1st Impressions: big and beautiful!
I just got my new Android 5 500GB direct from Archos yesterday and its quite a beauty. I'm upgrading from my old Archos 5 250GB so that will be my primary point of comparison. I also have the following to compare to: iPod Touch 64GB Archos 605 Walkman X Samsung P2 and a host of other MP3 players large and small.
Given that my iPod Touch upgrade this year was less than astounding I pretty much figured that this upgrade for Archos would be similarly understated. Mainly I just wanted the extra hard drive so I could backup all my laptops onto my music player. I was wrong! The new Android version seems to have a whole new feel both in form factor and the new software. I had heard that Archos was having problems with the software but they seem to have ironed most of them out as of 1.1 firmware release. I did update my firmware immediately and the process was quite smooth.
I'm going to rate this player on my absolute scale. I will also be making notes on the value of the upgrade from my old Archos 5. Note: I mostly use this as a media center to play music and video; secondarily as a backup drive.
Let's get to it then these are the things I love about my new Android:
1) 500GB -- totally awesome amount of disk I can now put just about every digital file I own on the Archos.
2) Android interface -- the overall feel of the software interface has definitively improved with the integration of Android. Effects are crisper the esthetics are cleaner things seem to happen faster. I especially like how easy it is to access the most recently played song or video from the main screen pops up with a little thumbnail that you tap on and voila resumes right where you left off!
3) Apps -- with Android we now have access to some serious app selection. Of course nobody compares to the Apple App Store but this comes the closest.
4) Weight -- this actually feels lighter to me than my 250GB.
5) Dock/DVR -- this popped right into my old 5 DVR and started playing right away. I still think this is the best DVR/Player combination available of all the MP3 players.
6) Video/Hi Def -- of the players I have owned this has the best biggest and highest resolution screen.
7) Portrait/Landscape -- Archos has borrowed the iPhone trick of rotating the display according to orientation. I guess they have an accelerometer in there now I dunno. Still its fun to see this feature on an Archos. Its a lot easier to navigate playlists in portrait mode.
8) Easy and regular firmware updates -- with a WiFi connection the firmware updates are easily performed on the unit itself. That's the easiest system I've seen of all my players. One thing I've learned about Archos over the years they will put out a steady stream of firmware updates.
9) WMV/MTP mode-- very smooth interface to Windows for either Media Monkey or Windows Media Player.
10) Dedicated volume button -- power and volume buttons have been conveniently located onto the top edge. This is actually much easier to use when it is docked on the DVR (which is where mine spends most of its life!).
11) Sound quality is quite good sounds great through my Klipsch speakers and seems to have more oomph than my other players.
12) WiFi/Browser -- has a good browser and WiFi connection has worked well for me. I think the keyboard is better than the Touch's although Safari is probably the slightly superior browser. The bigger screen also helps for browsing. Overall I'm inclined to give the Archos the top ranking for browsers.
13) I just discovered Twidroid one of many apps pre-loaded allows me to check my Twitter in a really nice format -- love it!
14) Portability -- well there's only so much portability that can be expected with a screen and hard drive this large. This new design is smoother and rounder so its a little more comfortable in a pocket. It is very easy to carry around as a handheld device fits nicely in my hand as I stroll about the house trying out all of the Android Apps! In any case this is not as portable as a Touch but I think its pretty good for a small computer -- which is basically what this is.
15) No extra plug ins needed (so far!). Always in the past I've laid out another $40 for additional Archos plugins to play iPod format music and other video formats. So far I haven't had to do that -- thank you Archos :)
16) Archos will stand behind their product. I've had to send in a couple of Archos units over the years and they have always been happy to either repair or replace the unit without quibbling about it as long as its under warranty. Note: it did take two weeks to get my unit back!
17) Multi threading: now I show my engineer/geek side. This baby can do a bunch of different stuff at the same time unlike the iPhone/Touch which can really only do one thing at a time. The Android can be doing other stuff while you are listening music. I love the little bar on the top that you can pull down and switch to any other task that is running.
18) Built-in kickstand very nice feature.
19) Stylus friendly touch screen -- sometimes you just get tired of trying to type a touchscreen keyboard with fat fingers! In general this is one of my favorite touch screens. Most of the other touch screens including iPod/iPhone are capacitance which means stylus won't work
20) Micro USB cable plug-in: finally a standardized USB plug and you can have it resting on its kickstand while plugged in :)
Given that the Archos tops the class in several categories and continues to be the best 500GB 5 inch screen player available I give it about a 4.7 stars out of 5 (round to 5). There are a few things I'm less than thrilled about:
1) Update: I believe you can now format your drive in a Windows friendly format on 1.7.96 version of firmware. External hard drive EXT3 -- as I understand it Archos changed to the EXT3 hard drive format for reasons of speed and reliability. The result for me is that I can no longer simply select hard drive MSC mode plug the Archos into a Windows machine and expect to access the drive. You have to install an Ext3 driver such as EXT2 IFS on your Windows PC. Once I did that I was able to access the hard drive and backup files to my hearts content.
2) The playlist interface didn't get much of an upgrade and its still kind of clunky. I want to simply tap my playlist and it starts playing. Often times I have to do a couple of extra taps to get the thing playing.
3) We lost the dedicated play button and removable battery a while back -- but I still miss them both! None of my favorite touch screen players has either of these features. I'm also missing the brown metallic color and the rubbery backside.
4) Finding a case for this baby is no easy trick. You're not going to find one at the local Best Buy I'm afraid. In the past I've resorted to ordering my Archos cases from European companies like I-nique and Noreve. This is generally true of any player that is not an iPod or a Zune.
5) As always with Archos you must remember that you are dealing with a French based company. This means that they don't always provide the best support/service/upgrades to us Americans.
6) Lets face it Archos is always playing catch up. Some of the new features aren't fully functional yet. I do have faith that Archos will fix all the little glitches with things like GPS over the course of the next 6 months. The Apps available are currently a bit limited. I expect this will improve over the coming months.
7) Keep in mind that this is not a unit for the faint of heart. This is more for the hobbyist who wants a cutting edge experience that may take some messing around to get it just the way you want it. If you want something easy that requires minimum effort then iPods are going to be more your cup of tea.
For me this is still the best player of its class -- that class being large hard drive big screen PMP players with other fun features. Android makes for some fun possibilities and overall I'm impressed with this as an upgrade. Once again if you don't mind a smaller screen and you love apps I suggest you get an iPod Touch. If what you care about most is sound quality you may want to get a Walkman X. For me those are your top 3 touch screen players it just depends on what you care about the most.
Note: 10-23-2009; I upgraded to firmware version 1.2.03 which fixes some App Browser and YouTube issues. Apps do seem happier now upgrade process was very smooth. Still happily listening to tunes for about 8 hours a day with no problems :)
Update 11-7-2009: I've been running version 1.2.15 with a host of bug fixes and the unit does seem more stable in general now. Wifi is working better and USB connection seems more reliable.
Update 11-23-2009: Upgrade to firmware v 1.3.07 -- a long list of bug fixes including a few improvements that I had hoped for to control the scanning of multimedia files/ ArcLibrary. Got an AppsLib update which seems to work more reliably. There seem to be a lot more apps available now (300 ish) in AppsLib. Just keeps getting better and better! Still is playing music day in and day out with no problems and I'm backing up 2 laptops worth of files onto my 5 IT.
Update 12-18-2009: I've been on firmware 1.4.16 for over a week now. Lots of little fixes seems even more stable now.
Update 2-11-2010: Firmware 1.7.33 (Android Donut) upgrade. The upgrade was a bit of work I ended up reformatting the drive and starting anew. However power saving seems to work a lot better and I haven't seen it reset itself for quite a while now. This seems to be the most solid release yet!
Update 4-8-2010: Firmware 1.7.96: just keeps getting better! Several annoying bugs fixed Deep Sleep and Windows hard drive modes have been added as helpful new features among other things. This seems even more stable than previous versions. This is still my main car and home music player of choice.
Update 8-1-2010: Firmware 2.0.28: This version is stable. I had a little trouble with my player and had to send it in for a new one. Tech support was quite responsive and helpful turn around time was pretty good and the new player works great. New features make for much better gaming from what I hear (I don't do gaming on it myself). Having given up the player for a while I've come to the conclusion that the Archos actually has the best sound of all my players!
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