The Fedex man (his name is Gary) dropped off the Android-powered Archos 5 Internet Tablet this morning. I, in turn, opened the box and took photos of the aforementioned device.
Specs (complete list here):
- 4.8-inch touchscreen (800×480 resolution)
- 32GB storage, expandable via microSD
- Video playback: MP4 (720p), H.264 (720p), WMV (DVD resolution), MKV (720p)
- Audio playback: MP3, WMA, AAC+, Ogg, FLAC
- Photo viewer: JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP), FM transmitter, FM receiver, GPS
- Built-in speaker, microphone, and kickstand
Size
The tablet is about 5.5 inches wide, 3 inches tall, and .25 inches thick. It feels solid, but not too heavy. Kind of like a big smartphone. It’d definitely fit in a roomy pants pocket.
There’s a kickstand built into the back of the tablet, allowing you to set it on a desk.
Screen
The 800×480-resolution screen works well for watching video clips and navigating the Android interface, although you’ll need to do some side-scrolling on web pages. There’s a built-in accelerometer that orients the screen horizontally or vertically.
Software
There’s a built-in app store with Free, Search, and Update tabs along the top. Selection seems a bit limited and I was unable to find any for-pay apps but I need to play around more.
The video player works okay with locally-saved videos but I had some trouble with certain YouTube clips. One time I just got sound and no video and a few other times the player would start loading a clip and never end up playing it. The tablet uses a YouTube player – it doesn’t directly play YouTube Flash videos embedded in the web browser.
Music playback is handled via standard 3.5mm audio jack or using the built-in speaker.
The GPS software features overhead maps and voice guidance. It seemed to work well but I haven’t actually tested it in a car yet..
Other Info
- At first glance the tablet seems a tad sluggish (especially when typing), but I still need to put in some quality time with it.
- Archos also sent me the AV docking station so I’ll be able to hook the tablet up to a TV.
- The main screen can only be used horizontally, tilting the tablet vertically does nothing.
I’ll have a full review up in the coming weeks. Please leave any questions in the comments section below and I’ll try to address as many as I can.
Does it play flash games?
Yes, there’s a Flash Games player built in with a bunch of preloaded games.
That’s the android unit, isn’t it? I thought the regular tablet had a list menu and not basically a desktop?
Yes, this is the Android version. It has a desktop.
I just checked the prices online compared to the “normal” version. Gee golly gosh! Why so expensive? Is Android really that expensive or something?
“Expensive?” The 160 GB model is cheaper than the 64 GB iPod touch, and has a way bigger screen. I know what I’m getting for Christmas.
This is why Flo TV from Qualcomm is dead. You just need Wi-Fi or 3G added to something like that and you can watch whatever you want in your browser.
If there isn’t SkyFire for Android, there should be and this device would be the answer to what a lot of people are looking for (slowness aside.)
Any idea on how fast the processor is? The new Nvidia Tegra would probably fix whatever lag you’re seeing.
The other non-Android Archos 5 tablets use a 600MHz ARM Cortex processor, though this particular version doesn’t list the CPU on the product page. I’ll try to get to the bottom of that one.
“WMV (DVD resolution)”
I think you could edit this to:
WMV (DVD resolution included for free, 720p with plugin)
And Mpeg2 and AC3 Dolby Surround codecs are also all part of the unique 15€ “CInema HD” plugin.
The only missing codec I think is DTS which they will hopefully add with another plugin later since it’s neither a free codec to licence for such a device.
Any word on the cost?
“although you’ll need to do some side-scrolling on web pages”
Well, that’s exactly what you don’t need to do thanks to this large hih resolution screen.
Archos previously had a feature in Opera where any website for higher resolution than 800 wide pixels was resized yet fonts remained readable for full width and no side scrolling. I would expect Google’s Android webkit based browser to have that same feature, if not yet, then as soon as Archos updates the device to Android 1.6 which comes with WVGA support thus probably also with a WVGA optimized Google web browser. Not to even consider that full Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera probably are going to be available for Android soon.
“it doesn’t directly play YouTube Flash videos embedded in the web browser.”
I’ve seen videos of people demonstrating that it does in fact load Youtube any Youtube embeds from the browser in full screen video playback.
I don’t see why you would want to display a video in the small embed player, since the screen is 4.8″ and it’s not a desktop or laptop monitor, it makes much more sense to simply watch all the youtube videos in smooth full screen quality and simply hit the escape button to go back to the website where you were on.
It doesn’t play YouTube videos as embedded objects inside the browser. It does play them full-screen, yes — similar to how the iPhone or the T-Mobile G1 or several other cell phones handle YouTube videos.
I don’t know why anyone would want to watch them inside the browser either. People just always ask if these things can handle embedded Flash videos, presumably to use video sites other than YouTube.
Just a side note, there’s also a Dailymotion video player built in.
Noticed the GPS had you routing through S King St., guess you are based in HI?
he is trying to track you down so he can steal the archos!
Can it read CBR/CBZ files?
“The other non-Android Archos 5 tablets use a 600MHz ARM Cortex processor, though this particular version doesn’t list the CPU on the product page. I’ll try to get to the bottom of that one.”
Correction: It uses a 800MHz OMAP3440 processor/ARM Cortex A8 , Not 600mhz.
Every other site got the specs right.
Why can’t Crunch.
this internat tablet is really fast….very good experience
My Archos arrived last night and I’ve been experiencing some problems. For one, very few apps are showing up on the screen (although they show up in the application manager under settings). The AppsLib is one that didn’t appear. I found a forum post with the manual download for Archos’ AppsLib and got it installed, but what a pain. It feels like the firmware on mine is only half baked, even though it’s listed as the current version.
I’d love it of someone would show it actually sliding into a pants pocket. Size is what keeps me from getting one of these.
Can you listen to the FM tuner over Bluetooth, or is a corded connection required?
i love the original archos 5, i though they got the right size but with this new model they made it a bit bigger with the same size screan, it looks like they went backwards in looks, i prefer the archos 5 opera the whole gadget is a srean, sorry archos after so many years going foward, finally you made a mistake. i still think you are the best in pmp but this one is a no no, get archos 5 opera is cheaper ,looks better, it just don’t say android, still can’t play flash videos like justin tv so why so expensive?
I wanted to know if the archos is able to offer a gaming experience at par with that of the Ipod touch, by that i mean that since it doesn’t have any tactile controls would we be able to play games using it’s built in accelerometer, the same way that’s being done on the ipod touch.
Also i know that’s it’s an internet tablet that doesn’t offer flash support, but i was wondering if it’s likely that archos will offer full flash based browsing in the future, possibly through some firmware upgrade. Other than that how would you rank the browsing experience compared to other portable browsers such as opera or safari.
The Archos 5 is a great video player, but it disappoints as a premium Android Internet tablet and GPS unit.
Can the Archos 5 (original, without android) be used like a mini computer, allowing me to access Microsoft Office files that I have saved to a memory card or flash drive?
As a teacher, I would love to be able to hook this up to the projector in my classroom. Would that be possible?
I work at Radioshack in MO, we recently got a demo of the Archos 5 Tablet with the Android interface. It runs 249.99 and as a salesperson, as well as a techy individual, I have recommended this device over the Ipod touch on a few occasions. The only issue I am having is getting it to tether via bluetooth to my samsung jack. The wifi and everything else work great though.