So assuming you buy that dongle, subscribe to the software and it turns out to be hopeless... what are the chances of refunds for all of that?
We need one for the Navara, the Corsa and camper van, so I'm optimistically thinking that as they're all 10 years+ old and pretty no-frills when it comes to exotic parts and sensors, the chances of it working are high.
Android Tablet for Car Diagnostics
Re: Android Tablet for Car Diagnostics
Cheers,
Mike.
Mike.
-
Sundayjumper
- Posts: 6272
- Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 4:04 pm
- Currently Driving: Peugeot 406
Re: Android Tablet for Car Diagnostics
<shrug>. Dunno. If you buy via Amazon or ebay you could probably use their returns procedure ? I spend enough time p*ssing about with multiple cars that if that £100 ends up worthless after two years it's not an entirely bad deal. Have a look at the CarScanner jobbie @mik mentioned as well. I've not tried it so can't offer any advice.
ThinkDiag update - I tried it out on the Bentley and it looks promising. It appears to have all the VCDS functions (live data and coding) but presented differently. I'll (carefully) explore those.
Re: Android Tablet for Car Diagnostics
Found it on Amazon. For some reason it wasn't coming up earlier... user error I think.
Cheers,
Mike.
Mike.
-
Sundayjumper
- Posts: 6272
- Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 4:04 pm
- Currently Driving: Peugeot 406
Re: Android Tablet for Car Diagnostics
JFC. Tablet arrived today - Lenovo M10 TB-X606F - and as an Android device it's living right down to expectations, and then some.
First and foremost - the scanner software doesn't work. It runs, and it connects to the dongle, but it will not read anything from the cars. This might be Lenovo's fault, or it might be ThinkDiag's. I bet there's no answer and they'd just blame each other.
And then as a bonus it has actually killed the micro SD card I put in there to install the software. The card worked in my laptop, it worked in the tablet to install it, after which the tablet said it can't see it, and now neither can my laptop. Killing a memory card. That's pretty special.
All manner of other shiteness. Chrome on an Android tablet looks quite like Chrome on a PC but you can't have a bookmarks bar. So instead of a single click to hit up your fave donkey porn, you have to do three clicks through options -> bookmarks -> "thing you wanted".
The included weather app is full of adverts.
Swipe right on the home page and there's a full page of adverts & clickbait "news". You can disable it but it still includes it as a little dot at the bottom of the home page even though you can't get to it any more.
Search for "ebay" in the app store and the first result is Temu
The "settings" page has a constant banner at the top asking me to add an email account even though I've already set it up with my gmail account.
Some other apps appear to work OK.
In an attempt to be slightly fair here - a (small) credit where it's due - when I switched on my bluetooth headphones expecting a thoroughly painful experience of trying to connect them, the tablet immediately popped up a dialogue box saying "headphones spotted, do you want to connect them ?" and when I said "yes", it did with no fuss at all. So that was nice.
Oh, and the tiny little hole that you stick a pin into to eject the memory card is right next to, and almost identical to, the microphone hole. So I think I might have fcuked up the microphone. My fault, but it's a bad design decision.
First and foremost - the scanner software doesn't work. It runs, and it connects to the dongle, but it will not read anything from the cars. This might be Lenovo's fault, or it might be ThinkDiag's. I bet there's no answer and they'd just blame each other.
And then as a bonus it has actually killed the micro SD card I put in there to install the software. The card worked in my laptop, it worked in the tablet to install it, after which the tablet said it can't see it, and now neither can my laptop. Killing a memory card. That's pretty special.
All manner of other shiteness. Chrome on an Android tablet looks quite like Chrome on a PC but you can't have a bookmarks bar. So instead of a single click to hit up your fave donkey porn, you have to do three clicks through options -> bookmarks -> "thing you wanted".
The included weather app is full of adverts.
Swipe right on the home page and there's a full page of adverts & clickbait "news". You can disable it but it still includes it as a little dot at the bottom of the home page even though you can't get to it any more.
Search for "ebay" in the app store and the first result is Temu
The "settings" page has a constant banner at the top asking me to add an email account even though I've already set it up with my gmail account.
Some other apps appear to work OK.
In an attempt to be slightly fair here - a (small) credit where it's due - when I switched on my bluetooth headphones expecting a thoroughly painful experience of trying to connect them, the tablet immediately popped up a dialogue box saying "headphones spotted, do you want to connect them ?" and when I said "yes", it did with no fuss at all. So that was nice.
Oh, and the tiny little hole that you stick a pin into to eject the memory card is right next to, and almost identical to, the microphone hole. So I think I might have fcuked up the microphone. My fault, but it's a bad design decision.