Most tablets we see are either 7in or 10in models, but Jexaa's JexTab 812 HD has an unusual 8in screen with a 1,024x768 resolution. Also, instead of the latest version of Android, Honeycomb 3.2, it runs Android 2.3, which is really a smartphone rather than tablet operating system. On some budget tablets this is a recipe for disaster: to make sure that incompatible apps aren't installed, some manufacturers remove access to the Android Market. Jexaa has instead used a standard Android installation, and in our testing we didn't find any apps that wouldn't work correctly.
The problem with installing Android 2.3 on a tablet is that the operating system doesn't support large resolutions. We're not sure how Jexaa has gotten around this, but we found most common apps - such as Amazon's Kindle app, NewsRob (our favourite newsreader) and Google Maps - had no problems stretching to fit the screen's larger resolution. Even games such as Angry Birds worked fine. What you'll miss out on is Android 3's dual-pane views for apps such as email, where your inbox and the currently selected message are displayed side-by-side.
For a budget tablet, the JexTab feels well made, with an aluminium frame and a glossy plastic casing. It has a fairly plain design, but the aluminium helps to protect the ports which are all on the left side. There's a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, a mini-USB data port, a mini-HDMI output and a Type A USB host port, as well as a microSDHC card slot.
The host port supports 3G dongles, so you can get online away from Wi-Fi networks. In our tests, however, we couldn't get it to work with the latest Huawei E367 HSPA+ dongle or its predecessor, the E1750 (called the Premium and Standard dongles from the Three network). An older E160G did work, however, and we managed to get it working using some information gleaned from the web. Unfortunately, there's no information on Jexaa's website on supported dongles or the settings required to get them working, so we hope this will be rectified soon.
Of course, the USB host port also means you can insert flash drives and external hard disks to access their files. The JexTab supports both FAT32 and NTFS partitions, so most PC-formatted disks will work. Jexaa has installed a file manager app so you can even copy files from a flash drive to a microSD card or to the JexTab's internal memory.
