. The camera is a tad wobbly, and I can guarantee that it only swivels 180 degrees. I can get 185 degrees out of it by shoving it down, but it locks at 180. The silk screen on the back has a typo directly under where it says,"Created with love by Notion Ink Design Labs". The mistake reads,"This may device must accept any interference received...". The hardware buttons definitely need to have a backlight. I don't know what's wrong with the wifi radio. It has terrible signal strength. I mean TERRIBLE.

     On to the software. It needs work. I don't mean work like pulling an all-nighter at the office; I mean work like building a house in a week with only two people. I may be exaggerating a little, but the software does need some serious tweaking. I like the Eden UI, but the experience is suffering. With its Tegra guts, it should be capable of buttery smooth animations and seemless transitions. I liken the speed right now to that of the original Motorola Droid (You know. The one with a 500mhz processor.). Angry Birds ran like butter, so it has to be the UI that holds the slow problem. I like the hidden notification bar if I can get it open. I have to tap on that little battery in the corner several times to get the dumb thing open. I can't believe how unresponsive it is, and the launcher is the same way but not quite as bad.

   I would put up with all of that and give it a stellar rating if it weren't for the biggest problem with the device. It doesn't have the Android Market. I didn't think it was going to be that big of a problem, but having to side load all of your apps only to find out that have of them won't install, crash, etc. is the biggest pain of the entire device. Rohan said in an interview back in December that the Honeycomb update would also bring the Market to the device. I hope he hasn't changed his mind. Genesis is a good idea, but the user base is way too small to have a good quantity of apps. I haven't found an apk of flash that works yet. So far, they have all caused the browser to crash.

    You may ask if I hate my Adam. The answer is no, because I love my Adam and I have faith in Notion Ink. Faith is what got me to this point. I have confidence that they will bring out software updates that with fix these problems (the terrible wifi signal strength worries me due to the fact that it is a hardware problem) and eventually update it to Honeycomb with the market. In case you are wondering, I have the LCD + WiFi variant. If you are thinking about ordering one I am going to say go for it!