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This almost perfect sized touch tablet was surprisingly well made, thin, light and less costly approach to having a touch tablet then buying an IPad from Apple. Archos having been around for some time making small mp3/mp4 players is now really touching on a great growing market of touch tablets both in Windows and also Android. There only flaw is the lack of real support and slow turn around on updating firmware's of their product line. This little device uses Android 2.2 froyo (after updating firmware from Archos) customized version with a substitute Android Marketplace of their own limiting the users ability to download useable apps created under the real Android marketplace but can be changed to support the Marketplace with a bit of hacking on the part of the user and not supported by Archos again. You can now begin to see these devices at your local retail stores like Best Buys due to market demand for inexpensive IPad look alikes to meet their needs for a realistic portable touch tablet. Video & sound are very good and the user can view up to 720p movies on the devices. Expandable through it's micro sd card slot, storage of video or music files all depend on the size of card you get. Overall this is a great little device despite it's shortfalls and worth checking out.Read full review
The Archos 70 250gb is a mixed bag of awesomeness and failure. If you try to compare this tablet to others, you'll find that it is really limited. Only 256mb of ram and a lack of support for Honeycomb combined with the fact that the harddrive slows down load times excessively, it really can't compare to the Xoom or iPad. However, it really wasn't designed to compete with those tablets. What it's designed to do is be a mobile media center, much like a ipod with a large screen that plays HD video. And in this respect, it succeeds. With a 250gb harddrive, enough processing power to play 720p video, an HDMI output and the ability to use an android cell phone as a remote control for it, it is perfect for taking HD movies with you and watching them on the device or on an HDTV. The speakers aren't Boss quality or anything, but they're way better than the average cellphone speaker. The screensize is great because it can still fit in a pocket (if you wear baggy pants like I do), but you have lots of room for webpages, video, and games. So that pretty much covers what is awesome about this tablet, now for what isn't so great. It features bluetooth 3g tethering to allow you to access the internet anywhere by sharing your cellphone's data connection via bluetooth. This feature is nearly impossible to set up (in fact on some phones it is impossible). While it's nice of them to include it for the people who really want to use this as a mobile internet tablet, it's just really impractical (anytime I want to use that feature I have to pull out my phone, disable wifi, enable tethering, pull out my tablet, enable tethering... you can't just leave it running all the time because it murders the battery). Next bad thing, the harddrive. While the size of the harddrive is a great thing for this kind of device (being geared towards media use) the explicit lack of any flash memory on the device means that all apps and all files must be loaded off the harddrive, which is sloooooow. It doesn't help that Archos removed the microSD card slot so you can't even try to run apps off of a class 10 SD card to speed it up. The lack of RAM also makes it so that the device cannot have as many apps preloaded and must load apps off the harddrive more often then necessary. This, once again, does not help loading times. Also the software isn't so great. I love Android, but Archos' implementation is buggy sometimes. For instance, my Archos will randomly enter a reboot loop when I'm not even using it. Just sitting on the desk it'll reboot it's self over and over and over. Have to hold down the power button to force it off then turn it back on to make it stop. It also likes to frequently "update media library" at which point you may as well just put it down and let it finish 'cause it's useless while it's doing that (still works, it's just ungodly slow). Good news about the updating media library function is that if you haven't added any new music or videos it finishes almost instantly... if you did just add some though you might want to put the tablet away and find something else to do. So there you have it. Lots and lots of cons, but it is one of the cheaper tablets around and DEFINITELY has the most storage out of any of them. So depending on your uses it could be great. With a 250gb harddrive and the 7-inch screen it's unparalleled as a portable media center, but I wouldn't want to use it as the PC replacement that most tablets are trying to be.Read full review
It fills a nitch market very well. I tried to use my smartphone as an eBook reader on an airplane - just awful, phone to my nose, bouncy, terrible eye strain. It is simply smartphone guts behind a bigger screen. Which means it has a great battery life and runs really s l o w. Like any smartphone, it will surf the net at about 1/10 the speed of a good laptop. That being said, it is twice as fast and more versitle than an eReader (at the same price) and fits in my back pocket. For me, the portability (fits in my back pocket) and readability trumps the slow internet setvice and the limited applications. It will never replace the speed and versatility of a good laptop, but you can't put a laptop or a netbook in your pocket.
I would first classify tablets by screen size. I also have an aging 3.7" screen sized Nokia N810, which although easily fits in my pocket, it was a little too small for me to use without difficulty. So I stepped up to this 7" tablet I bought from someone who wanted to step up to a 10" tablet. For me, the 7" is confortable to use even though I'd prefer a 5-6" one that would fit easier in my pocket if one was made that I liked. In summary: First to pick the size that is best for you. Now on to the Archos 70S: Because it is NOT a phone, it isn't saddled with all the usage restrictions and expensive contracts that devices which ARE phones have. For example, if you want to "root" the device, simply install the SDE "Developer Edition" firmware downloaded from Archos itself. Granted they void warranty on OS related problems if you install it, but I think this is reaonable for them giving you enough rope to hang yourself. They are on record for still covering hardware failures such as USB port problems. The Archos also has other nice abilities that other tablets either have to be seriously hacked to achive or just dreamed about such as unlimited Wifi usage, tethering to internet connected devices, tethering to bluetooth GPS devices, and USB host mode (so you can use keyboards, mice, usb drives, etc.) but most devices WILL require a powered USB hub to provide enough power and not all USB powered hubs seem to work on this unit for some reason. Although wireless provider enforced software restrictions are non-existent (no problem installing Skype, Fring, Tango, etc), there is a problem that this unit not officially registered with Google. Therefore it requires some special attention to get even the official Android Market Place to work on it. Then some apps will get confused by the fact this unit is not a phone, doesn't have a built in GPS or just not on its approved list of devices the app will run on. Sometimes there are work-arounds for this. So hardware-wise this thing has a reasonably fast (but not the fastest) processor, it is a little skimpy on RAM, so you have to watch how many apps you get running at once, minimal system storage, but you can offload many apps easily to the built in 2GB "SD" storage. It has micro-SD slot for up to another 32GB of storage. It does have a fairly bright screen (usable outdoors), good battery life, built-in stereo speakers, and both video and audio can be sent out the HDMI port to a television, but this device can just barely do (or not do) 720P video playback. Oh and don't forget the nice multi-touch capacitive touch screen which is rare for tablets in this price range. OS-wise, Archos is on record for providing one major OS upgrade (Android 2.1 2.2) for this device. Who knows if they will continue to support it, but that would be on-par with other Android device manufacturers. I also like many of the low-level Linux utilities they included. Some people complain that it doesn't have Android 2.3 (meant for tablets) but I actually like the fact it has 2.2 as in apps, buttons, and widgets are nicely scaled up so they are easier for my fat fingers to operate and failing eyesite to see. Best of all this unit is low cost without being as crippled as the lowest cost competing devices, and Archos, although not considered to be the highest quality manufacturer, at least is a mature company that has existed successfully for many years making cool low-cost personal electronic devices.Read full review
My review is about the 8BG model, which is said to be faster than the 250GB. I disagree with those who say that this is a horrible tablet for business. That's precisely the use I make of it, and I find it almost perfect, with the only limitation being the OS. Once you have found the perfect choice of apps to suit your needs, this is a great organiser / travel computer. I use ProfiMail and the following apps: PassZip Perfect Viewer .nomedia Manager Adobe Flash Player 10.3 Aldiko AndFTP Android WebEditor PRO AppsLib ASTRO Backlight! CineShowTime Contact Lookup Pro CopiPe Documents To Go Dolphin Browser HD Dolphin License Dropbox eBay English for Smart Keyboard PRO ezPDF Reader Facebook FBReader French for Smart Keyboard PRO gApps4Archos Ghost Commander Go!Chat Google PR Opera Mobile PayPal PhotoBook PictureViewer Pocket Informant Polish for Smart Keyboard PRO Pure calendar widget Quick System Info PRO RoboForm ShareMyApps Skype Smart Keyboard Pro TaskSwitcher Text Edit Tiff Viewer TxtPad Lite WavPlayer WiFi Manager Xmarks for Dolphin Browser HD. It syncs beautifully via SyncBackSE and Dropbox. With that I can open .eml files archived archived from Outlook Express for years, faxes, listen to .wav voicemails, write and read Word, PDF and other documents. The 8GB is not really a limitation, since I have a 32GB micro SD card, which holds all my family pictures since 1905, and all my business documents of the last 20 years. Of course, if you want movies and a music library. you'll need the 250GB model... or maybe simply more 32GB micro SD cards. And remember to have a screen protector and a good case; cracked screens are not covered by the warranty.Read full review
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