Archos 5 Internet tablet with Android –Needs improvement in Web browsing

Thumbs Up:

Archos 5 Internet tablet offers high-resolution large display, GPS, integrated kickstand, inbuilt speakers and microphone, Web browser, email client, Bluetooth, Flash video and game compatibility, music and video playback and Wi-Fi. It also supports limited Google Android applications.

Thumbs Down:

GPS signal reception is poor; glossy body attracts fingerprints; Copying and pasting text is difficult; Flash video support is not so good; various popular Android applications are not supported.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Archos 5 Internet tablet has 4.8 inches LCD display. It works as Voice recorder, Digital video recorder, Digital audio recorder, Digital photo viewer, Digital video player and Digital audio player.

The additional features of Archos 5 Internet tablet include FM receiver, FM transmitter, Bluetooth 2.0, and Wi-Fi for IEEE 802.11 b/g/n. The tablet supports still image formats of GIF, PNG, BMP and JPEG.

Supported audio formats are FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC+, AAC, PCM, Protected WMA, WMA and MP3. Archos 5 Internet tablet has inbuilt microphone and speakers.  Its audio features are VBR and CBR. Digital video playback formats include MJJPEG, MKV, WMV, H.264, MPEG48 and MPEG4. Supported operating systems are Linux, Microsoft Windows XP/Vista or later.

Archos 5 Internet tablet has standard lithium polymer batteries. It has three connections for composite video, headphones and USB. Accessories supplied inside the package are DVR station adapter, USB cable and earphones.

Razzle Dazzle:

Archos 5 Internet tablet is 3.3 inches tall, 5.5 inches wide and 0.4 inch deep and it weighs 6.4 ounces. This measurement and weight remains same for 32GB, 16GB and 8GB models. We reviewed the 32GB model. Its body complete body works as fingerprint magnet to capture fingerprint and smudges even on gentle touch. The tablet is small enough to easily fit in the jeans pocket.

Inside Dope:

Archos 5 Internet tablet is better than Apple iPod Touch on paper. It features FM transmitter, Bluetooth, integrated GPS, 4.8 inches screen and 720p high-definition video playback. The interesting factor is that it comes in different specifications starting from $249 for 8GB model with micro-SD card slot and thin body. Its hard-drive version of 500GB costs around $489. Our test model of 32GB costs $362.99.

Every aspect of Archos 5 Internet tablet is so made to attract the die-hard digital media fans and stay away them from Apple iPod Touch and Microsoft Zune HD. If you ever wished to have GPS in Apple iPod Touch, then go for Archos 5. If you ever think about small screen and limited support for video codec in Zune HD, then go for Archos 5. This tablet device uses Google Android platform and provides Archos Download Store. This store has limited variety of applications; still it is comparable to iPhone App Store.

Archos 5 was also launched earlier in 2008. Its success Archos 5 Internet tablet shares some features with its predecessor, but lacks compatibility for Android applications. The new model still has the same defects of its predecessor’s design. Headphone jack is located where you have to hold the tablet. The matte display is reflective like 605WiFi.

Archos 5 Internet tablet has inbuilt metal kickstand on the back. You can flip out this kickstand and use it for standing the tablet on flat surface for continuous usage. For the company, Archos 5 is the thinnest media player and first one to use micro-USB PC connection. You will find the other proprietary connections on the bottom such as battery packs and A/V media docks.

The feature set of Archos 5 Internet tablet includes accelerometer, speaker, microphone, FM tuner, Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi. We will discuss each feature one by one. The features of Archos 5 will attract the technical and freaky users because the normal users will like the simple features and qualities of iPod Touch.

Archos 5 Internet tablet has Wi-Fi that supports IEEE 802.11 b/g/n. Its wireless connection interface is easy to use with hotspot sign pages. In addition, the Archos 5 allows the tethering with your cell phone and piggybacking to other cellular data connection. In simple words, you can use Archos 5 as a modem for connecting to internet at your cell phone and allows the tablet to refuse the connection request of another cell phone. We agree that this feature needs some technical knowledge, but you will get various benefits from it as you can connect your laptop, Netbook and computer in the similar way.

The worthy advantage of Archos 5 Internet tablet over Apple iPod Touch is GPS. We liked the GPS features of turn-by-turn directions and accurate selection of interesting locations. However, the overall GPS experience of Archos 5 is frustrating. We are disappointed that the GPS takes 45 seconds to load. Moreover, the there was some delay on tracking our regular changing positions.

We did not any complaint about the Bluetooth feature of Archos 5 Internet tablet. We paired stereo Altec Lansing Backbeat 904 Bluetooth headset with the tablet. It offers good audio quality even at 30 feet distance. The other Bluetooth 2.0 profiles include HID, EDR and AVRCP. Occasionally, you have to restart the Archos 5 Internet tablet so that it can detect the micro-SD card slot. The integrated microphone and speakers are good additions. We found them to work good while testing.

As usual, the FM transmitter of Archos 5 Internet tablet requires attaching headphones. FM Transmitter did not work fine while testing, whereas its Radio Receiver worked fine. It also offers song IDs and RDS station. The inbuilt accelerometer is good for rotating Web pages, but has slow performance as compared to that of Zune HD and iPod Touch.

The video playback is one of the solidest feature of Archos 5 Internet tablet. It supports Flash video content, H.264, MKV, MPEG4, WMV, AVI, XviD, DivX, BitTorrent and provides resolution options up to high-definition quality 720p. For more support, you can invest $20 for HD plug-in for enabling 720p HD video playback via MPEG2 and WMV HD files. We will recommend this small $20 investment as you are already paying between $249 and $489.

Archos 5 Internet tablet has Android Web browser that supports Flash Lite. Still, the browser does not have predictive text input, multi-touch keyboard and pinch zooming. Most of the Web pages loaded in mobile format and copying/pasting of text is difficult. This support acts as different application outside the browser, so some services and Web sites will not be compatible. YouTube website worked fine, whereas websites like Comedy Central, ABC, CNET TV and Hulu did not work well. This condition was same for flash-based online radio portals like Last.fm, Slacker and Pandora. We would prefer the manufacturer to improve the Flash based interface to overtake the features of iPod Touch and Zune HD. On the contrary, the Android email is a good alternative to iPod Touch.

The inbuilt music player of Archos 5 Internet tablet supports WAV, Ogg, FLAC, WMA, AAC and MP3 files. The WMA support also includes DRM protected files. The tablet can also be set to stream music over Internet radio stations or Wi-Fi connection from nearby phones and computers. The music players features album art, sorting by ID3 tags and ability to bookmark audio files or music tracks. It also offers album art grid-view. However, the tablet takes some time to load thumbnails for album artwork.

Archos 5 Internet tablet has built-in photo viewer that supports PNG, GIF, BMP and JPEG. You can load pictures in this application through Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), micro-SD card and via PC. It makes large screen, digital and ideal photo album, but still takes few seconds to load and navigate through images. The zoom and resize options are useless. However, you will get advantages of drag-and-drop picture transfer and large screen. The overall photo experience of the Archos 5 does not match the standards of Zune HD and iPod Touch.

To your interest, Archos 5 Internet tablet also has few options for streaming media. You can stream any video and music file stored on networked computer using Windows Universal Plug and Play support. There is a Media Club menu that has Web radio and Web TV directories to access the streaming of local news, global Internet radio stations and video pod-casts via Wi-Fi.

Theoretically, the access of Archos 5 Internet tablet to Google Android Mobile application will be beneficiary for the new product. However, the application selection is limited. The Archos 5 Internet tablet has ThinFree application for opening PDF and Microsoft Office documents, Yellowbook, High Paying Jobs, Moov, Craiglist, Wikipedia, Linkedin, instant messenger, and Twitter. Some applications will only display a normal Web page of their content except messenger and photo viewer. We had the same complaint with the iPhone applications. The other two media applications including Deezer and Dailymotion only works in France (native country of Archos) and not in the U.S.

Android 5 Internet tablet has a life of 7 hours continuous video playback and 22 hours of audio playback. The audio quality is good and comparable to iPod Touch. However, Samsung P3, Sony X-series and Cowon S9 provide superior quality.

The video quality of Archos 5 Internet tablet is superior due to its large support of video codecs, high resolution screen and large display. We agree that it cannot beat a good laptop playing video on VLC, but still the audio and video quality of Archos 5 is impressive.

Nitty Gritty:

Archos 5 Internet tablet offers you advanced Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS capabilities with exciting audio and video performance. However, the manufacturer still has to work hard to improve GPS, photo viewing and internet browsing features. Apart from its drawbacks, it will be the reality for dreams of video cognoscente with its vast video codec supports. We can call the tablet as a rose for video downloader and media crazy persons. If you need a tablet just for great video and music playback and can manage the disadvantages of photo view and browser, then buy this tablet.

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