EEVblog #822 - World's Worst Tablet Computer Teardown

[free_electron]

made in a town called 'prutting' ...

(prut is the dutch word for 'junk' )

[SeanB]

Prototype for sure, and probably made in a hurry as well, put together by the software team ( explains the soldering and the battery pack, an EE or even any technician would have done better, along with knowing there are such things as tabbed cells) in a hurry after they had finished the rough application. That they have not pared down the OS install from the basic install ( and I bet it is also running the original CD release of XP, not any updates or service packs at all, it would be dog slow then) and only have the app running shows that, while leaving the rest of the base install on the CF card shows development in a hurry. Production number of 11 says first prototype, they normally start serial numbering from 10 or 100, so that a prospective customer does not feel like they are being used as alpha testers.

[GNU_Ninja]

I quite like it. The thing has a certain roguish charm, and you have to admire the skill involved in randomly packing all that stuff in there and actually getting the bloody thing to work 

Personally, I think it's someone trying to take the piss. Made for a great video though. Top stuff 

[kcozens]

Argghhh, mine eyes!   Wow, that is absolutely incredible. I was just waiting for you to hit the FAIL button. Keep the embedded system board and the case but bin the rest. I was going to say it was the quality you might have for an internal prototype but it isn't even good enough for that. The prototypes made in a company I used to work for looked a lot better than this.

I would guess they couldn't find a short enough cable so they cut a longer one down to size. The PCB looks like something you might see from someone just getting in to electronics and who is still learning. Even the soldering looks really bad. This must be one of the worst things I've seen you take apart. A bit of perf board and hand soldering would have made for a better looking power supply board than what you found in this device.

The worst part of it is that this was used in the medical profession. I hope no ones life ever depended on the proper operation of the device. If you find yourself in a hospital and a member of the medical staff brought that device in to your room, leave there as fast as you can and find a better hospital. 

[merox]

The "Tablet" was sent in by the a guy from this german forum, i think they also sent in something last year somewhere around christmas: http://fingers-welt.de/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5580

The starter of the thread over there says that the company went bankrupt last year and he picked it up when they where cleaning out their closets/buildings. He called the closet where this came from the "things get put in there and are forgotten forever"-closet. So it most likely was a thing hacked together as a prototype in very early development.

[German_EE]

Ah yes, in French that would be an oubliette or 'place of forgetting', normally a deep dank dungeon where nobody bothers to visit anymore.

Still no reply to my email but if they have gone bust then I probably won't get one.

[bookaboo]

Too bad to be true, I wonder if some beginner got a hold of this unit and modified it for a different use. It just seems strange that they would have enough know how to get something like that to work yet not enough to make it even semi-respectable build quality. My favourite was the sellotape battery pack.

[6581]

That thing looked like something I might be able to put together. Not sure if I'd be able to replicate the quality of that power pack, it looked quite impressive.

[merox]

Too bad to be true, I wonder if some beginner got a hold of this unit and modified it for a different use. It just seems strange that they would have enough know how to get something like that to work yet not enough to make it even semi-respectable build quality. My favourite was the sellotape battery pack.

To be honest, some of our "I've-Got-An-Idea-For-A-New-Product"-Show-and-Tell thingys of some engineers i worked together with sometimes don't look much better than this. Maybe it was just an idea of an engineer which he put together in some spare time without any budget, time or proper parts and this is what he showed up with in some team-meeting.

It's rubbish but hey, it was never ment to be a proper product, just something to show to the marketing guys.

And to pick this up from a former reply: In our company we also start the serial numbers of products that are sold to customers at something like 100 or 1000. Everything below that are just development systems, sometimes badly hacked together but still good enough for first tests or software development.

[nali]

They should have done their homework. Panasonic have been supplying Toughbooks to Emergency Services and Defence (in Australia at least) for many years. Now they have a 'detachable' version which is essentially a Toughbook but the display part detaches to form a tablet computer. NSW Ambulance Service use the Toughbooks to complete their 'paperwork' on. Good luck going up against them.

(Sidenote: I actually love the Toughbooks. Very well built. I'd love to see Dave do a teardown on one and really pick it to bits.)

Interesting you mention them - I was involved in the build of the proof-of-concept for the Toughbook which started off life as a standard notebook with the back cover replaced by a  metal box holding a standard 5.25" CDROM drive, 15 NiCd (NiMh?) C-cells and some switchmode buck converters to supply the CD and the parallel-to-IDE converter interface.

Suffice to say it looked nothing like the dogs dinner above! This would be about 1995-1996

[rr100]

The company still has a site up - http://www.esinomed.de - looking there I can very well imagine they were doing 5-10 years ago some bodge like this as a prototype or even a small run that got delivered to a customer. Of course everything looks clean on the website but still underneath there are some off-the shelf PC parts and touch screens.

One thing I've noticed: the reason they soldered the USB cable to the board is because there wasn't enough space to stick a connector in.

[rollatorwieltje]

Wouldn't surprise me if they just took an existing sample unit of another product (maybe a "dumb" kiosk monitor?) and bodged it into this, a "tablet". Hence the sticker.
Usually our early production samples are used for testing, but when they survive or didn't get used they usually end up in the storage room, otherwise known as the playground. This thing looks nasty, but I could see this happen. The worst I've seen is probably a control box that looked fine on the outside, but contained a massive A3 sized breadboard on the inside. Worked fine, just don't drop it. Or tilt it. Or open the cover...

[langwadt]

Too bad to be true, I wonder if some beginner got a hold of this unit and modified it for a different use. It just seems strange that they would have enough know how to get something like that to work yet not enough to make it even semi-respectable build quality. My favourite was the sellotape battery pack.

a taped up battery for a prototype doesn't seem so bad, you gotta make what you need from what you can get.
But the only explanation for such bad soldering by someone who has done any electronics at all is that it was a late night fix at a hotel room using a nail and
a lighter 

[SL4P]

As the OP said - the company went out of business
(ZYTRONICS or ESINOMED?)

[AF6LJ]

You have to love it...
Vomit-Tronix 6000 at its best

[stm]

As the OP said - the company went out of business
(ZYTRONICS or ESINOMED?)

Esinomed went bankrupt..

[Vgkid]

That is truely horrible if it is a limited production unit, hope not.

[crispy_tofu]

Wow! Fantastic!! Looks like something I would do... 

[all_repair]

I would give them more slack.  Almost certain this is serial number 1, or 0.001.  First piece to show and get the feel from everyone.

[Hydrawerk]

Google search of "ESINOMED infoview" gives no results, that had existed before Eevblog video. This crap tablet was probably never sold at market.
But hey, there was another crap product from Germany. Do you remember the Welec oscilloscopes??
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/welec-w2000a-another-weird-oscilloscope/

[Macbeth]

Serial number 00011. Obviously like all good numbers the last digit is a check sum.

Now I was going to argue that this is obviously a prototype and clearly would never have seen the light of day in a medical environment, must have been hacked together last minute for a presentation concept or something.

Then I started thinking of that double sided PCB with bodged surface mount "Manhattan style" solder and crap everywhere and then the 3, count 'em 3 tracks on the bottom of the board. I just cracked up PMSL that this is a well done troll. I bet he's laughing his arse off at the absurd ingenuity of that double sided board and the world taking it seriously  I mean those bottom traces and the undrilled through holes are deliberate comedic effect surely?  ... and they say Germans have no sense of humour... 

[SL4P]

This may have been the prototype for an iPoo'd personal media device?

[kyndal]

i can appreciate this being the version 0.001a   just to show and tell.. 

its kinda like this.. and you can do this stuff...   etc..   

i  have made several  barely working  or not even working mock ups.

but i dont think there is any excusing the internal abomination they created.
for not much more cash..  they could have used electrical tape....  for starters anyway

and i think a 4$ eBay soldering iron  instead of the candle + rusty nail on a wine cork.   would have been a nice touch too

i will bet a case of beer  i can make a nicer power-supply on one of those 1$  Veroboards.....  in less time than it took to design. print. transfer. etch and HACK to death!
what they came up with   and i might have even sprung for the magical "single sided"   point to point approach    haha!


just..  NO...  just NO


haha

[Smokey]

Hmm... I think Dave used up his allotment of "WOW!" for the year.  Good thing I wasn't playing the "sounds of disgust" drinking game.

[Stonent]

Ah yes, in French that would be an oubliette or 'place of forgetting', normally a deep dank dungeon where nobody bothers to visit anymore.

Still no reply to my email but if they have gone bust then I probably won't get one.

It's where you put Jennifer Connelly when you have no need for her.



(It's a good day to be a sentient hand...)