Many tech enthusiasts expressed an interest in ViewSonic's G-Tablet when it debuted as it marked one of the first slates available with Nvidia's Tegra 2 SoC. Unfortunately, the device kicked off to a rocky start after performance issues prompted a significant number of users to request a refund. In fact, so many customers returned the product that Staples felt compelled to yank the G-Tablet off its store shelves citing a "manufacturing defect."

ViewSonic refuted claims of a hardware defect this week by suggesting that the G-Tablet only suffers from a "user experience" issue – in other words, the device was shipped with half-baked software. "While [users] love the hardware, they raised several issues about the user interface," the company said. Speaking with Engadget, ViewSonic VP of Marketing Adam Hanin partly blamed the issue on Google's current lack of support for tablets.


Hanin explained that companies such as ViewSonic have to "go out and put together their own software and app stores." While Google's existing Android platform doesn't officially support tablets, ViewSonic can't realistically shift blame. Nobody forced the company to develop and market a slate with Froyo. Nonetheless, ViewSonic said its software partner is working on an update to address customer concerns and add more interface functionality.

"Customers will have the flexibility to use both a standard Android interface as well as a user-customizable interface which has been significantly enhanced since the product launch." G-Tablet owners should be prompted to download the update via Wi-Fi Friday, December 24, while a manual download will be available via ViewSonic.com/gtablet. The company also noted that Adobe-certified Flash support is coming by the end of January.