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 - Pepper padneat little device. didn't do what I needed it to do though (lock onto one webpage). could have a little bit bigger of a screen. good to keep in the kitchen or living room to look up fast facts.....not exactly "typing" friendly, good for people who do not do alot of email or computer work. Good for the money. Rating:  - TR65I wanted to love my Pepper Pad; but after two weeks of making excuses for its flaws, I returned it. First the good: The size and weight are terrific. It's comfortable to hold, whether sitting on a sofa or lying in bed. The built in stand is well designed, allowing me to connect the pad to a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse at my desk. The user interface is clever and intuitive. There's no need to refer to the manual to operate most of the applications. The browser is especially good, incorporating Mozilla's tab capabilities without cluttering the screen with too many menus and buttons. The synchronization with a desktop computer is a plus. I downloaded the Pepper Desktop software, surfed to my favorite sites and bookmarked them in the desktop application and then synced the desktop with the Pepper Pad. Transferring photos and music from the desktop to the Pad was also very easy. Now the bad: Wi-fi performance is marginal. I have a 802.11g Linksys router that establishes excellent or very good connections with my laptop and desktops in all corners of my house. In some of the same locations, I couldn't connect the Pad. Even in spots where the connection with the Pad was strong, the auto-connect feature was flaky. Sometimes the Pad would say it was connected to the router, but then it would disconnect saying it could not get an IP address from the router. This happened even when I was in the same room with the router. To address this issue, I used the wi-fi config on the Pad to assign the Pad a fixed IP address. But every time I turned the pad off and restarted, it would revert to the dynamic IP setting and my fixed address was lost. I contacted customer support about this, was told I would get an email back, but I never heard from them. The email application is disappointing. You can only have one POP or IMAP account. Many (if not most) people in Pepper's target audience have multiple email accounts -- one for home, another for work. I can't imagine why Pepper released the Pad with such a limited email application. The screen size is decent, but it's not as sharp as I would have liked. It's slow. Browser page load times were noticeably longer on the Pad, compared to all of the other computers on my network -- even when running the pad in the same room as the router. The Pad has lots of little bugs. In the two weeks I had it, the Pad crashed and restarted four or five times for reasons I could not fathom. Twice, after being fully charged, the power meter continued to report that the battery was critically low (I had to reboot the Pad to get the correct power reading). Same with the wi-fi connection. Sometimes when connected, the "not connected" icon appeared. Again, rebooting solved that problem. I purchased the Pad because I wanted a small, affordable Internet device that I could take from room to room and read in bed. At $850, the Pad seemed pricey to me, but the under-$1,000 Tablet PCs had gotten bad reviews, and the market had few other alternatives. There's been lots of buzz about other devices -- such as the $350 Nokia 770. But none had reached the market. When Pepper began to ship, it was the best option available. But as I struggled with Pepper's flaws, I found myself rationalizing the purchase and making excuses for the machine, rather than relishing it. "I can live with these flaws," I kept telling myself. "Because Pepper is the only game in town." But then I began to search for other options. The Nokia 770 has begun to ship and is getting good reviews. Advueu has improved its $950, 2.5-pound tablet PC. There are other options, and more on the way. Again, if Pepper was half the price, I might have stuck with it. But when it's more than twice as much as Nokia's Internet device and barely less than a Tablet PC that can do 10-times as much, it seems foolish to stick with a machine that I'm barely tolerating. I don't know if the Nokia and Advueu machines are the ones to buy. But I suspect the market will have plenty of options soon. Pepper needs to beef up its offering (and perhaps reduce its price) to compete. Rating:  - Great gadgetI love my Pad. I don't understand why some are comparing this device to a laptop/desktop. Its like comparing a treo or blackberry to a pepper pad. My pepper allows me to easily sit outside/inside and do the things I need to do when NOT at my desktop. Its attractive, small, very portable and it works. The pad fills in a space that laptops and smartphones can't....more power than a PDA but bigger, less power than a Laptop/desktop but smaller. Oh and I also got my pad wet once...only to learn at that point that it is actually splash proof...phew. Try that with your dell :) Rating:  - Small Package, Big DisappointmentI bought the Pepper Pad hoping to get out of Windows, into Linux and onto the internet. I could turn on my DVD player remotely, but internet connection kept getting dropped at home and at a cyber cafe. Sent it to Pepper; they supposedly fixed the wi-fi card and upgraded the firmware. The condition seemed worse when they sent it back to me. I called tech support and they never got back to me. I sent it back for a refund and now own a Axim X51v which can pick up a signal 200' away from router. Rating: - Very disappointingThe size, weight and design of the machine is fine, but the OS is a complete disaster. It was a bad sign when it crashed during the set up process, and things got worse from there. The touchscreen is awful, response times are slow, and it wouldn't even properly set the date and time. Although it found the wireless network, it could not transmit any data. (All the other devices in the house were transmitting fine.) The product is a great idea, but the execution is a complete failure. I sent mine back the next day.
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