My apologies to anyone who got excited when we posted our last article about Archos 7 Home Tablet availability. It turned out to be, as we suspected, a trick by an online retailer. (Mental note: Never link to these chancers again!)
In a U.S. press release last week (PDF), Archos announced that the Tablet will be available mid-May.
The ARCHOS 7 home tablet will be available in June at $199.99 SRP through selected
retailers. Exclusive pre-orders are available at Amazon.com, with product shipping mid May.
Review devices have obviously gone out. Engadget have one for testing and UK newspaper The Independent has its mini review up already.
I’m getting the impression that the Archos 7 Home Tablet is going to be a bubble-wrapped tablet hanging on hooks at point of sale. Android 1.5 (really?) is on board and apparently there’s no plan to upgrade the OS. Built-in USB 2.0 helps for attaching accessories and apparently the stereo speakers are good enough for in-crowd use. Touchscreen quality sounds just like the Archos 5 resistive.
When it comes to the touch screen browsing don’t expect an iPad-like experience. There is no multi-touch support and the onscreen input often felt slow and unresponsive. There is also no support for Flash.
At 149 Euro for the 2GB model, if it provides a acceptable HQ video experience along with ereading, basic web browsing and audio, it’s good value and could make the perfect online Google Reader device but please don’t expect a swift web experience, rich video experience and anything like an iPad UI experience.
Via Ndevil , TouchMeMobile and Slashgear.
What I expect is just a bigger Archos 5 and for 149 Euros you shouldn’t expect too much either. As long as i can do some twittering, skyping and some movie watching on the go i am satisfied.
We will see how i like it and how long I will keep it :)
Ooh. That ‘on the go’ bit has me worried. No skype either.
You want video (i.e. 5″ and above) plus social, and 3G comms. Hmmm, that’s a good challenge.
Well, while it has a lot of limitations and performance will be subpar, there is nothing quite like it in the price range right now though.
It depends what you want I guess. Have you checked out the ARM11-based SmartQ V7. Now available with Android 2.1 I hear.
How can you recommend the Smart when the one you bought dropped dead within weeks after purchase?!
I still want one. I consider it to be a great PMP for all my AVI videos with the pluses of Aldiko for eBooks and triage web browsing thrown in free.
There’s a PMP I’ve been wondering about:
http://www.jr.com/aluratek/pe/ALR_APMP100F/
That’s cheaper and seemingly offers more than the A7, but I’d rather have the A7.
Wow the first review of the archos 7 and they say its not bad. I know engadget is going to hate it cause the screen is not capacitive. The price is right, I am just wondering how the battery life is.
Now I might preorder one.
Engadgets review here
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/13/archos-7-home-tablet-review/
I have it preordered and I think it is an amazing product for the price. I don’t need a full iPad device because I don’t see myself needing that kind of device on a day by day basis. It is smaller, so it is more portable and it is a replacement to a portable DVD player. It won’t be able to run as powerful games as the iPad, but the iPad doesn’t do games well either since it has no physical buttons.
At $200, it is setting the standards for pricing for the 7″ market. iPad set the standard for 10″ models and I think we are going to see a lot of 7″ models coming out in the $200-$300 price range. Android is going to be the dominating OS on tablets and Apple will be a niche OS, like they are with computers. However, I do think the Apple niche will be bigger in tablets since they were the first to make tablets mainstream.
I would have preferred at least Android 1.6 in this product and I would have paid $50 extra for a capacitive touch screen, but I think this device will be successful if it is marketed. I think it will do better in Europe than in the US.
now available in the archos store. no pre order
http://store.archos.com/
I have seen sooo many people compare this device to the iPad and I cant seem to understand why. Are we calling the iPad a tablet? From the reviews I have read and seen my iPhone has more features and the apps for the iPad will cost double if not triple.Plus the price of the device itself and the gynormous (teehee) size. To me the iPad is not portable enough. To be honest I am a long time Apple product consumer but I will not be handing over my hard earned cash on the iPad. I will however purchase the Archos 7HT. When I am tired of it I will give it to my kids as a mp or avi player.