[G Tablet General] SnakeManJayd:
I thought I'd post my story so far in acquiring my zpad and update it as I go along.

And see if anyone else is interested in it.

January 2011

I wanted a tablet pc as soon as I saw my friend's Ipad, but thought that they would be too expensive, so I just put it out of my mind. Then while looking for a netbook for my wife, a friend of mine said he could get pc's at great prices from china. We agreed to get her a netbook through him and he told me he could also organise other cool tech like tablets, etc.

(We get ripped off really badly here in south africa, everyone is greedy here and they put up huge mark ups on tech. e.g. galaxy tab is R8000 here which is $1117 at the current exchange rate. Instead of the $650 that it currently is on amazon.com. Which is ridiculous!!!)

He is starting up an importing business from China to South Africa(where I live), I would be his first customer.

He showed me a few tablets, which either were underpowered or had a 3 hour max battery life or both. Eventually he showed me the Malata tablets, the windows one and the one that they later called the Zpad. The windows one sucked so I was interested in the Zpad. Specs looked good and the more I looked into it online the more I was keen. But it was still a lot of money.

I found out mid January that I had gotten funding for university this year, so I decided to get the Zpad. The order hadn't gone through yet for the netbook so I added the tablet (and other tech that we've wanted for a while, eg. 1GB external HDD & logitech G9x mouse, malata dock..) and paid and waited.

1st Feb 2011

Package finally arrived. When he saw the box my friend phoned me straight away in alarm. The box was tiny, way to small to house a netbook and a tablet and all the other stuff.

When he opened it, there were a few 1GB and 2GB USB drives in the box.

SHOCK AND HORROR!!!

He phoned around frantically trying to find out if he had been ripped off by his chinese supplier or not, as he had never bought from the guy before.

Eventually the guy replied, it was 20:00h in china, he says that the guy who dropped the packages off must have switched them around by mistake. He said he couldn't get hold of DHL to find out if the other guy had got the package already, or even to find out who the other guy was, as it was late there.

So now after waiting 3 weeks or so for my tablet I sit and wait, to find out where my tablet and my wife's netbook and everything else is. Are they with the would be flash drives owner? Will he give them back? Will the Chinese guy still send us new ones if the other guy doesn't give them back to him? Very stressed out.

Update:

2nd February 2011

Heard back from the supplier in China and from what I could understand (His English is a little broken, but can't blame the guy, I can't speak a worn of Mandarin) he says that they have had this problem in the past and how it works is they use a 3rd pary company to take their packages to DHL and then DHL send it, so the 3rd party guys must have made the mistake. This happened before and they stopped using that company as a result, but now it has happened again.

He says it shouldn't be to difficult to get hold of the stuff and get it sent to us, but it will take a while.

I really hope so. I'm still worried that some guy is playing on my Zpad or have taken the factory screen cover off (which I was planning to keep on, if it came with one), or even worse has sold it...

So no concrete progress, but things are looking up.

Update:

3rd February 2011

It's Chinese newyear now. So I wasn't expecting much progress today, and didn't get any. But the Chinese supplier told us he hasn't gotten the status of the parcel yet, but we should hold on to the wrong parcel we received and he will chase them up and try to get them exchanged.

Update:

4th February 2011

The supplier said that DHL are contacting the person who received our parcel and he will let us know the outcome.

Update:

18th March 2011

So, we still haven't heard from DHL, and our chinese contact hasn't contacted us since my last post. He is also no longer on the trading sites like alibaba, etc. So we think we have been swindled.

My friend here is going over to china in a few months, so he will probably see if he can find this guys, using private investigators and press charges against him (and maybe a fist or two).

My friend did take responsibility though, saying that it was his fault and he should have tested out his contact first.

He has found a more reliable contact and is waiting for a sale to go through, and then will try order it again, out of his pocket.

But I don't know if I still want the Zpad, with shipping, 3G and GPS, the tablet cost about R6500 here, which converted is about $900. Which is really expensive, but the cheapest I can get it at. I can get the Gtablet for R4313 ($600), buying through a local online business who buy from amazon.

But I don't know, there are many new tablets coming out now, so there is no longer the benefit of getting the only tegra 2 tablet, and getting use out of it before the big boys arrive. So I think I might as well look around, now that the Zpad is no longer on it's way.

I'm thinking about getting the Xoom WIFI instead when it comes out. My dad is going to Italy soon, and hopefully it will have released in Europe by then, so he can pick one up for me at a comparable price to the US $600. When it finally gets here it will be ridiculously expensive, I estimate the same price that I paid for the Zpad,($900). So if the Xoom is anything less than 650 Euros, Then I have saved money, buying a better tablet.

Then when my friend has managed to make some money back, he can refund me, rather than ordering me another one, and I will have money left over for accessories.

So, right now it is just a wait to see when the Xoom Wifi comes out in Europe, how much it will be, and if it releases before my dad gets there; sometime in May.

Yep, more waiting, but I'm happy to wait again, I feel I am getting a better deal now, and I feel more in control.

Update March 20th:

I have placed my order to get the Xoom Wifi with a local company, they will get it from the US as soon as it releases, so it will ship on the 28th/29th and I should get it in at most a week from then.

Update April 3rd:

My Xoom came yesterday, and WOW!!! It is amazing, it is an awesome resolution screen, great viewing angles, incredibly responsive, amazing battery life, has honeycomb.

The Zpad not coming was a blessing in disguise. I will still try get my money back for the Zpad from my friend to cover the cost of the Xoom, though.

Really , Really glad that I didn't get a Zpad in hindsight. I know that's a bit cheeky to say in the Gtab forum, but after waiting this long, I would want it to be perfect, and well neither tablet is perfect, but the Xoom is a lot closer.

So, this will be one of my last posts on the Gtab forum, I'll be living in the Xoom on from now.

Thanks so much for reading my story everyone.

I will update if this thread is still around and I get my money back from my friend, but otherwise that's it.

Cheers