Archos 5 Internet Tablet Review
I had my HP Mini 110 Notebook for a few months and it was pretty nice to take on my trip to Dubai since it was so small. Unfortunately it’s usefulness pretty much ended there since I mostly use my Macbook Pro for everything. What I needed was a portable media device that was small enough to hold in one hand and at least do a decent job of surfing the internet. The netbook in a practical sense can do most of the basic functions of a notebook, and as Steve Jobs once said, it doesn’t do any of those well. Watching HD videos on a netbook was very unsatisfactory especially in HD and it kills the experience. Then I stumbled on the Archos 5 Internet Tablet while walking around Best Buy so I bought it out of curiosity and have been very happy with it since.
The Archos Internet Tablet is an Android powered, feature packed portable media player that plays just about every popular multimedia format from AVIs (including Divx and Xvid), MPEG2/4, WMV, MKV, H.264, MP3, AAC, WMA, etc… and does so exceptionally WELL. In fact, it can manage HD media without any stuttering. There’s also a built in FM tuner and you can buy a DVR for this if you want to record and schedule your TV shows by connecting to your cable box with component or HDMI cable. There are so many features to list and so many things you can do on the device since it’s an Android player so I’m going to mainly focus on how well it does in real world every day use.
Quick Specs: 800MHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU, 256MB of RAM, 16GB SSD hard drive, 802/11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, microSD card slot, micro USB port, runs Android 1.6
Design
When I took this right out of the box, my first impression was that it pretty much resembled a GPS navigation device (and yes it has GPS capabilities!), which is a thin wide screen slab and about exactly the same size and weight, except a little more lighter and thinner.The Archos 5 Internet Tablet measures 5.5 inches wide, 3 inches tall, and .4 inches thick which is small enough to fit into the back pocket of your jeans (although I wouldn’t really recommend it). The display is bright and responsive with High resolution touch screen, 800×480 pixels, 4.8” TFT LCD, 16 million colors so you’re going to get really good on screen playback. There’s also a built in kickstand which is a really nice touch!
As you can see, the size of the entire iPhone is about the same size as the screen of the Archos 5 Internet Tablet!
First Few Hours
This was actually the most challenging part out of the whole experience of owning the tablet. So challenging that I was already considering returning it! After doing the initial setup I didn’t do any ROM updates because I wanted to try it out right away. I plugged it into my MacBook Pro to transfer some video files and started to get irritated when OSX didn’t detect the drive! If I had done my research instead of buying this out of impulse, I would have know that this was a common issue that has yet to be resolved and not be so shocked. Whatever. So while I waited my my Mac to restart into Windows 7 using Boot Camp, I started to configure the network settings and surf the web with it. The browser was decent but guess what? It froze!!! WTF?! I restarted and tried again and noticed that the operations didn’t run as smooth as an iPhone and was something I had to get used to.
I went through Archos’ own “App Store” on the device and it was a joke. I couldn’t even find the official Facebook application and already started planning to take this back to the store the next day but I at least wanted to try out how good it is as a video player. But before that I let the device update itself to the latest firmware and after it restarted I quickly noticed how snappy the tablet was and how smooth navigating through the OS was prior to the firmware update. Finally some light at the end of the tunnel! I loaded a bunch of Divx files, Xvids, and MKV files (most of them were anime) and they ran amazingly well. In fact, I could right away tell the difference in video playback between the HP Mini 110 and the Archos 5 which is night and day! Playback was perfectly smooth, display was bright and clear, and I was even more impressed that it supported subtitles for MKV files or SRT files with the Divx!
The built in speaker was a bit on the quiet side and I had a pair of iPhone earphones laying around and started freaking out a little bit because I was wondering why the sound was hollow and quiet. I then realized that the iPhone earphones don’t work on this but the ones that came with my iPod or with the Archos worked perfectly fine. Just something to keep in mind before you freak out and think that it’s defective!
Features Galore
I could go on and on talking about the features of this device because there are so many. I’ll just list them and describe how well they work…
Android 1.6 – Whatever you can install on an Android smartphone, you can pretty much run on this! Also you easily install the Android Market Place by going here and it makes the experience 100X better. Ditch that built in app store that Archos had pre-installed. You will be opened up to a world of applications such as Face Book, Meebo, Google Talk and Google Voice. I can listen to my voicemails, send and receive text messages on my Archos! How cool is that?!
Google Applications – After installing Market Place, you can install the Google Applications as mentioned above. You can sync Gmail, Google Calendar, Contacts, etc. You can also put in your e-mail information and sync with your personal e-mail. Sorry, no out of the box Exchange support, but who would really use this for work?!
Video Player – As mentioned early, plays video files way better than the HP Mini 110 netbook. No stutter and can play files in HD no problem! The support codes include H.264, WMV, MKV, MPEG-4/2 (Divx, Xvid, AVI, etc) which is basically everything that the Apple handhelds don’t play!
Photo Viewer – Yes you can load and view photos loaded onto the built in hard drive or off a MicroSD card
Web Browser – Standard Android browser experience is up to par with Safari on the iPhone and iTouch. Websites look even better and easier to read with its larger screen size. No flash but that should be coming in the future and no pinch to zoom!
FM Radio – Don’t really use it that much but it works. Just plug in your headset and it will use that as an antenna.
GPS Navigation – Has built in GPS. You have to pay for the software but they do give you a 7 day trial. I tethered my phone’s WiFi just to try the GPS to this and Google Maps works just fine. But why would I do that if my phone already has GPS? LOL. A nice touch none the less.
DVR Recording – You can hook this up to your Cable box via Component or HDMI and schedule recordings without a subscription! Unfortunately you have to shell out $129 for the DVR dock. Might be worth it since you don’t have to pay a DVR subscription with your cable company or TiVo.
Music Player – The interface is no iPod, iPhone or iTouch but it works. Just drag and drop onto an MicroSD card or onto the hard drive and you’re ready to go. no Itunes needed! It will even play files over the network!!! Plays WMA, MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, and AAC.
Overall
As CNET mentioned in their review, this is a pirate’s best friend! You can download videos off torrent and play it on this baby without having to convert saving you lots of time. As of this writing, I’ve already sold my netbook as this pretty much can duplicate its functions at a smaller size and does what I need very well. The Archos 5 Internet Tablet is well designed, very portable and it does what it’s supposed to very well. This is no way a replacement for an iPhone or any other smartphone which is why I haven’t really compared it to that. I would rather carry on the Archos than a laptop or netbook when I’m on the plane because of how portable and functional it is. Just to recap, it plays all video and audio formats, has WiFi/Bluetooth capability, and has a very capable web browser.
I can watch movies or play games since you get up to 7 hours of battery life so it will last through the plane ride. My only issue with this is that out of the box without doing any updates, it’s extremely buggy and unreliable which can be frustrating for the novice user. However, once you install the latest firmware updates and the Android Marketplace, you have a really good alternative to a netbook.
If you had to choose between this and an iTouch to play videos, I would definitely choose this. If you mainly just need an MP3 Player and play games, then the iTouch is for you. If you already have an iPhone and are tired of converting your video files to play or need something that doesn’t half-ass multimedia functions like a netbook does, then it would definitely be worth it to get the Archos.
Overall Rating: 9/10
