We love reporting good news but we’ve been keeping an eye on some negative reports from X70 owners and it’s time to highlight them. Crosstalk on the speakers, flickering screen, poor WiFi quality and a weak USB port have been reported by owners of the X70 ultra mobile PC on our forums in the last week.
I recently received a retail model of the X70 and can certainly confirm two of those issues. The Wifi reception quality seems to be poor and there is definitely crosstalk noise on the speakers, even when they are muted. The issues don’t affect my daily use of the device and overall I still find the X70 a fantastic tablet but having tested for the issues, I can confirm that those issues are real. As for the flickering screen issue, I can’t confirm I’ve seen that and the weak USB port (apparently some USB sticks aren’t working) is also something that I haven’t seen but there are enough reports from users to indicate that it is not a one-off issue.
We’ve alerted Viliv to the comments here and hope they respond soon. In the meantime, if you’ve got an X70, let us know what you think.
Forum: Screen flicker report
Forum: Wifi droupouts
Blog post comments: Reports of USB issues.
New article: X70 UMPC Customers report issues. http://cli.gs/GLLrg
RT @chippy: New article: X70 UMPC Customers report issues. http://cli.gs/GLLrg (disappointing!!)
I didn’t know other were having these issues but I did notice that the wifi reception is pretty bad. My other system (x200 Tablet) had 2 or 3 bars of coverage and the x70 drops in and out of coverage right next to it.
Well i wonder if anyone has tested out the GPS, because the software I am using does not find it in any of the Com ports. I am using a free program called map monkey. Anyone have any thoughts, please help. GPS switch is also failing, don’t know why.
Originally X70 ex’s GPS default setting is COM2 and 9600 bps baud rate.
So If you want to use GPS, you should set COM port and baud rate correctly.
Some Naviagtion application uses only 4800 bps baud rate.
If so, you can use GPSSwich utility including X70 ex.
With the GPSSwitch, you can change GPS baudrate.
For 4800 baud rate, run GPSSwich and set GPS to 4800 bps baud rate.
Jorge:
I tried using iNav and it too failed to find a GPS on any port. The extended (hah!) downloadable manual for the X70 says it is on COM 1 at 9600 baud – NOT)
I just don’t see it anywhere on my X70. I have heard of others using the Google offerings and say they have no problems.
Wi-Fi; I’ve had better.
One of my gripes is not being able to run the Bluetooth AND the modem at the same time; and not having the ability for the modem to auto wake up the system when a call(eg) comes along.
Other than that, I am quite pleased with the purchase
my gps was on port2 however i havnt been outide yet to get a lock. on that note any clue how to power it down when it is not in use?
Yeah, what about the GPS … I have yet to get it to lock onto my location. I do get some raw data, but that is not enough to be useful. Something is wrong here.
Also, what about the slow & laggy touchscreen (at least one other member confirmed that some units have this issue)?
I noticed my microphone doesn’t seem to work
Regarding the GPS. From my review:
“A SirfStarIII GPS chipset is included and as with the S5, we had some initial problems getting it to work. A ‘GPSSwitch’ application is included and this is supposed to toggle the baud rate of the COM2 port between 4800 and 9600 helping programs to attach to the GPS but the program failed with an error and our simple iPoki client couldn’t get any figures from the GPS. Once we had downloaded VisualGPS (http://www.visualgps.net/VisualGPS/default.htm recommended for testing GPS on windows) and monitored the port (COM 2 at 9600bps) until it had a lock, the ipoki client worked. Once a lock was established, the unit was able to retain a signal in the middle of a house on the first floor which is a good result.”
With the latest X70 I have I am still having slow lock problems. Try using the VisualGPS program to check it/kick it into action at the default 4800 bps.
Steve
Sorry. I meant to say that you should use Visual GPS at 9600 as a test. Not 4800. (Only because that is how i’ve been doing it)
Viliv have responded to an email I sent to them and are now looking closely at all issues.
Hi Chippy…, You appear to be the guy that knows what’s happening out there. Can you answer my questions for me please? I really need to know what maybe up with this awesome new device?
Hi Chippy!
I’m not sure my original posted comments went through so I’m re-posting them here again – sorry for tying up the bandwidth if you already recieved this.
I was wondering if your heard any updates from Viliv addressing the issues with the X70 – I’m particularly interested in what they plan on doing about the “weak” USB, wifi, and mouse cursor lagging among the other issues reported.
As a side note, for those who may be curious, I did manage to get StreetDeck 2 working on the X70 by using GPSSwitch to change the baud rate to 4800 and manually setting the com port in StreetDeck to 2. On the S5 to get Streetdeck to work I only had to make sure the com port setting was “Not Set” and StreetDeck would automatically detect the GPS com port and its baud rate was already set to 9600 – which is he suggested procedure by the guys from StreetDeck – so go figure why the difference in setups between the two devices.
Anyways, I was wondering if you got any new news on Viliv’s investigation.
Thanks,
mAGIC
Hey…, I don’t have my “X70 EX” just yet but was wondering if anyone knows if there is going to be a 2GB RAM version for Windows 7. Also, 3G and Bluetooth (which should be 2.1+EDR) should work together. I’m disappointed in that wasn’t established as a required configuration when this was released to us in the mass market.
I hope these things are addressed. Also, why does the S5 have a larger SSD..??? That’s a little confusing. :-(
I’m waiting to make a purchase in October after the 22nd. And “NO”…!!! I’m not buying the “Archos 9” my money is going to Viliv for sure.
Thanks for answering my question about the RAM and SSD increase guys. :-)
X70 UMPC Customers report issues. http://bit.ly/14FpWL
just wanted to reply that my gps is working well with visual gps. sill have a weak wifi. guess i will try win7 rtm this weekend
I decided to upgrade from the Viliv S5 due to the nearly unreadable text on the much smaller screen. I got the 1.3 Atom 32gb SSS model. It’s great for e-books; yBook Reader work especially well. It wakes up from sleep mode much more reliably than the S5 does.
Unfortunately, I’m too having some trouble with the touch screen. I wanted to be able to use handwriting recognition software. I’ve tried 3 different programs and they all suck! Unless you form each letter VERY slowly, the screen doesn’t draw them correctly. Even RitePen which works great on the Viliv S5 had major trouble deciphering the crummy imaging on the X70. I also give the online keyboard low marks. Even though it’s bigger, the gaps in the middle and bottom mean you can easily hit the underlying program instead of the lower row keys. Then there’s the layout; stupid design! While I’m ranting; I also am disappointed in the USB power; there isn’t enough juice to run my Western Digital external 2.5 drives on X70 even though they work fine on the S5. That’s a SERIOUS limitation to me.
On the plus side, Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard works amazingly well with the built in mike! I’m getting nearly the same success rate as my desktop and dedicated USB mike. Could be really handy for informal on the road blogging.
Just got my Viliv X70 Ex Premium (no 3G) model today and set it up. Of all the problems reported, I am definitely seeing the WiFi issue. The WiFi reception is EXTREMELY poor ! Even when I am sitting in the same room as my router, and my ASUS 1000HE Netbook and Nokia N810 tablet both are getting FULL signal, the X70 gets one or two bars and frequently keeps dropping the connection. It has been so bad that I have not even been able to download and install Chrome or any Windows updates.
I have not noticed the speaker crosstalk yet. Also haven’t seen any issues with the USB port yet – but haven’t tested them too much either.
I have also not noticed any screen flicker yet.
Two other problems I have noticed are —
1. Screen touch response is not very good. I have to frequently calibrate the screen – or it goes out of sync.
2. The unit gets much hotter than I was expecting after only 30 minutes of use. I am using screen brightness at 30% with WiFi on. I also have the unit in the case, but the back of the unit is getting uncomfortably warm.
So far I must say that I am pretty disappointed – and the unit is most DEFINITELY NOT leaving up to the expectation I had after reading the initial reviews.
I sure hope Viliv addresses all these issues as soon as possible.
Regarding the wifi performance, it may help if you use “update driver” of the device property , then you will see the the release date of the driver will be changed from 6/24/2009 to 7/24/2009. I do get the improvement after updated the new driver.
Thanks Peter.
It does upgrade the driver (just take the default ‘Install the Software Automatically’ option) so i’m giving it a little test now.
Steve
Just had a dropout. The driver doesnt seem to have changed much on my model.
Has any one on win 7 had any wifi drop outs? I was only able to connect for a few min at a time with XP. After upgrading to win7 i haven’t had any issues connecting….
Sudipto. Try the procedure outlined below. (Update Wifi driver)
I’m testing that now.
Steve
Hi Guys
My problem to date is that after using the X70 for 5 minutes and managing to connect to my Wifi in that time – the Wifi driver just stopped working completely! When I go in to the Driver Management program it just has a nice yellow hzard sign on it (Response 10)
I have tried updating the driver – which doesn’t work and I have uninstalled and re-installed (after downloading the driver onto another computer)and that doesn’t seem to work. I have also used the Recovery program in the “Hidden” drive.
It seems that everyone else’s WiFi probelms are weak signals – has anyone got any idea what to do with no Driver at all?
Someone had mentioned having better luck when using 64bit encryption instead of 128bit. This did not make any difference for me and I still get terrible WiFi connection.
I was originally connecting thru my Linksys wireles router (WRTP54G) using WPA. That didn’t work well and I kept on getting very frequent dropouts and very low signal strength.
I then connected a old Motorola Access Point setting it up for 64bit WEP and had the exact same problem.
Chippy – by “the procedure outlined below” did you mean trying to automatically update the driver ? That didn’t solve the issue for you though, right ?
Sorry.Thats what i meant. I have since done some more testing and am definitely seeing better results. 1hr testing in bed and i havent had a dropout yet. Its better than before. Signal strength solid with 4 bars and im one wall away from my router.
Cool ! Thanks. I will try this as well and report back here how it goes for me.
So I updated the driver as suggested and that has definitely made things a LOT better. I still got 2-3 connection dropouts over a period of 4 hours or so last night, but that is MUCH better than the dropout every few minutes I was seeing earlier.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions ! That’s what makes this community so great.
P.S. Also, to report back on the screen calibration issue I had mentioned earlier – that gets much better after I did a full 9 point linearization (earlier I had only done a 4 point calibration)
Is the released date of the automatic update driver version you got July/24/2009 ? After that , did you enable or disable any option in order to get the best wifi performance ?
Thanks for sharing.
Well this is just great, I ordered one and it is sitting in my family room unopened. I can’t figure out if I should just open it and deal with the issues or send it back…
Open it – go on, take a chance