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If you are Chinese then 2010 is the year of the tiger, but if you are a geek then it is the year of the slate or tablet. Obviously, most people are thinking about the iPad when they start banging on about such things, but the newest consumer targeted device of this ilk to hit the shops is the 9, the first attempt at a genuine …

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  1. Volker Hett

    so much for flash

    short of a dual core CPU and lots of RAM it doesn't cut it. Adobe better gets back to the drawing board and redesigns it from the ground up.

    OTOH I'm impressed by the chipsets video performance, in my experience, with XP and OpenSUSE, the poulsbo chipset is worse than the GMA950.

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  2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Looks like the hard disk is a stinker.

    This seems to be a candidate for ReadyBoost, yes? Can you do ReadyBoost with an SD card? A big, high-performance one.

    The Inquirer apparently had a bad time with the touchscreen in their review, I wondered whether stylus operation was optimal. It's what I always do - well, nearly alawys - with touch devices.

    I also mention the FITALY third-party on-screen keyboard software at every opportunity, but you can't touch-type on it - well, I haven't really tried, it's not "for" that. Otherwise, Qwerty key layout is for losers. I do find Fitaly goes about half the speed of a real, full size keyboard, once error correcting is counted in text input time. But is that the comparison to make?

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  3. Michael C
    FAIL

    iPad "equivalent" for Win 7???

    Seriously?

    - Is Win 7 or this Archos tablet always on? No.

    - Is Win 7 instant on? No, about 2.5 minutes to boot on the processor...

    - Is it touch optimize and designed? No.

    - Will it support auto rotate? Possibly, though many apps have issues with this.

    - Can you share licenses with your other PCs? No.

    - Can I get 3G data without a contract for $29? No.

    - Does it require near zero maintenance like an iPad? No.

    - 1/2" in think? no.

    - under 1.5lbs? No.

    - 10+ hours watching video over wifi? No, just over 2 hours, with WiFi OFF.

    - 30 days standby? well, yes likely, since it's not always on...

    - 1024x768? Nope, only 1024x600.

    - 720P h.264 decode support? Oh, sorry, no on the GMA... Can't even do 420p.

    - GPU? Nope.

    - Processor to compete with A4/2GHz snapdragon? Nope, Atom 1.1Ghz... especially with only 1GB RAM for Win7, ouch!

    - 32GB storage? Nope, it;s 60GB drive has only 25GB free out of the box...

    Other than it has a touchscreen, it seems Archos saved EVERY expense. It competes with an iPad in ZERO categories. It;s slower, bulkier, 1/5th the battery, not IPS, lower resolution, less storage, no native 3G, and to top it all off, MORE expensive. Most regular nebooks are faster, lighter, and cheaper. EPIC FAIL.

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    1. Ammaross Danan
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      @Commentard

      "iPad "equivalent" for Win 7???"

      I believe the subtitle was "alternative." Wait, let me check...yep "alternative."

      Would I use it? Most definately NOT. As you so annoyingly sum up, most all of its features FAIL. However, you my friend get a FAIL banner. Why? You assumed "equivalent" and it shows in your rant. This is a band-wagon item from an obscure(ish) company.

      Items like this are never going to seriously compete against the iPad. Of course, if Jobs had the iPad run OSX (or simply allow multi-tasking), and drop the price a touch (I could probably wait 2 years and never have that happen), then there is no one that could compete competantly.

      However, what's the one (well, perhaps 2 things) that this device has going for it? You can (with a varying degree of slugishness) run ANY Windows application. This is not to say you can fire up Need for Speed: Shift on the thing, but more along the lines of what the article tested. Run Firefox, with Javascript!, OpenOffice, and VLC Media Player. I'd like to see any of these on the iP[ao]d. And let's not forget you don't need iTunes to copy your media files to and from the device....

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    2. Haydies
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Avalible now

      Is the iPad out Now? No

      Can the iPad multi task? No

      On papper it might not be as good, but its been out a while now. And right this second, you can do more with it then an iPad because.... you can buy one :-)

      Shame its a bit naff, It will do 720p and even 1080p though I guess it has to scale it a bit.

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    3. John 62
      Reply Icon
      Jobs Horns

      iPad instant-on?

      I remain to be convinced. The iPhone takes a while to boot and shut down.

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  4. Neill Mitchell

    Windows Starter

    How bizarre. Produce a touch screen only tablet device and then don't install a version of Windows 7 that supports it! Instead hook in some 3rd party keyboard that doesn't work well. It also won't have the handwriting recognition.

    I guess they're doing this in an effort to keep the price down with the cheaper Windows version. Unfortunately it totally compromises the concept.

    Hardware is very low spec, dreadful battery life and once again Archos is sticking with it's ridiculous (and darn ugly) docks concept.

    Archos seem to be trying to grab headlines by jumping on any passing bandwagon. Unfortunately the resulting products are pretty dire lash ups (take the awful Android 5 I.T. PMP that has to boot up the old Linux based OS to playback HD because they haven't ported the TI drivers).

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  5. RichyS
    WTF?

    WTF?

    It has an optical 'mouse' and mouse buttons? WTF? This is why a desktop OS has no business in a tablet.

    FFS, Archos couldn't even put multi-touch in there.

    Frankly I'm amazed you gave this thing a mark as high as 65%. It seems it fails at pretty much everything. Too heavy, too slow, too short a battery life, too clunky a UI, too fragile (with an HDD). Too useless.

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  6. M 6
    Thumb Down

    What?

    I've been checking out more reviews from Reg recently and the percentage scores never seem to match the review. 65% for this POS? Eh?

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  7. uhuznaa

    The first picture says it all

    Say about the one-app-at-a-time-no-multitasking philosophy of the iPhone/iPad what you will but that picture says it all.

    I want something that just turns totally into what the current app makes it into. If I want to read a book, I want to hold a book in my hand and not a device running an OS displaying a desktop containing windows one of which displays controls and content areas in which I can read a book. For two hours. After booting it. On the train. Thanks, no.

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  8. zenkaon
    FAIL

    How does it do 1080p??

    You say that it plays 1080p content with WMP12 - How is it going to properly show 1920x1080 content on a shitty 1024x600 display?? Might as well encode the video at 1024x600 and give that piss poor HDD and processor a chance.

    This is not the year of the tablet PC, very disappointed with this, very disappointed with the iPad.

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  9. Paul Thomas 1

    archos customer service

    Let's not forget Archos truly awful approach to customer service, just have a look at some of the forums.

    Having bought archos kit before my experience is such that I will never buy it again or recommend it to anyone.

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  10. Eradicate all BB entrants

    he he he

    I have used one, while not speedy it is quite good. And with Win 7 Home or Pro on it the windows keyboard makes life much better.

    As for Michael C's statement, did Archos murder your Ma and molest your Pa? Is your keyboard in pieces now? Can you see your monitor through that thick film of spittle that will be covering it? Has that fecking huge vein in your forehead stopped throbbing now?

    iPad

    - Can you change the OS if you dont like it? No.

    All that needs to be said on that one.

    Finally, its not an iPad copy, nor is it jumping on the bandwagon. Archos just waited for Win 7 to come out as they started shipping these last October. If they had used Vista the early birds would still be booting theirs.

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    1. Danny 14
      Reply Icon

      nah

      It is shite though. Sorry.

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  11. A 20

    Ctrl-Alt-Del

    Why? Because that's the shortcut to lock/logoff/shutdown a Windows box.

    If you're trying to operate a secure system, easy locking is the best way to ensure it actually gets locked. The best security feature in the world is worthless in the real world if the user has to jump through a thousand hoops to make it happen.

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  12. chr0m4t1c
    Joke

    Sounds a bit sub-optimal to me

    Buying one of these and then buying a Win 7 Home or Pro license to run on it.

    If you don't like the OS then why don't you just buy one of the many, many alternative devices?

    In fact, for the ~£600 you would spend on the device plus replacement OS you could buy two of most of them.

    Archos fanboi are we?

    :-)

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  13. David Lawrence
    FAIL

    Price fail

    I'm not sure what this thing is, and why I should pay £600 of my hard-earned for it. Does it replace my phone? My PDA? My laptop? My netbook? My desktop? My iPod (or similar generic music and video player)? Is there a tablet-sized gap in my life that this fits into?

    I think the answer to those questions is NO to all.

    And for that reason, I'm out. And I have (very kindly) disregarded the APPALLING (in fact non-existant) customer service I got from Archos when my son's Archos MP3 player got so hot it burned his jacket pocket several years ago.

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    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      If you've got

      David, if you've got a desktop, a laptop, a netbook, a phone, a PDA, a video player, and a girlfriend (and, let's assume, a car), then I think you aren't allowed to buy yourself any more toys.

      So you buy the Archos tablet for your girlfriend.

      And then she wants to know why you didn't just get that one yourself instead of all the other stuff.

      But is this a phone too? I suppose if you use a 3G-to-wireless soapbar and Skype, then it can be.

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