Archos 5, Monster Media Player

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-10376248-49.html' target='_blank'>http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_...0376248-49.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"I've had my hands on the Archos 5 Android Internet tablet for more than seven days now, and to be honest, I'm still not sure what to make of it. What's hanging up the review isn't the price (which starts at $249), or capacity (up to 500GB), or the impressive selection of features; it's the devices spotty performance. So far, some stuff just doesn't work as advertised."</em></p><p><em><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1256076034.usr10.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></em></p><p>Like a lot of previous Archos devices, this one seems to have a ton of potential that it just doesn't quite deliver on. &nbsp;If they get the kinks worked out, the 500GB model looks to be a real beast with no real competition. &nbsp;</p>

[Jason Dunn]

Archos seems to be a company with great hardware design people and awful software design people. :rolleyes:

[Chris Gohlke]

Archos left a negative impression with me when I bought one of their early players only to find that most of the features on the box required an extra purchase to activate. This wasn't disclosed anywhere on the box. You know it is bad when Circuit City agrees with you and gives you a full refund even though the product was opened.

[whydidnt]

Jason seems to right. I picked up the 32 GB Flash version of this and have to say the Hardware is fantastic. The flash version is much thinner and lighter than the hard drive based unit.

Upon turning it on, everything looks good on the 5" screen. Then the problems start. The browser crashed constantly, the device froze randomly, and almost always when waking up from sleep. Fortunately they released a ROM update-- however, using the over-the-update only made things worse. I ended up wiping the unit and installing the new ROM from scratch, figuring out how to do so by using our old friend Google. However, I can imagine large number of consumers that would simply return the device with all the grief given.

Now that the upgrade has installed, I have to say the browsing experiencing is fast, with the 5" screen being the sweet spot between portability and usability, at least for me. I enjoy using the browser on this more than the iPhone or any WM device I've ever used.

The email client is only okay, not allowing for linked images, and not even giving an option to display them.

Considering the device is based upon Android, you would have thought they could have figured a solution to sync or even import contact and calendar information, but no such option exists - actually there isn't even calendar program included. :confused:

Media has been a mixed bag for me - most all of my movies are encoded in MP4 for compatibility with both my Xbox 360 and PS3, but the profile I used is not compatible so they don't play on the device. When attempting to copy to the disk I get prompted to convert the files, and they are converted to WMV files, which play fine, but it takes couple hours to convert. They look and sound good when finally getting to watch one though. I was really hoping to be able to copy and go, though, with only 32GB of space, I'm not looking forward to a 2 hour wait each time I want to bring a flick with me on the plane.

Other anomalies-- when trying to play a movie with AC-3 encoding, I'm prompted to purchase a HD codec pack, but when clicking the link I'm taken to an app store that is broken - no link to the coded pack, and no way to purchase the "game pack" that comes up for $0.00 as the default in the store.

It really is surprising how many details are missed or just plane broken. Having said that, at least we've already seen 1 ROM upgrade, and rumor has it, another on is on the way this week. I really enjoy the browser and 5" screen, so I'll probably be keeping this one, warts and all.;)

[Jason Dunn]

Thanks for the detailed update as an owner of the product whydidnt...it's always great to hear first-hand accounts. You've confirmed my worst fears about this product - half-baked software. Maybe in six months it will improve...