just came across your blog post while reading up on the various telpad forums, since yeah, i too sent my demo unit back to pldt and was thrilled to be surprised to received an upgraded android 2.3 gingerbread unit which their service staff told me was the official unit. i was asking for a manual on the 2.3 but the staff said that the manual would be sent when ready(?)

its only been a week since i received my unit but yes, there’s a big leap of improvement from the demo unit. from their launch last year, i believe its still the same US company called neugent technologies who makes the telpad. the big changes i noticing (at least from 1 week of use) were:

1) the touchpanel — super responsive na now that even a very light press moves the screen very quickly, as compared to before where multiple presses need to get the screen moving, and it used to lag and annoying

2) the battery life — much longer now, i can go on the whole afternoon (5-6 hours) playing ‘restaurant story’, browsing the web, etc. compared to before when the battery would go low in an hour or two

3) the compatible apps — with the 2.2 android, almost half of the apps i got from the android market wouldn’t work when installed. while now, almost all are compatible. a lot of the games from the market are actually fun to play though some really seem meant for cellphone.

4) skype — most of my cousins living in US so now i can actually skyping call and chat them just like my desktop; i thought making skype work unlike before was just great, and was one of my reasons to avail this package from pldt in the first place

5) well design screen — the new screen looks and feels a lot like my macbook lite while before it looked clunky with tabs on the side and below

i don’t know exactly why pldt has been silent on this gingerbread upgrade since its not on the official telpad website, but i saw the same here at the pldt shangrila booth. there was an all black unit in contrast to the one shown in the picture above. there was also displayed a white unit that looked different and was probably another model but was still old 2.2 froyo operating system according to the pldt staffer. it looks like pldt wants to give their customers more choices, and probably target to different markets for each model.

in all, at first i was a very upset with the demo unit when it failed live up to the launch hypes, but now that i’ve received this gingerbread upgrade it’s been great so far! well its just been a week but i’m hoping nothing major major will conk out, and if it just keeps this performance, its something i’d be happy to recommend to my friends.

hope this helps the other telpad subscribers. and congrats to pldt for this gingerbread upgrade!!! this improved unit has been a joy to used!!