The preference for tablet-style gadgets has really shown the past few months, Apple’s iPhone and new tablet laptop and HP’s new TC1100. This in mind, you could say that Archos have jumped right onto the bandwagon with their new range of tablet laptops and the new Archos 5 internet media tablet.
The little device measures a tiny 12.5×8cm and 2cm deep, so roughly the same sort of dimensions as the Nintendo DSi.
The Archos 5 boasts amazing features such as original games, GPS Sat Nav, e-mail, television, internet, videos, music. The device is mostly screen as well, which, by the way, is fully touch sensitive and very shiny, and the back of the tablet is wrapped in a slip-free rubberized coating to minimize dropping. It also includes the ubiquitous and highly useful metallic kickstand to keep the screen upright on flat surfaces.
The Archos 5 also is compatible with some neat and highly useful accessories including a digital TV receiver to receive Freeview broadcasts, a DVR station to record television programs and a helmet-mounted camera for all your Blair Witch projects. This is a cool piece of kit, and I personally really want the helmet camera. I learned all this just from the manual and box, so the product is probably fantastic.
Now I’m going to turn the thing on. The power button proved elusive, but on pressing it a familiar humming noise ensued from Archos 5’s internal hard disc. The interface is really quite good-looking, but I would feel more comfortable using some sort of stylus, as the finger marks would mar the screen somewhat after a while. As a pathological gamer, my instincts forced me to check out the games section. Empty. Archos does not supply free games. You have to buy them.
Anyway, so then I received a tip that someone had put some movies on the Archos 5 I was testing, which seemed like something cool to check out. Upon navigation around the various menus, I checked out the movies section. Nothing. Then I selected the media club section and tapped movies. The device then tried to connect to the internet, but then reverted to a blue screen with a sand-timer in the centre for about 5 minutes. The Archos 5 instruction guide may have been concise, but really didn’t say anything about this. I gave up.
I would have made a comment about the screen quality of the Archos 5 right now, but it seems I can’t test it out. Oh well, all in all, the device is still quite cool, despite not being able to find the movies, I give the Archos 5… like, 4 stars.
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