Archos Home Tablets

[CBers]

http://www.archos.com/products/ht/index ... gb&lang=en

These look nice, and cheap.

Anyone any thoughts ??

[grond]

Anyone any thoughts ??

"based on an ARM 9 processor @ 600 MHz"

That would be only half as fast as the Cortex A8 in the A5/A7 (600 MHz) and even slower in comparison to the A5/A7 Android versions which have a Cortex A8 clocked at 800 MHz IIRC.

I wonder whether they use a different SoC and if so, how they manage to support this alongside the OMAP3 of the A5/A7. And how an SoC with such an old ARM-breed can compete video-wise with the other Archos players.

I also wonder what marketing thought when they wrote this: "a complete new range of ARCHOS internet tablet, based on an ARM Cortex up to 1 GHz, will also be launched in the summer of 2010 offering a richer set of features with screen sizes from 3” to 10”."

So they officially tell us to not buy now but to wait until summer?

[warris]

Wonder how long before the beta version is released on an unsuspecting public? You would think wouldnt you that they would concentrate on getting one product right first before issuing a whole new range, I'm afraid I wont be buying any more archos products until they have a reliable track record, no matter how cheap they are. Support for their models is now down to around about 12 months so they start not to look so cheap after all. Such a shame Archos cant match their inventiveness with quality & support. In a very short space of time they have gone from a 2 product company to a 16 - smacks a bit of spreading themselves a bit thin, customer support for two products was bad what is it gong to be like with 16? No company can support that sort of sudden growth.

[grond]

Wonder how long before the beta version is released on an unsuspecting public? You would think wouldnt you that they would concentrate on getting one product right first before issuing a whole new range

Well, I assume that the new range of models to be released in summer will have the same or almost the same firmware which will simply run on a faster CPU. Texas Instruments is offering new OMAPs with faster clock rates which should be a drop-in replacement for the ones used in the current Android models. If the firmwares are really closely related, Archos should be able to at least reach the level of stability of the current offerings (whatever that means). With regard to the "home tablets" it really seems as if they use a completely different hardware. And that probably means that you will have to expect all the instability we have grown used to.

[CBers]

I'd really like a media player that plays everything without the need for plug-ins, or has any restictions, and runs on a decent OS.

I'd like something in the 7"-9" size so that the screen isn't too small.

Needs to have wifi or mobile-internet via a dongle.

Any one know anything like that ??