Archos 5 Android Hands on

Finally got my hands on one of these after drooling over the hardware specs and unboxing videos for months so I figure I may as well write about it.

The first Archos 5 I owned was an Archos 5 IMT with a 60GB harddrive, wifi, and a beautifully large display. However despite my excitement it quickly became obvious that those were the best features it had period. It froze and failed constantly and the big bright touchscreen was so inaccurate that the simplest tasks were impossible. All in all an ambitious but mostly useless thing at least as a media player I eventually returned it and got myself a nice new Acer Aspire One netbook for the same price. The Archos 5 Android is on the other hand everything that the original tried and failed for.

First off the features that were good one the Archos 5 are sill exceptional as a video player I’ve never seen its equal and the browsing experience on the Opera browser is extraordinary. The features that were lacking before are now much improved the touchscreen is sensitive and accurate just a hair below the Iphone but without multitouch which is a bit of a shame, the Android OS runs nicely and the device can even be booted to linux if one so desires. Other notable features include: FM Radio/Recording, Bluetooth, GPS, Accelerometer, internal speaker, MicroSD card (on flash versions) and more. If you choose to buy the hardware addons you can also get digital TV ect.

The system is much more stable than before and the Android OS is very nice allowing you to expand it with apps as would be expected.  My complaint is that Archos forced its own memory hogging media center app on the relatively sleek Android system I love it and future firmware updates should drastically improve stability and functionality.

Nearest to this gadget is the Ipod but the spectacular hardware specs move it near the Iphone or high powered smartphones.

Tech Specs

Display characteristics
High resolution touch screen, 800×480 pixels, 4.8” TFT LCD, 16 million colors

User interface
Touch screen, ON/OFF, vol+ and vol- buttons, retractable virtual keyboard

Processor(s)
Central Unit:

• Main processor: ARM Cortex^TM-A8, 32 bit, In-order, dual-issue, superscalar core @ 800 MHz
• Additional processor: 32 bit DSP @ 430 MHz

RAM memory
256 MB* (Low-Power Double Data Rate SDRAM)

Mass storage memory
• Flash Memory: 8 to 32 GB* + Micro SD Slot (SDHC compatible)
• Hard Drive: 160 to 500 GB*

Operating system
Android v1.6 Donut – enabling application installation or development

In its normal use mode, the ARCHOS 5 being a miniaturized Personal Computer:

Program language
C – requires special developer-edition firmware¹⁵

Connectivity
On board WiFi (802.11 b/g/n), USB 2.0 host with optional accessories

PC accessories
Possible attachment of numerous standard USB PC accessories (keyboard, mouse, memory key, memory cards reader, camera and other future computer accessories)

Others applications
Webbrowser, Email, Contacts, DroidIn™, Ebuddy™IM, Twidroid™, Deezer™, Dailymotion™, Quickpedia, ThinkFree Mobile, Moov, Craigsphone, Pages jaunes™ (only for France), High Paying Jobs (only for US & Canada), Alarm clock, Calculator…

Interfaces
• USB 2.0: Media Transport Protocol (MTP)
• USB 2.0 Host: Mass Storage Class (MSC) and Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) with optional Mini Dock, Battery Dock and DVR station
• Micro SD (SDHC compatible) on ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet 8 to 32 GB
• Add-on connectors to connect to the DVR Station and other ARCHOS add-ons

Communication protocols
• WiFi (802.11 b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP, EDR, ARCP, HID, Dial Networking
• FM transmitter (requires the Car-mount that features the antenna)
• FM receiver (RDS)

Video Codecs ⁷
• MPEG-4 HD (up to 720p)
• MPEG-4⁸ (ASP@L5 AVI, up to DVD resolution)
• H.264 HD (up to 720p)
• WMV (MP@ML, up to DVD resolution) including WMV protected files
• MKV (up to 720p, 2500kbs, 23fps
• M-JPEG (Motion JPEG Video) in QVGA resolution
With optional plug-in (downloadable from your tablet or on http://www.archos.com):
• Cinema: MPEG-2, WMV HD (720p), VOB

Audio codecs ⁷
• Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 Kbits/s CBR & VBR,
• WMA, Protected WMA, WAV (PCM/ADPCM), AAC⁹(except protected content),
• AAC+ stereo audio files
• OGG Vorbis
• FLAC
With optional software plug-ins (downloadable from your tablet or on http://www.archos.com):
• AC3 stereo audio and 5.1 sound files (via SPDIF output of DVR Station )

Photo viewer ¹⁰
JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF

Subtitles
Support subtitles files with .srt, .ssa, .smi, .sub extensions

Video recording ¹¹
• Via the optional DVR Station or DVR Snap-on. Records NTSC/PAL/SECAM in MPEG-4 AVI format with stereo sound, VGA resolution (640 x 480) @ 30 or 25 f/s
• Via the optional TV Snap-on (only available for Europe): Records TV in MPEG-2 TS format.

Audio recording
• Via the optional DVR Station or DVR Snap-on: Stereo line-in, WAV (IMA ADPCM or PCM) format
• Voice recording with the built-in microphone

Miscellaneous
• Built-in speaker • Built-in leg stand • Built-in Microphone

Power source
• Internal: Lithium Polymer battery
• Device charges via computer USB port
• External: Power adapter/charger (via optional add-on)

Battery life
• Music playback time¹²: up to 22 hours¹³
• Video playback time¹²: up to 7 hours¹³

Scalability
• Device automatically downloads latest firmware updates when the WiFi connection is activated
• Updates can also be downloaded at http://www.archos.com

Dimensions & weight
• ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet Flash series: 143,2×78,8×10,4 mm – 182g• ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet Hard Drive series: 143,2×78,8×20 mm – 286g

In a possible use mode, in connection with an external computer through the USB B connector:

Minimum system requirements
• Microsoft® Windows® XP, Vista, or higher (with Windows media Player 11 for MTP)
• Linux (with Mass Storage Device Support)
• USB 2.0 interface

Package includes
ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet, earphones, Standard USB cable, DVR Station adapter, Quick Start Guide (QSG), legal and safety notice.

Google Wave: Not the future of communication…Yet

Google’s Newest venture into communication called: Google Wave. Wave is a mixture of instant messenger, e-mail, collaborative document editor, and in theory much more.  By now everyone who  wanted access to the developer preview has it and more invites than they must need. Which is in my opinion an incredibly clever marketing tactic, they created a huge demand for Wave invites by limiting them in the beginning and now that Wave has spread considerably through the first invites everyone has heard of it just about the time when they released extra invites and allow everyone who is the least bit interested into the preview. (Google Wave is the most talked about subject on the micro blogging site Twitter.com for the entire year!)

Onto the product! Google Wave is an HTML 5 app which currently uses Google Gears to augment some of its functions (such as dragging and dropping files) I started up the app and found that it worked best with Google Chrome on Windows 7 (no surprise there) since it isn’t a separate application any browser with HTML 5 capabilities (I am really hoping for a desktop app in the future) an even works on Iphone and Android phones with promise for more . Google Wave allows you to add contacts to a Wave and pretty much interact with them in any way you want from instant messaging (and I mean instant! character by character!) to email to video conferencing and VoIP. It also allows you too embed rich content such as pictures and video and even web applications via extensions and bots.

Extensions are apps/add-ons that you can add to you Google Wave toolbar such as Google Maps and insert into the Wave for participates to interact with. Bots perform a similar function by being participates in the Wave and while they can do anything a normal participant could (such as add gadgets or apps to a Wave) they seem best suited to passively editing the Wave in less noticeably ways, I’m thinking of the bot Sweepy who cleans up a Wave by deleting empty blips(posts) or Piratify which changes  everything you say into pirate speak. Using extensions and bots the ways to enhance and extend Wave are limitless. Google has also made a point of keeping Wave open to anyone by allowing other people to host Wave on their own servers so Google will not be entirely in control of Wave. Waves can be embedded into blogs to provide a rich stream of content and that will allow you to in future aggregate the comments you make on websites or blogs and see what replies you get without having to return to the site.

Along with being able to see character by character what someone is typing you can also edit or reply to any part of a Wave like other peoples blips or posts, and it is collaborative! meaning multiple people can edit the same document at the same time. With all this editing Waves can get complicated fast to counteract this Google implemented a feature called ‘Playback’ Playback allows you to view how a Wave progressed step by step.

With all of its marvellous features you’d think Wave would have no trouble spreading like wildfire through the internet and it has, but even with its massive amount of coverage Wave is still in a pre-beta stage and needs much more work before it becomes the next indispensible communication tool and rightly so. I’ve seen reviews badmouthing Wave already and it isn’t even into beta yet. I say give it a chance it has great potential and if Google listens to its user base it will be able to meet that potential. So true it does have problems such as: E-mail specifically Gmail isn’t natively supported by wave and blips can’t be made read-only (those are my two biggest gripes).

The Wavety List of Bots and Extensions – Best collection I could find.

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