Archos5 Android PMP now on sale at Amazon
By Nilay Patel 
posted Oct 8th 2009 3:27PM
posted Oct 8th 2009 3:27PM
[Via Pocketables]
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Mine is arriving today! Can't wait to check it out.
Already have mine. Pre-ordered it on Amazon. Its pretty awesome. The resistive screen is actually very responsive and its a ton of fun to use. plays all sorts of media files, which is nice.
Looks like a mistake with the pricing, Nilay!
I really need to get some sleep... My bad...
Does your blog editor automatically add in a negative line about resistive tech. for any product that has one?
LOL! It's built-in, isn't it?
Yes, it's a subroutine called "PersonalExperienceWithResistiveTouchscreens.exe"
Resisitive touch sux and every argument you can come up with is now null and void. HTC patented capacitive that can both be used with gloves on and with a stylus. Now what arguments will the resistive crowd use?
What do you expect from a 'tech blog' from AOL? AOL for crying out loud bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah tech journalist my a$$. hacks
Well, you can expect to be swiftly banned, for starters.
"Yes, it's a subroutine called "PersonalExperienceWithResistiveTouchscreens.exe""
This doesn't make sense.
Nilay dude, you have to get some class, and get out of the comments. Stop making a fool of yourself.
Be careful, last time I posted something negative about how they wrote articles, the editors decided to replace my post with
"Hi, my name is [insert my name] and my email address is [insert email address] and I live in [insert town]. Please spam me and stalk me since I am a big troll"
and they got that info from their email confirmation stuff. You can look up that post too. They did it on 3 articles.
When I emailed the editor he said "Too bad, so sad"
So yeah, don't expect Engadget to be rational or even mature.
@jason
Your'e not the only one. I remember when i wrote a comment about them not getting paid enough to edit the articles as a joke, even though it was high ranked, it "mysteriously" got deleted.
Either someone got buthurt, or the comment system needs to be fixed. Regardless, they are really losing merit, but of course, its fixable ;)
down ranked writers........ you know somethings wrong when the gods of the system get flamed by the system (and us peasants who use it).
This is just too rich.
I gotz diabetes now.
I wonder if Charbutt is on engadget now. This seems childish and very foolhardy for engadget bloggers to represent their company like that. I swear all tech bloggers and tech forum admin/ writers are poor pathetic computer nerd that have never gotten laid in ever... in ever!
Watch this post will disappear or I will get banned. Oh well that's why they make fake email address'.
:P
The last time he freaked out he just kept lookin' down
He st-st-stuttered when You asked him what he's thinkin' 'bout
felt like he couldn't breathe You asked what's wrong with him
My best friend jason said "Oh, he's just bein' Nilay"
XD Ban me now.... lol
What part of "Email addresses are never displayed" do they not understand? Who is this editor, John McCain?!
Soviet Engadget, where commenters think they are equals, but then sent to the gulags
@Jason
Somehow, you're profile has been set to private.
Curious.
lol, I saw that resistive comment thrown in there, scrolled down to the comments, thought, "Wait a minute, that comment was unwarranted and quite off-topic.", scrolled up, and confirmed that it was Nilay's article.
And sacapuntas, I lol'd hard.
Does that really happen here? I thought these cats were a cool bunch.
Thx for the heads-up. [whispering] I wont let Nilay know I still rock a Tungsten.
Thats more than a freaking PS3!!
comparison fail
Wow, I never realized that until you said it, I feel enlightened.
I have to admit, that thing is rather pricey. I mean I know that "i" thing was around that price too but I think anything over $150 is too much for a PMP. But that's just my cheapskate opinion.
Seriously? No.
been following this on cnet, looks pretty amazing for an all in one device
flash versions are incredibly slim too
but they also have a 500gb version
500 GIGABYTES
No
Twenty bucks for 128 more gigs? Who in their right mind wouldn't drop a jackson for that?
lol! I see what Archos did there..
depends on whether or not you want double the thickness and spinning parts inside your PMP or not.
Maybe. This looks like it might be a winner... for me anyway. One more thing on my Christmas list.
Its hard disk vs SSD u morons of course the price for the SSD is high.
id buy 1 if it had 3G. archos f*cked up. screw releasing a phone in 2 months. i was waiting for 8 months to buy a new phone. and they screwed it up
It has been there for weeks now, but I think I would test drive the one on BestBuy.com for $299 16 GB though.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp;jsessionid=537E1A2D7D242B718C57D60AF16A0D5D.bbolsp-app02-23?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=-2976924519062682622&id=pcat17071&type=page&st=archos+5&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960
Be prepared to fork out another $40 to play H.264 videos according to the Amazon reviews.
Yeah, one of the big gripes with Archos is that you have to (well, * are likely to *) buy one or more codec/feature packs to use all the features of the device. It can easily cost you another $50+ to turn on support for various file types and internet services.
Very interested to see how Android works on this thing. I'm expecting it to be a bit pokey.
Note that people are (annoyingly) complaining about the thickness of the hard drive version. The slim model uses SSD. Archos doesn't hide the fact that you get the slim or, erm, not quite so slim model depending on whether you want SSD or HD. If they had a 64GB SSD model, that would probably be the one to get. 32GB, with space eaten up by the OS, etc. - that doesn't sound appealing if your goal is to throw a bunch of media on this thing.
When you register the device, the h264 plug-in is activated for free like the web browser was activated for free with the old Archos 5. The Archos 605 (two generations ago) required you to pay for both the web, and h264 plug-ins. With the latest device, the browser does not need a plug-in (or is activated before shipping), and the h264 plug-in is activated for free when you register the device.
Initial reaction to browser - best mobile browser I have used. Since I prefer mobile sites on screens
This thing doesn't have Flash support? I thought that was a hallmark of Archos players.
Any word on whether or not it's due to get Flash 10 sometime down the road?
It does, according to umpcportal.com - but only in a few months' time. And knowing Archos, I wouldn't be surprised if Flash became another $15 add-on...
They do have a pretty extensive (p)review and lots of videos there too.
I'd be very interested to hear how snappy their web browser is. We use an Archos 605 in our living room but the browser is painfully slow. Almost to make it unbearable for that use. Still a great little movie-player, though.
The second these things finally go capacitive, I'm jumping on it! Always been a fan of Archos, just waiting for improved screens.
It should get flash support when android does, early 2010, well probably mid to late, but android is suppose to get flash
Can we install our own versions of Android on there? Because the UI for the Archos 5 doesn't exactly look... Great...
Mine arrived last night, and so far, I've been disappointed. First problem is that only a few of the apps appeared on the screen. I had to find a post on the forums for how to re-install the AppsLib app to my computer, then transfer that to the device and install manually so that I could download other applications. Once you get into the AppsLib, you find that there aren't that many Android apps available, not even the Facebook app. This is because Archos only allows apps that will display on the larger format device.
Second big disappointment was no GMail app. That's right, it's an Android device without GMail. There's also no Contacts or Calendar sync going on here, either. I have no idea why they would strip these functions out of the OS, especially considering that's one of the main reasons I wanted the thing. Why sell and Android device that doesn't integrate with the Google ecosystem?
As a PMP it does seem pretty good. I was able to easily sync my movies, songs and pictures with Windows Media Player without a hitch and they all show up nicely on the device. It is also very slim and light (I have the 32GB version), but at the same time doesn't feel like it will break in my pocket.
Over all, I'm not impressed and am considering returning it. I really don't understand why they have taken away so much functionality from the Android system, especially since that is what I was looking forward to the most.
Well now that donut has been released, the 800x480 screen res will probably be the new android standard, meaning you will get more apps. have you tried manually installing the stock market (you can find it online) and seeing what happens. Or the stock gmail app? Go on an android forum, and ask someone to pull the .apk files for you.
jkontherun thinks that the lack of camera/compass are responsible for the app store restrictions...
http://jkontherun.com/2009/10/08/android-market-camera-compass-required/
No google apps because its not a "google experience" device. Android is open source ooperating system for any device u can get it to run on. Android does not include the Google Apps. Ask Cryogen.
Archos has not "stripped out" Gmail and other Google apps.
Google has simply not yet released Gmail, Maps and the other Google android apps optimized for 800x480 screens.
But since Android 1.6 was just released 2 weeks ago, expect Google to release those apps to work on Archos soon.
Also consider that Archos supports 1280x720 output to a HDTV using HDMI, Google may want to adapt their apps to that output resolution as well.
As for installing other apps, you can download the .apk files and double click on them to install them. Many do work even if they are yet only optimized for 480x320 screens.