I have had the Archos 101 for the last several days and then added the Archos 70 Internet tablet for my wife. After a few days I am sending them off to ebay. While the Android operating system is all you have come to expect with an open market and system, the products and more importantly Archos as a company fail miserably.
Style: 10/10
The 101 and 70 Internet tablets are sexy, they are light, slim and feature stands built in to allow you to watch media. The ports and accessibility is what you would expect for a tablet hardware system built to interact with everything.
Operating System: 9/10
Android 2.2 Froyo, the system bolsters Androids supercharged operating system, which allows semi common users to customize and maneuver around any limitations attempted by companies like Archos. i.e. adding the google market and flash 10.1
Function: 6/10
As one would expect the 101 has a few issues as the tablet screen doesn’t size up to files and media that looked great on the phones we have all come to love android for. The system struggles to find media and become sluggish. No Flash means the web browsing experience is similar to the Android 1.5 OS.
Archos: 2/10
This is the real failure for the tablets, Archos tried to restrict the market by forcing you to run through their AppsLib instead of google, the tablet requires a bit of knowledge to add google products and software. The company website is a mess, navigating is sloppy and policies prevent the users from accomplishing much. Some of the most surprising failures should have tossed flags up prior to getting the tablet.
1 ) Tablet Release pushed back repeatedly.
2 ) Users that asked to be notified when the tablet released via e-mail got nothing when the Archos 70 IT and Archos 101 IT become available.
3 ) Archos did not restrict purchase quantity much, would be ebay stores bought ten at a time.
4 ) Anyone with a PO Box as their billing info was not getting one, or the software upgrades.
5 ) Customer support averages about a week to respond, if at all.
6 ) The tablet upgraded to 2.2 and wiped out the third party apps.
7 ) Archos did not get the Adobe cert so the tablets did not have Flash
8 ) The AppsLib market has less than 1% of the open market applications.
9 ) Youtube? Um No???? The second largest search engine, owned by the operating system parent company, largest media site and NO!!!
10) Sloppy storage, the tablet can’t tell where the media is, be it internal or storage without having to jump through a bunch of steps to find it.
Summary:
The use of the Froyo Android 2.2 was a great leap forward in tablets, as anyone who is not a novice can change root files, add software you expect to be a part of Android, but why should you have to know how to do it, this created the greatest problem in my opinion, you just shouldn’t have to work to make it work.
Archos was the big mistake here, trying to control the market, failing to get an adobe certificate which completely canceled the effectiveness of the Android 2.2 web experience is just a few of the many problems. The understaffed and underfunded company tried to take on a monster and got crushed in execution. I expect the value of these tablets to drop dramatically and quickly in the next few WEEKS!!!
Advice: Stay clear of the Archos Internet Tablet line.
Note: I was very excited to see this project and while I tried to find every reason to support the tablet, the ultimate test of a product is the company behind it, Archos clearly made a mediocre product terrible.
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