Other manufacturers and OS discussion

[JRSmith]

My father recently bought a Smart Tab 2 (the 7in model) on PAYG from the Vodafone website. We've not been able to connect it to the internet via 3G. The SIM card has £10 credit on it (when you buy the tablet on PAYG rather than contract you get 500MB included to use within 60 days) so there shouldn't be a problem there. But it just doesn't connect. Any suggestions would be very gratefully received!

[Kay]

Hi JRSmith, 

Can you confirm if your Tab is showing a signal? Can you also let us know what error message is displayed when you try to load an Internet page? 

Can you follow this troubleshooting guide to make sure you have the correct settings installed? 

Let me know how you get on. 

Kay

[JRSmith]

Aha. I'll let you know ASAP Kay, but I think that troubleshooting page has part of the answer. To answer your point - it shows a Vodafone UK signal, but it's grey rather than the blue that it should show when connected. Under 'status' from the main Android settings page, it shows Mobile Network State as disconnected despite mobile data being activated. And in the browser, if you try and load a page it shows the generic 'couldn't connect' message. But I know for certain that the APN settings aren't as described in that page you've linked to. I'll put them in and get back to you.

Next question - when Dad bought the tablet, it came with 500MB of data to use within 60 days. When does that 60 days start from? Because we've obviously not been able to use the data connection yet!

As an aside - Vodafone tech support over the phone seems to be rather under-prepared for these tablets. I take it that a) not very many of them have been sold yet and b) of those, not very many are on PAYG? A couple of weeks ago the thing locked up - I shut it down to put a microSD card in that had been in before - and it froze while rebooting. I went through two online chat support agents and a lovely lady on the phone, while I was on hold with the aforementioned lady I found a note on the Lenovo site about the tablet that the Smart Tab 2 is based off. There's a reset button underneath the SIM card cover that isn't documented at all in the (minimal!) paperwork that you get with the tablet. I ended up detailing her the location of it in case she got any calls about similar problems in the future....

[Jenny]

Hi JRSmith,

How have you got on with the troubleshooting steps that Kay provided?

I am sorry to see the difficulties you’ve had in getting this resolved over the phone. This is something we can feedback as it sounds like a possible training issue.

The 60 days is usually from the date that you got the device, but let us know once you’ve got this set up and we’ll ensure that you’ve not missed out.

Thanks,

Jenny 

[JRSmith · Accepted solution]

Hi there, sorry for not getting back sooner.

Connection is fixed. Dad made another trip to the Vodafone store in Burton, and got hold of a guy who knew about the tablets. He replaced the SIM card with one that was actually right for the tablet (apparently phone and tablet SIMs are different, and Vodafone had packaged a phone SIM with the tablet by mistake), and it connected up straight away.

Thanks very much for your help. Maybe Vodafone should think about putting a full manual in the box with these things to make it a bit easier to troubleshoot!

Cheers,

James