I’m becoming a bit of a gadget hoarder since my day job involves review and writing about technology. I have about a half-dozen tablets, for example, ranging from a full size iPad — and iPad Mini — to a Kindle Fire HD, a Dell Windows 8 tablet, another as-yet-unreleased Android tablet and a shiny new HP tablet on the way. They’re all Wif only, though, no T-Mobile data plan, nothing through AT&T or Apple. Just Wi-Fi. ANd smartphones? You don’t want to know how many we have in the office, but I think I’m going to have to just open my own store, or perhaps a tech petting zoo.
The core problem with all these tablets, however, and it really rears its head when school starts up and I’m back to attending school sporting events around the state every weekend, is that they’re all connected if I have a wifi signal. Take that away and the 45min prior to a lacrosse game or the 30min waiting for the basketball game to finally start ends up as dead time. Yeah, I talk to other parents, but sometimes I’m the lone parent and would really appreciate being able to connect and check the news or even just my email.
Enter the remarkably inexpensive Trio AXS 3G Quad Core Tablet, $179 from Walmart, including cellular data connectivity for life in that price.
Yup, for under $200 you can get a nice, featureful tablet with a bright 7.8″ HD screen and cellular tech so you can connect to the Internet anywhere there’s a cell signal (which is a whole lot more places than where there’s an open wifi signal). The Trio AXS has some neat tricks in its slim form too, including both front and rear facing cameras, 16GB of built-in storage and a microSD slot (which makes more storage a no-brainer and also means it’s super easy to add a half-dozen of your favorite movies, a few dozen CDs or a few hundred photos from your latest trip) and, my favorite feature, an FM radio built-in.
I tried it out at the local baseball field where I snuck in between games — baseball isn’t one of the sports my children play — and sure enough, it was a breeze to grab the Trio AXS and a water bottle and I was ready to sit through hours of boring baseball, wired up with connectivity, headphones and a screen that worked just fine in the shade.
As usual, I popped by the local Walmart where I’m actually starting to know some of the people who work in the electronics section.
This time they’d just gotten new locking cabinets for the electronics and the gal working couldn’t find the right key. Why they don’t have some sort of color coding or other mechanism to make key = cabinet pairing easy is beyond me, but after about five minutes of the poor gal struggling through her huge keychain twice, she finally popped it open and handed me the Trio AXS.
This is not what the packaging looked like:
In fact, it was rather disconcerting because the outermost packaging wasn’t the bright, cheery box shown in the photo, it was a dull brown cardboard box. At first I thought the company hadn’t bothered with consumer-level packaging, but when we got home and opened it, inside was a retail packaging that was much, much more engaging. Weird.
Much of my tablet use has been with Apple products, so it took a little bit of fiddling to get the home screen set up the way I like but with an almost 8-inch screen, it’s big and bright. In fact, it’s an HD screen with 1024×768 resolution (not quite 1080p) and plenty cheery enough:
Of course, there are a few must-install apps, including Netflix, Xfinity (I’m a Comcast subscriber so it not only offers access to my DVR remotely, but has tons of on-demand TV and movies) and Dropbox for photo sharing and organization. Easily added.
And then, to test the tablet when I was on a wifi network (you really don’t want to stream video on a cellular connection or your free 200MB/mo will be eaten up in the first 15 minutes) I logged in to my Netflix account:
I might be the only one, but I really like the film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, so I watched the last 10min, earbuds in place, while relaxing with a latte. The Magic School Bus? That’s my 10yo’s show and it’s really weird. Like “were you high when you wrote this episode?” weird. ‘nuf said on that subject!
Suffice to say that I’m impressed with the Trio AXS. It’s a solid tablet with a good screen, speedy interaction thanks to its quad-core 1.2Ghz CPU, and great connectivity thanks to both wifi and T-Mobile cellular connectivity, all at a remarkably low $179 price including lifetime Internet. Now to make sure my kids don’t liberate it every time we’re at a sporting event!
#TabletTrio #CollectiveBias
I bought the axs tablet for my daughter, for her birthday, she never even got it. We got it 6 days ago. I went to turn it on and it wouldn’t turn on or charge. My husband”forgot” to buy insurance, thank goodness that it died within the 15 days that WalMart gives you. I’m so disappointed and a lil angry.
Same here. Mine does not turn on and I just got it 16 days ago.
If you have a red light and it won’t turn on try holding in the power button for 60 Mississippi.
Yeah it worked… Just had to hold it for a long time…. This!
Every one of these I have seen at 3 different Walmart stores have been 3G Not 4G as advertised. I smell a scam.
I asked the T-Mobile people about that, actually, and they said that the devices themselves are 4G but the packaging just hasn’t caught up to the product yet. For what that’s worth…
I have a 2 Samsung Galaxy 5 phone contacted with T-MOBILE. Am interested in purchasing this tablet. QVC has item on sale with 5 gigs of data included FREE for 5 months. Any suggestions?
QVC is definitely a reputable place to buy something, but what I’d ask is what happens after those five months expire with the data contract?
not only that, the QVC big deal about tecky support is a wash. The availability of the support is a 9 to 5 5 day a week deal. Never when I needed it, so here I sat.
I actually bought one on qvc and after the 5 months they give you 200mg to use so its basicly like tho one at walmart. And they also have an app preloaded to get a plan for internet on your trio tablet.
I bought the trio tab from someone on craigs!list and didn’t know it came with 200mb free data a month. Everything works great on it including the wifi but I can’t fig out how to access my 200mb of free data can someone please help I’m not that computer savvy thank u keith
So to get data plan u just go to the web icon and look for T-Mobile support in the bookmarks and it tells u what plan u want.
I had the same problem this morning.the T-Mobile tech support said it was a known issue,I guess since I had a southern dialect,he assumed I did’t know what know issue meant.he went through great length to eexplainwhat a known issue was explained its just like the car dealership all the automakers the sale cause all the time was known issues and then they come back later after making the money and tell you there was no issue so I explained to him I didn’t know what a known issue was but I would have been very pleased if they had told QVC to let the customers know this will practice about the issue my tablet went out on about the 8th or 9th I thought I didn’t have any more data only took master class took this morning when I supposed to get mad too gigabytes free I was told by customer service that I was not out of data that I had one point something so I had to go over to tech support for him to tell me to go to connect me and then going to the app and then family and pulled up and I don’t understand how it got pulled up and he couldn’t really explain it so please fix this no issue I get my tablet back and give me another without a known issue please do all the customers the same way we didn’t ask for this problem and is surely wasn’t made known to us before purchase thank you
Very well put… this tablet is pretty good but a few glitch’s and tec don’t understand on their 9-5 hr. 5 day a week. I want a tec on call 24-7
I just purchased this tablet from Walmart today. It says to tap the connect me icon on the home screen. It’s the pink button.
So it worked fine for a bout a month and then it just did not want to turn on the sound just works don’t know If the screen on the inside is damaged or something what can I do to fix this
my trio AXS has stopped working. it is blank and I tried reset etc to no avail. I can not even get the red light on even though it was charged overnight.
My daughter’s just did the same it’s been a little over a month! I’m so upset!
Do you have to buy the data or is it free through tmobile
I changed my Sims card to a t-mobile Sim dual Sims card so I could get on Straight talk BYOt program.I have gone through all the steps but I can’t find out if I need to reset the apn settings or not, and if so how do I do that? Please don’t tell me iI have invested quite a bit of money in all of this straight talk by it stuff then I had to buy another tablet that it would work with. Before I spent any money on it I ask them at Walmart were they sure it didn’t have to be a special tablet no they said it will work with any tablet. At this point I was out almost 100.00 plus dollars then found out there are very few tablets it does work with. So had to buy another tablet and it was almost $200.00 so look what I have invested. Plus I had just got a new tablet about a month before. Then Walmart told me when I went back all of it was non refundable. So can u plz help before I start advertising this hole thing is one big scam or plain fraud.
How can i turn on my tablet trio axs? It is not working. It is new. I need HELP please
Have you plugged it in long enough to ensure that it’s charged? If it’s really dead, take it back to the store, receipt in hand.
take it back. Mine did that after a week of use…….. sent it back to QVC and trying it again. not sure that this one isn’t going back too……….
My Trio Axs 4G tablet has been working fine every since I’ve gotten it December 25th for Christmas. But all out sudden, last week I was playing my covet game and it just turned white and then colorful lines were across my screen. I left it alone for awhile and then eventually put it on the charger. But, it still didn’t work. What do you think could have happened and I need suggestions into how to fix it.
call Manufacturer
IPhone, Galaxy’s at Walmart were nice 3 4 5 600 dollars for 149.00 on sale I got WiFi cellular 16 gig dual core processor 4g and to answer a lot of questions about 3 4 g on box doesn’t really matter it switches gears automatically between 3 and 4 giving you the best service possible for the price WiFi awesome plus I’m cellular and with Google I cut my phone bill by 47.00. Only people who think this is a bad deal are rich and can buy $700 garbage that still doesn’t even have a Swype keyboard
Yeah 4G I think not. This tablet was nice when I got it. Word great with no interference… 😛
I got mine and I’m impressed. I am kind of a ‘creatie to function’ user, I like my devices to work efficiently and as easily as possible. With this device I can Swype, make and replace my own icons, clean out junk files and caches, run Spotify with a library of downloaded songs, take and design my own pictures and videos, play dozens of games and use social media. And I like it all fast and two or less clicks away! The AXS performs first rate. I got mine off QVS and paid 24 dollars a month for 6 months including 5 months 5G free deal with the option to continue past that period. I like mine and use it for everything giving my poor phone a break. All my Google store info and purchases, as well as Spotify, transferred right over.. Wow! Too easy.
For all of you that say you suddenly cannot turn on your Trio AXS tablet…
There is a tiny reset button on the back right under the headphone jack receptacle. I used a small paper clip to insert in the hole and reset the tablet. It turned right on after I did that!!!
Thank you so much for posting this!!! I was freaking out when mine wouldn’t turn on and the reset button did the job!
Thanks you are more help then the tec. support!!!
I tried that no avail..wont’charge won’t turn on..NOTHING
In response to stac…Are you feeling a small click when you push the paper clip into the reset hole? After I did that, I held the power button in until the Trio AXS banner came on, let go, and a few minutes later the tablet turned on completely. Other than that, I suggest returning the tablet for a replacement.
I bought this on QVC and I’m impressed with it! I’m still learning to get around on it, but I think I’m gonna like it. The main thing is patience.
Purchased from QVC 2 months ago LOVE IT ! It’s lighter weight than my IPad 3, easier to travel with, had problem with not turning on but used Reset and it solved the problem, this tablet is great for the price and T-Mobile put the iceing on the cake 😉
Bought a Trio Axis 4G, at Walmart. It will not let me connect at any wi-fi at all. I can connect at home, however, no where else. Screens reads unable to connect device. But the Verizon Connect Me Comes On, to charge me 30. a month. I don’t need a connection right at this time. Possibly later, but simply want to connect wi-fi when able to when I am not at home. Now the “available network” beeps letting me know there is wi-fi available. I have tried the setting, and all of those troubleshooting things. NO GO!
Anyone know how to configure to remove Verizon from controlling this feature???
I purchased trio from qvc not impressed with the marketing qvc it came 5 gig. To use in 5 months what a joke the ticket number told me to call team mobile after 7 hours talking to every one in company they told me u don’t get 5 gigs first u have to use tue 200 gigs first tthe tec used 2 mb of data I haven’t gotten to net yet I got number assigned to tablet the icon connect me dosentbknow work I convinced they set up wrong they asking me one number. the one number is inside tablet only on bex so when asked for one number hng up talk to someone else
I so disappointed with qvc and team mobile neither led me to believe that this so hard to set up
Happy tableting
Chris from NC
I have a trio AXS 4g. which came with free T- Moble. Well I turned it on and Its on the T-Moble wants a pass word forgot. Will not let me on,usually use the Wifi instead of T-Moble. how can i fix this problem
does anybody know if the camara on the Trio AXS is timer accecible? please someone tell me how to set it. Thanks
There is a sun dial icon that is on the main screen and I wish that it was not there. How can I remove it please?
Where do I send my tablet to fix the power button. I purchAsed at Wal-Mart in Nov I can’t find the receipt or box or came in
Sarah, go into Walmart and ask them for help with getting your tablet fixed. Just because you don’t have the receipt they should still be able to help you. Also, if you paid with a credit card, they can probably find the transaction anyway!
My device I love but recently my kid downloaded some books for me no it says I am runny out of room and I have a screen that tell me to uninstall app.so I do it work a bit than the screen sarts popping up every minute and sayi device is full uninstall app over and over again I clear catches I have uninstalled every thing I can what else can I do to fix this
How do I find myn wps pin
How can I change this Trio AXS from TMobile to Straight talk. Where I live there is no T Mobile
I suspect you cannot, but you can take it into your local Straight Talk office: If there’s a SIM card, you can try swapping it out and seeing if the Straight Talk one works…
I bought a straight talk Sims tried resetting apns nothing . finally did get ahold of T- Mobile they said can’t unlock it . I very politely told them then they shouldn’t sell it in places that TMobile doesn’t provide service. But thank you for taken the time to answer my question .
I bought 2 on woot as refurbished. One looked brand new and the other less so but still very good. Both work fine. Wondering if I can take the SIM card out (they seem to have the free data thing still on) and pop it in an iPad?
9 Oct 2021 – I received an email a couple days ago showing I canceled my account which I did not. Calling T-Mobile took a couple calls and being transferred around but with the help from my wife, she’s very stern on the phone 😀 The tablet is ‘trio AXS 3g’ but shows 4g when connected but the agent stated the device is not compatible. She was able to reactivate the SIM though which is the old style which I’ll need to find a device that can use it, which is not likely, or use a SIM cutter to make it fit inside another device. Keeping my fingers crossed it’ll start working on the trio since I received welcome text as soon as put the SIM back in it!