Archos 7 Home Tablet: Tablet or PMP?
Zut alors! French “tablet” is still stuck in the pre -iPad era…
Archos’ latest tablet is designed to reside at home— hence its name. Archos probably pictures you picking it up, having a quick browse over Wi-Fi then watching some video, possibly because its heard of this thing called the iPad. However,with no 3G, GPS or Bluetooth. Its really more of a classic Archos video PMP, at a low enough price to make It alluring.
Like its predecessor, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, the 7 Home runs Android – specifically, Android 1.5. This seems at first glance like a missed opportunity with several phones now running 2.1 and up, but the newer features of those incarnations of Android wouldn’t be much use here anyway.
Unlike its nearest rival the Dell Streak, the Archos 7 Home Tablet can’t access the Android Market, instead lumbering you with AppsLib. which has just 1.500 apps and an interface designed by a seven-year-old.
The 600MHz processor isn’t as powerful as the Dell Streak and it really shows, there’s no Flash support. With an hour of browsing before switching Wi-Fi off to watch video, we got around 4.5 hours from the Archos 7 Home Tablet’s battery. That’s not very special.
Push email is simple to set up but some emails – particularly image-heavy ones -won’t download. There’s support for MSN,Yahoo and GMail but not Exchange.
The 7 Home’s failings as a browser and app platform put more emphasis on its video capabilities. Unlike the Internet Tablet this one doesn’t work with the Archos Cinema plug-in but video support is still good out of the box, including H.264, MPEG-4 and RealVideo codecs. Transfer via USB drag-’n'-drop is perfectly straightforward.
The seven-inch 800 x 480-pixel screen is excellent for movies: cut-down 720p video is sharp with enough detail, although colors lack punch. Text is also easy to read on the browser,though virtual zoom controls at the bottom of the screen are no match for pinch-to-zoom.
In fact the touchscreen controls in general are slow and often require a couple of jabs before you get a response. The virtual keyboard is a goodly size but you need to press keys firmly and in the center. You get used to it in time, but typing anything more than a terse email isn’t much fun.
With wide file support and a very good screen, the Archos 7 Home Tablet is a decent portable video player. As a tablet,its barely in the game, but it is at least reasonably priced.
Details/ Specification
- OS Android 1.5
- PROCESSOR ARM 9 600MHz
- STORAGE 8GB plus microSD
- SCREEN 7 inches. 800×480 pixels
- CONNECTIVITY big WnFi. 2x USB
- AUDIO SUPPORT MP3, WMA. WAY, APE. OGG. FLAC. AACVIDEO SUPPORT H.264, MPEG-4.RealVideo.AVI. MP4.VW”. LIOV, F LV Resolution up to 720p
- QUOTED BATTERY 42 hours music playback
- SIZE/WEIGHT 203 x 107 x 12mm/388g
(+) Broad video file support. Decent screen size. Reasonably priced for an Android tablet
(-) Unresponsive touchscreen. Can’t access Android Market. Limited connectivity. Android 1.5 only
Price £180
Zut alors! French “tablet” is still stuck in the pre -iPad era…
Archos’ latest tablet is designed to reside at home— hence its name. Archos probably pictures you picking it up, having a quick browse over Wi-Fi then watching some video, possibly because its heard of this thing called the iPad. However,with no 3G, GPS or Bluetooth. Its really more of a classic Archos video PMP, at a low enough price to make It alluring.
Like its predecessor, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, the 7 Home runs Android – specifically, Android 1.5. This seems at first glance like a missed opportunity with several phones now running 2.1 and up, but the newer features of those incarnations of Android wouldn’t be much use here anyway.
Unlike its nearest rival the Dell Streak, the Archos 7 Home Tablet can’t access the Android Market, instead lumbering you with AppsLib. which has just 1.500 apps and an interface designed by a seven-year-old.
The 600MHz processor isn’t as powerful as the Dell Streak and it really shows, there’s no Flash support. With an hour of browsing before switching Wi-Fi off to watch video, we got around 4.5 hours from the Archos 7 Home Tablet’s battery. That’s not very special.
Push email is simple to set up but some emails – particularly image-heavy ones -won’t download. There’s support for MSN,Yahoo and GMail but not Exchange.
The 7 Home’s failings as a browser and app platform put more emphasis on its video capabilities. Unlike the Internet Tablet this one doesn’t work with the Archos Cinema plug-in but video support is still good out of the box, including H.264, MPEG-4 and RealVideo codecs. Transfer via USB drag-’n'-drop is perfectly straightforward.
The seven-inch 800 x 480-pixel screen is excellent for movies: cut-down 720p video is sharp with enough detail, although colors lack punch. Text is also easy to read on the browser,though virtual zoom controls at the bottom of the screen are no match for pinch-to-zoom.
In fact the touchscreen controls in general are slow and often require a couple of jabs before you get a response. The virtual keyboard is a goodly size but you need to press keys firmly and in the center. You get used to it in time, but typing anything more than a terse email isn’t much fun.
With wide file support and a very good screen, the Archos 7 Home Tablet is a decent portable video player. As a tablet,its barely in the game, but it is at least reasonably priced.
Details/ Specification
- OS Android 1.5
- PROCESSOR ARM 9 600MHz
- STORAGE 8GB plus microSD
- SCREEN 7 inches. 800×480 pixels
- CONNECTIVITY big WnFi. 2x USB
- AUDIO SUPPORT MP3, WMA. WAY, APE. OGG. FLAC. AACVIDEO SUPPORT H.264, MPEG-4.RealVideo.AVI. MP4.VW”. LIOV, F LV Resolution up to 720p
- QUOTED BATTERY 42 hours music playback
- SIZE/WEIGHT 203 x 107 x 12mm/388g
(+) Broad video file support. Decent screen size. Reasonably priced for an Android tablet
(-) Unresponsive touchscreen. Can’t access Android Market. Limited connectivity. Android 1.5 only
Price £180
