Archos Android Phone Tablet introduced on video

We'd heard that Archos had teased an Android-based phone when it launched the new Archos 5 Internet Tablet, and now we have video proof. We don't speak French well enough to translate what's being said here (or, really, translate anything other than "le singe conduit l'autobus") but that spec sheet isn't too hard to figure out: we're looking at a 1GHz ARM Cortex processor under a 4.3-inch 854 x 480 screen in 10mm thin titanium casing with what looks like a front-facing camera. Yeah, not too shabby at all, especially considering Archos has that interesting media layer running on top of Android already -- let's hope we find out even more soon. Video after the break.

[Thanks, Fernando]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 26th 2009 6:06AM]

The full video :

http://www.archos.com/corporate/event_092009.html?country=us&lang=en

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 26th 2009 7:09AM]

The full length is more interesting: committed to H264 720p support for all mobile design
Archos UI is to allow for high definition screen as Android is limited until 2010 on that front.
Archos 5 will take pictures, has a micro SD slot. as an USB host port - bluetooth, GPS, wi-fi, HDMi to be hooked to a pc/tv
Supports flash, email (gmail, hotmail, pop, etc.), supports PDF and Office files (now to view and later in the year to edit), IM (multiple clients)
As said nothing else said on the phone itself.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 26th 2009 8:50AM]

I'm French too and HC said that the Archos Phone will be show on Januar and shell not too long after this month but he wasn't verry clear ...
The multimedia is really the "one more thing" in this pruduct!


So, i hope it will be soon and i will buy this phone to change my iphone.



Thanks for this video ;)

[scape Posted Sep 26th 2009 9:12AM]

I'd say it's:
GSM
buy direct from archos, i don't see any major carriers supporting a first time phone maker
sounds like a Ti a9 to me, not sure why people believe it is snapdragon...
new android supports custom resolutions, so this may not necessarily be an archos build of android but an android with some archos icons

questions I'd want answered:
battery size and expected life?
resistive or capacitive?
when can i have this damn thing!?

[togusa Posted Oct 8th 2009 2:35PM]

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_OMAP#OMAP3

It could be either a Texas Instrument omap 3640 (cortex a8 in 45 or 40nm)
or a ti omap 4440 (cortex a9 multi core in 45 or 40nm)

As the a9 has been announced in january 2008, and looking at the 18 months delay between the a8 press release and its actual commercialization, i think the archos phone would be equipped with the omap 3640.

That or the marketing department made a mistake on powerpoint and intended to write snapdragon instead of cortex. But i would prefer ti omap.

Anyway this will be a 45nm cpu/gpgpu so battery life / autonomy will be improved relatively to nowadays mobile phones with 65nm processors !

[togusa Posted Oct 8th 2009 4:00PM]

cross that:
apparently cortex a9 mobile phones could appear early 2010 according to a 2009 february pcmag article.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341032,00.asp

[serafina007 Posted Sep 26th 2009 10:25AM]

Le singe est sur la branche!!!

[guises Posted Sep 26th 2009 12:19PM]

Doesn't anyone else want a small phone like this? 4.3" seems huge. Nokia had the right idea with the N97 mini, even if it is still awfully large.

How 'bout one with a 3" screen? Aside from that cheap one that's coming out with the huge bezel. Or something like the E70 with a linux based OS (Android, Maemo, whatever).

We'll have to see what happens with this Cyanogen business, but I'm prepared to believe that Google will handle it with more grace than Blizzard or Apple or other C&D-happy companies.

[PhineasJW Posted Sep 26th 2009 12:53PM]

Let me just say ... you loooooook marvelous.

[missionsparta Posted Sep 26th 2009 2:09PM]

Anyone that buys this is an idiot.... actually anyone that buys ANYTHING from Archos is an idiot -- take it from me -- I am a retired idiot.

[missionsparta Posted Sep 26th 2009 2:11PM]

anyone notice that as USUAL, Archos does not really show the unit at it's unavailing? Just computer generated mach ups. That is because it will be as laggy and glitchy as everything else they make.

[Dignan17 Posted Sep 26th 2009 2:12PM]

Man, over the years I have been such a fan of Archos, but this announcement has me so conflicted. Every Archos device I've had (and I've had about four of them), has been before its time in terms of features and abilities, but behind its time in terms of software and performance (they always seem to give their products capabilities that are just a tad too ambitious for the CPU they put in there).

But I know that with the proper tweaking (Cyanogen), Android runs almost perfectly on even the G1's hardware, which we all know is atrocious. So on a 1GHz mobile CPU? That must be smooth!

So that said, I just have a few concerns:

1) I like physical keyboards, but that's a personal preference, and with a screen this huge a virtual one probably won't annoy me as much
2) I wonder what kind of storage it has. I think I spotted a card slot, which makes me concerned that there isn't much flash storage on this
3) Price: again, Archos likes to nickle and dime you a bit on additional features. It doesn't usually annoy me, but I worry about how much this phone will cost to begin with, since there isn't a chance in hell that this will be subsidized in the states.
4) I kinda worry that that phone is going to be too big. That's a pretty big footprint it has...

[missionsparta Posted Sep 26th 2009 2:17PM]

Ohhhh.... I see they shinny aluminum paint job is back. While this corrode off also when you touch it, just like it did to all of us that owned a 5? Either way... those of us with a 5 are waiting for you unethical money stealing crooks over at Archos to fix and repair all the crap wrong with our Archos 5's. You have a lot of balls making anything else with the rep you already have with the crap you have been shoving out the doors for the past 3 years.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 26th 2009 7:47PM]

#2: Except they'll ship with a Kernel with a fix for the "socket" bug it's only a matter of time till anyone can run whatever they want on this device. No C&D letter is going to change anything on that fact. Maybe you'll have to start "manually" adding the google apps afterward but apart from that they have no legal right to prevent you from doing it.
Oh and as a European i just have to comment on #1:
I expect them to go with a combination of GSM and WCDMA aka UMTS which even though the name suggests otherwise is incompatible with what you consider CDMA (i.e the network of Verizon and Sprint). Basically all phones in Europe are like this nowadays.

[togusa Posted Oct 8th 2009 3:01PM]

One of the problems explained in the link i posted in the first page of comments was that google doesn't allow for its closed source apps (gmail google maps...) to copied after being deleted.

Cyanogen may be working at updating the files without erasing everything.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 26th 2009 10:54PM]

The guy was emphasizing the fact that a half inch more screen gives a whack-load more screen real-estate

[togusa Posted Oct 8th 2009 2:58PM]

I hope this phone comes with 8gb of internal ROM storage like the samsung galaxy. As i understand, google fights piracy by preventing apps to be installed on the micro-sd card. So we (i) will need big storage...