[G Tablet General] bschrib:
Hey all, just wanted to give a quick rundown. I shared this on Slickdeals earlier and someone recommended I throw it over here so that it might help anyone. My Coworker got his gTablet yesterday (from the Woot deal in March) and I had the chance to play with it/flash a custom ROM.

First about the stock ROM. His had angry birds and flash preinstalled, there were some funny directories setup on the internal storage which included a few apps (angry birds and flash amoungst them). I suspect they did some funny business at the factory with our units, but it did not in ~ANY~ way appear to be used/returned etc. The directories I remember were "Master", which I believe had apps and ... Oh hell it's too long now, something else. Anyways it didn't appear to be anything other than new is my point.

Next, the screen. It was definitely a TN panel and did have some odd viewing angles, and while not ideal it was certainly not anything that was preventing one person from enjoying it, vertical or horizontal. It was difficult for others to gather around and see videos well, so if that is a large concern for you then be concerned I suppose.

The stock ROM. It came with 1.1-3381 (or whatever the 33 was). It really does suck. They disable the menu button in most locations with the stock ROM, and it was slow/sluggish just like everyone has been saying.

Now I hope this crash course is of some help to anyone with their new toy. First to check your ROM version, you can go tab the Gears icon at the side of the screen, then choose About in the left menu. In here you'll find the rom version (should be something like 1.1-3389, 1.1-3588 or 1.2-something). Here's what I did to get his updated. Get familiar with XDA, it'll be a great friend and resource.

1.) I loaded the 1.1-3588 stock recovery, an upgrade from the 1.1-3389 recovery. It was possible to do this by going to this page (don't forget to thank Roebeet for putting all of this together), downloading the "3588 Recovery Pack v1.0".

2.) Unzip the 3588 Recovery Pack v1.0 then connect your tablet to your PC and enable USB mode (when you plug it in, you'll need to click the Yellow/Orange circle in the upper-right, then choose to enable USB tethering). Copy the "recovery" folder, and the update.zip to the root (what opens when you double-click the tablet drive) of the tablet internal memory (Probably D: or F: ).

3.) After the files copy to the tablet, turn off USB tethering, then turn off the tablet. You'll be restarting it in Recovery, which will automatically load the new recovery.

4.) To start the tablet in recovery, have the tablet turned off, then press and hold the power button and volume + button. You'll see a small message in the upper-left to indicate that it is starting in recovery. You can release the buttons now.

5.) After the update finishes installing the tablet will automatically reboot to Android once again, with the ugly Tap And Tap interface. This is OK, you're two steps from fixing it.

6.) Turn on USB tethering again, then open the tablet folder and delete the recovery folder and update.zip.

7.) Go back to this page, and once again thank Roebeet, and download "clockworkmod .8 bekit". Once downloaded, unzip it, then copy the recovery and update.zip to the root of the internal memory again. Turn off the tablet.

8.) Start the tablet in Recovery again by holding power button and Volume + at the same time. Once again you'll see a message in the upper-left and you can release. It'll do its thing and reboot to Android when it completes.

9.) After you get into Android again, start USB Tethering then delete the recovery folder and update.zip.

10.) At this point you can load what ROM you want (within limits, BE SURE TO READ THE ROM THREADS FIRST). I installed Vanilla AOSP Gingerbread ROM. Go download the file from that thread, then place it into the root of your tablet internal memory. Be sure to thank kornyone for their work. Also be sure to download the "gapps" available on this page as well, for you will have to install it to have the Android Market, GMail, etc.

11.) To install it, turn off the tablet, reboot into Recovery (Power button & Volume + at the same time..). You'll now be in Clockworkmod, a custom recovery. You can navigate the custom recovery by using the volume rocker to go up and down, the power button to go back a menu, and the Home soft key to press enter.

To properly install a ROM you should always first clear the data/system/cache. It's been a while since I've used clockworkmod, but I believe the option you are looking for is Factory Data Reset, choose Yes on the next screen. Then delete cache just to be sure.

Now you can go to "Install ZIP from sdcard", then "Choose zip" or something akin to it. Navigate to the file you copied, and tell it to install. Wait a short while and you should see that it successfully installed. Now just press the power key a few times to get back to the main menu and then choose to Reboot (whatever the top option is).

Enjoy your Gingerbread Android. :)

A few app recommendations: I use LauncherPro. It's available in the Android market and it's a "Home" replacement. Try it out, it's smooth and it has a bunch of extra widget if you purchase the program (1.99). Also check out Dolphin Browser HD. The last word of advice I can give is to get familiar with Long Press, it's basically right-click in Android. To do a long press just hold down on an icon or a blank area and see what happens. :)

A round of thanks go out to Roebeet and kornyone for putting the files used together, and a special thanks for the excellent documentation Roebeet. If I've left anyone out or placed this post in the wrong section please let me know and I'll get it fixed.