 "Better now than a month ago" | 2009-11-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2V99XA4BXANGB |
Hardware-wise, this is a nice device. Android feels bogged down on my phone, but on this device, it's wonderful. Animations are smooth, apps load instantly, etc. The device is physically beautiful. It has been in and out of my pocket for a few weeks, and there is not a scratch to be seen anywhere. It looks as nice as they day I unwrapped it. The screen is also very nice; it is bright and exactly 2x bigger than the iPod Touch's. The device still fits into my pocket OK, although it is a little bit bigger than I would consider ideal for that. (I have the 32G flash version. If you get a hard disk version, 160G or 500G, it's not going to be easily pocketable anymore.)
Software-wise, the default firmware this device ships with is total crap. You will see a lot of 1 star reviews here, and it's for that reason. The reviewers got the device, turned it on, and nothing worked. The default firmware is buggy, the built-in apps don't work right, the media player crashes like crazy, and it is generally frustrating. Archos really should have delayed the release of this thing by a month or so (but then wouldn't have gotten the free testing from people that paid $400 for the device).
Archos has recently fixed this, however. They have been good about releasing firmware updates every week or so. (Archos has a bad reputation for abandoning devices, so I was worried what I was shipped was The End. Not so, anymore.) With the latest firmware, everything I want working works. All of my favorite Android apps work great. The media player plays my music and videos perfectly (they even added Japanese fonts to the media player after I requested them!) Random videos from the Internet play fine, and so do H.264 MKVs I generated from my DVD collection. If you can watch the video on your computer, odds are it will play on the Archos device without any re-encoding. Just copy the video to the device, and start watching.
The web browser is also awesome. It is super fast, and if you are OK with a small font, pages render just like they would on your desktop. You feel like you are using a small computer, not a big phone. So if you want to go have a cup of coffee somewhere with free wifi and want something to read, this device is the perfect thing to have with you. (When I do the same thing on my phone, I never quite feel like I am really enjoying the experience. With the Archos, I enjoy the experience :)
So bottom line, if you have Wifi and can update the firmware, you should get this device. It is the perfect media player and mobile web browser. It has better hardware, better codec support, and more extensibility than anything else available. And, the extensibility doesn't come at much "user experience" expense. If you can copy files and read labels on icons, I don't think this is any harder to use than an iPod Touch. (And of course, if you have FLAC music or MKV videos, they are simply incompatible with anything Apple ships. But if you have the Archos, they play perfectly.)
|
| |
 "TO NEW OWNERS READ THIS" | 2009-11-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A6E83TD315BYY |
| I HAVE OWNED LOTS OF MP3 PLAYERS, I HAVE OWNED A Few IPODs, some ZUNEs, and other brands and older archos. THE PROBLEM WITH THE NEW ARCHOS IS IT LOCKS UP OUT OF THE BOX BECAUSE IT HAS THE BUGGY OS THEY FIRST INTRODUCED. THERE IS A WAY TO FIX MOST OF THE FREEZING. YOU WILL NEED TO GO TO [...] AND DOWNLOAD THE NEWEST ARCHOS OS (operating system) The New One FIXES A LOT OF THE FREEZING, I SPOKE WITH AN ARCHOS REP AND HE SAID THEY WILL BE RELEASING A LOT OF OS UPGRADES EACH TIME THEY COME UP WITH A FIX THERE WILL BE ANOTHER OS UPDATE EITHER THE 3rd OR LAST WEEK OF NOVEMBER HE TOLD ME. SO TO OWNERS DONT RUSH BECAUSE THIS IS CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY, I HAD THE PREVIOUS ARCHOS AND IT WAS BUGGY AS WELL BUT EVIDENTIALLY AFTER DOWNLOADING ALL THE FIXES AND UPDATES THEY CAME OUT WITH OVER TIME IT BECAME THE BEST PLAYER I HAD TO DATE, IM REFERRING TO THE ARCHOS 5 250 GB ONE, SO GIVE THIS NEW ONE THE 500 GB TIME, BECAUSE IT WILL EVENTUALLY BE FIXED. AT LEAST YOU CAN UPDATE THE FIRMWARE ONLINE, SOME MP3 PLAYERS DON'T HAVE THAT OPTION WHERE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE NEWEST FIRMWARE. I HAD A ZUNE AND I HAD TO BUY CONVERTER SOFTWARE FOR EVERYTHING WITH THE ARCHOS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BUY THE HD PLUGIN AND JUST ABOUT ANY VIDEO FORMAT WORKS WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO CONVERT LIKE YOU HAVE TO DO WITH IPOD AND ZUNE. FOR THOSE WHO NEED HELP INSTALLING THE OS UPGRADE YOU CAN CALL ARCHOS AT [...] |
| |
| "For Pioneers, not the Meek" | 2009-11-10 |
| - Reviewed By User: A11LRVWS3OTF87 |
The Archos 5A 32G is my third Archos device and my first Android. The 5A replaced my Archos 60G 5IMT which I gave to friend because 5A does everything my 5IMT and more:
- The Voice Recorder works if you don't have the headphones plugged in.
- The FM Transmitter lets me listen to my music in my car and comes in handy because I live on a small mountainous island with few FM Stations
- I like to read and the Android Apps:
-- Aldiko and FBReaader are wonderful epub reading experiences
-- ThinkFree Mobile for PDFs works nicely
Plus I can listen to my music while I read!
Currently, 6-9 Nov, there is an issue with playing YouTube videos. Which worked until YouTube changed their API. A semi-work-around is the YouTube Android App. GPS doesn't lock well for a number of people including me. Some people have been successful tethering the 5A to their cell phones for internet access outside of WiFi range. I can't test it.
To help you decide about buying you can go to the Archos Fans Forum and select the "Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android" forum.
I would rate it higher except Archos is still working out too many bugs. However, I'm very happy with my 5A 32G! YMMV |
| |
 "rubbish" | 2009-11-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A321JR7V9W6N31 |
| I bought this unit and it kept freezing and rebooting and some of the features like fm tranmitter did not work i thought it was a faulty unit so i returned it for the 32gb flash one and it had the same issues archos really needs to perfect there product before shipping it niether my zune or ipod have ever been this unreliable |
| |
| "Bought it... returned it" | 2009-11-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: APA6BD326ATBP |
Trying to use this device to browse the web is a nightmare. It is intended for viewing the web but the online experience is terrible. It constantly locks up. And the screen is sooo laggy.
Not what I expected. Screen looks nice and is a great size but the performance is bad. Returned it within a day |
| |
| "Don't buy until you hear its stable" | 2009-11-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A28MMGJ2Y869RZ |
| well where do i start? well, lets say one thing first. Android is awesome and it is sad that Archos had to use this OS with their product and give Android a bad name. Archos released a product that wasn't entirely finished to the market, plain and simple. The apps were freezing constantly, browser crashing, system locking. The new firmware came out and that, to me, didn't fix anything. I re-installed both OS's and applies the firmware and youtube videos would brick my device, the media player would crash on me every once and a while too. Shame on you Archos, you should have never released this until November like you planned on originally. They released the product knowing there were issues with it: no blue-tooth teethering, no FM trasmitter, No Android bridge, and the disc that came with it completely corrupt. And they sold it saying there was these products. I won't buy from them ever again. |
| |
Expedited Available
