ZENITHINK ZT-180

The Zenithink ZT-180 ePad tablet is a mix of highs and lows. Clearly yet another response to the Apple iPad – just look at the derivative name of the device – the Zenithink ZT-180 actually outdoes the standard in a few areas while falling well short of even low-end performance in others.

For positives, the Zenithink ZT-180 includes two USB ports and a micro SD slot for up to 32 GB of additional memory. The operating system is Android 2.1. The 10.2” screen provides excellent display of video with support for nearly imaginable video format and can play high-resolution video at 1080px.

But flash video...that’s still a problem. After first promising a 1GHz tablet, Zenithink instead installed an 800MHz ARM 11 microprocessor, this choice slows things down notably in internet use. Despite reported improvements to the stability of the OS on the CPU, system crashes still haunt the ZT-180 and internet connectivity is far from perfect on this tablet. Other minus is that Android Market (and apps fairly necessary for the ZT-180) is not immediately available and requires quite a few steps to access.

It’s hard to fault the low-frills aspect of the Zenithink ZT-180 ePad, as this tablet is decent enough for lightweight internet work and video viewing. However, the frustration experienced in dealing with common tasks may be too much for some users, even at the low price.