Viewsonic, who was due to launch their 7 inch Android tablet in Australia in January, could be forced to delay the product or even cancel their launch plans altogether after the giant office supply company, Staples, pulled the plug on the Google Android tablet in the USA citing major “manufacturing problems”.Three weeks ago Toshiba were forced to pull their Android tablet from the market after two European chains pulled the device from their shelves after several customer complaints.
The ViewSonic G Tablet had been ranged by US office supply company Staples who last month launched an Australian web site due to a “manufacturing defect” which is believed to involve an NVIDIA Graphics card.
Several retailers have told ChannelNews that they have been reluctant to stock several vendors’ tablets with the exception of the Samsung Tab, as they believe several manufacturers have rushed product to market in an effort to compete with the highly successful Apple iPad.
According to TechCrunch, neither Staples, nor Viewsonic has explained what the flaw was or whether the Tablet would return fixed.
The news of the failure comes just over a month after the withdrawal of the Toshiba Folio 100 which also ran the NVIDIA Tegra 2-graphic card.
UK retailers pulled the Toshiba Folio 100 after stores received a large number of complaints about both defects and overall poor build quality.
Google has already advised its partners to avoid making Android 2.2 tablets and may have been validated by the recent troubles, which have left very few tablets outside of the Samsung Galaxy Tab on a wide range of shelves.
Google said that they are currently addressing interface issues, and the absence of interface optimisation may be creating a mismatch between the software and early hardware.
NVIDIA is expected to make Tegra 2 the focus of its CES presentation in early January, but much of the hardware could be based on a true tablet version of Android and won’t ship until months later.
