We hate to be the bringers of bad news, but it looks like the
Archos 9 might be serving as a bit of a morality tale, showing why and how PC hardware and software might not be quite ready for the large form factor tablet experience. That's not to say there aren't some plusses to the device pointed out by
UMPC Portal in its review, like the great build quality and style of the tablet, the sensitive, flush touchscreen, and some great connectivity, but the sum seems less than its parts. The primary blame can be laid at the feet of the 1.1GHz Atom Z510 processor, which is sluggish and single-threaded, and Windows 7 Starter, which is lacking in the standard Windows 7 tablet functionality. We don't know all the reasoning at play here, but the result is a slow computer with a hacked-on touchscreen keyboard at a $550 pricepoint that doesn't the hit handheld UMPC size sweetspot and can hardly stand against a netbook in cost or utility. Sounds kind of mean when we say it like that, doesn't it?
posted December 24th 2009 8:20PM
hey paul or someone on engadget you should review the archos 5 with android.
@AndroidRokz
They are still trying to find something negative to say about it, without totally contradicting what they said about the droid and such..
(it is pretty hard, since the hardware is awesome and the software is the same but suuuuush men at work!)
This will be utterly obsolete within a month.
@(Unverified)
Like anything that has a CPU these days.
man can archos get anything right? all there products seem to be great ideas but end up sucking
Archos just showed everyone how to NOT do a tablet. I mean just one look at this thing screams "yikes".. the hardware is completely devoid of any design aesthetics, software is terrible, and the end result has this half-baked poorly cobbled together feel to it.
The same can be said about most products from this company.. who still buys Archos crap?
@ctyrider I wanted to say this too. Archos seems to mean well but they're products have been plagued with bugs and all have that half baked feel. It particularly sucks since I would probably buy this and other gadgets they've come out with over the years if they just spent the time to design a decent piece of hardware running decent software.
@ctyrider
How exactly is Windows 7 terrible?
@bjsguess - win7 isn't terrible in and off itself.. but it is a terrible idea for a tablet OS. It has been shown time and time again that desktop OS's just don't work on tablets.. You need a lightweight instant-on OS with multitouch support, designed to work on smaller screens.. Full desktop OS like win7 is a recipe for a disaster on tablets.
@ctyrider
YEAH Win7 SUCKS !
ANDROID IS CRAP!
you really are beyond ANY salvation my poor stupid friend.
just Stop talking about electronics for the rest of your life please because you make negative sens right now...
I mean Win7 and Android are basically the 2 best softwares of 2009 how can you possibly say archos software is crap when their two latest products ship those 2 exact OS ?
You make me think of somebody else ...
Lemme see...
-Android RULEZ
-meeeeehh Arhocs 5 IT sucks, software is crap !
-Win7 is the best Microsoft has done in ages !
-meeeehh Archos 9 has crap OS !!
Do you write for engadget ?
I purchased one of these on pre-order, they never shipped it so I cancelled it a few weeks back. Even more funny is this thing was supposed to be shipped out to customers in 'early december', check their website it's still in preorder stage.
What got me to change my mind is that the processor on this thing is too slow, and the 1 gb of ram was a show stopper. Win 7 starter I can upgrade to any version easily but the hardware not so much. Just seemed like why spend $500 on this with such old technology in it - this released about a year back would have made sense.
Archos apparently was telling people they have a no refund policy on these archos 9 tablets, if they even try to charge my credit card I'll have it charged back, then refuse delivery on their turd tablet.
Put a faster Atom in this thing, use Win 7 Home Premium and use 2gb of memory, throw in a broadcom hd chip for extra measure and you have a sale.
PLEASE.. if it had and Apple logo on it you'd be sayin it was the best thing since momma's titty
@(Unverified)
Paul is actually quite unbiased in his articles. Nilay is an apple fanboy thru and thru and would do just that; he has no credibility at all. This supposed apple tablet is supposedly a larger ipod touch; let me just say that is the worst idea ever if it's true. The majority of 'app's on the iphone/ipod are games (ive written games for the iphone/ipod as well) and a larger 7-9 inch device is awkward at best to try to use tilt sensor or try to play touch games with. It's mega fail from day one.
@fatslug Presumably, even if all the Apple Tablet ends up being is nothing more than a larger iPod Touch, I suspect that the types of apps one might run on it would be different. As you suggest, the kinds of games optimized for the iPhone and iPod Touch screen and experience wouldn't really be as playable - but at the same time, there are other classes of apps that might be more usable (i.e. compare any sort of eBook reader app on a larger screen - that would be an example of the opposite, where it would probably be more usable).
@fatslug
Wow. You're a developer, yet you don't realise that developers would develop either specifically for the bigger screen, or develop an app in tandem for the two devices?
You're no developer, kid.
@(Unverified) these tablets should all be looked at as alternative's to Kindle's and Netbooks.. not Iphones. You run real apps on them. Not toy apps designed for a tiny screen.
@pukerocket
Hey you blind mofo can you read? I said:
"The majority of 'app's on the iphone/ipod are games "
Meaning at the current time, those apps would be fail on any supposedly larger tablet.
Btw I develop for many platforms, you on the other hand are probably a janitor at your local elementary school that probably keeps eyeing that little boy you want so badly to take into the restroom.
That's going to be my ebook/manga/comic reader.
Take off Windows 7 slap on a modified xp or linux and I'm set.
No tablet software on a tablet! fail
"Single threaded"?
Of all the stupid fucking shit I've read on Engadget, nothing could quite prepare me for that.
@nobnoobody
Dude you realise you trying to make people care about some technical fact on engadget?
Again :
#1 it's technical so most certainly objective.
#2 it's a fact ! something most people here have stopped caring about years ago.
Why won't someone release a tablet with 10-inch capacitive glass touchscreen, wireless and win 7 premium on-board?
@suland
Why would anyone release a tablet with a full desktop OS and a capacitive screen?
Resistive or Optical touchscreens are better choices, since they can be used with anything. And it will be needed to click on very small things even on Windows 7, plus they allow us to use the excellent handwriting recognition that windows 7 has.
Optical would be the best choice, greatly responsive and can be used with anything, plus works with multitouch.
That's a damn shame that is.
Hmm yeah I woke up one day and thought to myself. "I really want an underpowered slate tablet with a crippled version of Windows". The specs on this machine aren't much better than the specs on the original UMPCs. And they all flopped! So just what the hell were Archos thinking when they put this thing together?
If I'm going to use Windows I want full fat Windows. Not this crippleware. I can have a fully working version of Linux on a machine like this. Something like Ubuntu Netbook Edition would have been far more suitable for the hardware spec.
@Charbax
Sir Charbax, what are you going to do about my Archos 5 250GB FREQUENT 'file corrupted' errors?
It seems like I'm doomed with it. I get that like 50 times a day.
And you've started again, coming in here and trying to persuade people about the great and marvelous the PATHETIC Archos company
A story about an Archos tablet with windows 7. I didn't believe that the comments would stay on topic. I wasn't disappointed. For some reason people insist on talking about a rumored tablet that another company might be bringing to market. Pathetic....
I have the first gen Archos 5 with Linux/ 120GB. I like it. What I've noticed about Archos products, and some other companies as well, is that when they offer different storage sizes on the same platform, the large capacity devices seem buggier than the mid level ones. I don't think that is limited to just Archos.
I blame the high management at Microsoft, they should give Windows 7 ultimate at a discounted price for anyone who is producing Tablet PCs, never mind, Apple is coming with one soon, let the stupid management fail, they lost the cell phone market, and soon the PC market.
There are stupid people, and they manage Microsoft!
@GT123
How long have there been rumors of an Apple tablet?
And how many times have those come true?
There won't be an apple tablet any time soon, if ever.
On the other hand, why would Microsoft offer a discount on Ultimate, when Home Premium works well, is beyond me. But I do think Starter should disappear and Home Premium should be the standard OS in netbooks and tablets.
And Microsoft never really had the Phone market, not even the Smartphone market, so I don't know how it lost something it didn't have in the first place. And Apple doesn't have any of those markets either, at best it has 1% of all the phones Worldwide, and less than 15% of the Smartphone market.
Just waiting for Android OS to be hacked to run on this thing.
http://www.androidtablets.net
Archos set itself up to fail by installing "Starter" on a tablet. Windows 7 home upwards shine on a tablet. I am sure anyone who buys this will throw the Starter out and install the "Home Pre".
Give or take, Engadget will not praise any tablet not coming from Cupertino. Period. All their editors work on a MBP, they don't have anything positive about other platforms.
Too bad...
@ ALL
Stop this NON-SENSE !
Win7 starter is exactly what a tablet needs :
#1 lighter than win7 premium
i.e. less services to boot, i.e. boots faster, runs smoothier, uses less ram.
#2 is cannot multitask more than 3 apps ? bouhou..
YOU RUN A F**KING atom !!! it CANNOT handle more than 3 apps WAKE UP !
Yes this has limitations of course, but what devices hasn't exactly ?
What cannot this tablet do that other tablet can ?
??
Nothing so stop this non-sensical crap Puuuhlease !
I mean Engadget you dound nothing to say so you decide to bash Win7 ?
WTF is wrong with you ?
This thing is a waste of time. With all the news coming out about the Apple Tablet including the latest rumors about a morphable tablet surface that can provide tactile feedback (i.e., in a keyboard-mode) when necessary and then change back to a smooth surface:
http://www.alltabletnews.com/2009/12/25/apple-tablet-with-a-morphable-surface/
Even if they fixed everything else with this, it still is TOO BIG. You can't fix "too big" without it becoming something else. Actually if it was made to be 1/2 the current size I can still see some great potential for these tablets. It would still be small enough for portability but the current tablet sizes are unwieldly for practical use.
I'd rather have the Fujitsu u810 or u820. Smaller, and cooler looking. And it's got a larger number: 800 Mhz, albeit the smaller order of magnitude :P
Put Ubuntu and xbmc on it instead :D
Questions in the article are probably meant to be rhetorical, but I'll do my take at answering anyway.
People simply don't seem to get that there is one and only one reason why we can't yet buy any usable tablet devices. The answer is in the missing word after 'we'. It's 'consumers'.
Usable tablet PC's have been out there for YEARS, bright sunlight readable screens and all, they're simply not meant for plebs consumers who can't afford to drop $5000 on a _real_ (sometimes even MIL-STD rated) fully-spec'ed tablet. Again, that doesn't mean they're not out there, _we_ simply aren't supposed to be using them.
Instead, manufacturers stare glazed-eyed at the wide pastures full of dairy cattle ready to be money-milked: civil servants, *PS delivery guys, doctors, nurses, census takers, engineers, soldiers, etcetera.
Off to their employers the manufacturers go, hoping to cajole them into signing lucrative $umpty-million deals for 1000s of tablets. No chance for us few lonely geeks eager to play with a new gadget...
If you are qualified for the real thing, have a look at Motion Computing, TabletKiosk, RuggedTabletPC, etc. Just don't expect anything under $2000 unless refurbished or second-hand.
That's too bad because I really wanted one of these I wanted until they came out just to get one, now I'm back to getting a netbook.