Archos 501333 Christmas Sales!
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Archos 501333 Christmas Sales!.
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I impartial got my current Android 5 500GB swear from Archos yesterday and its quite a beauty. I'm upgrading from my frail Archos 5 250GB, so that will be my valuable 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 immense and slight.
Given that my iPod Touch upgrade this year was less than wonderful, I lovely considerable figured that this upgrade for Archos would be similarly understated. Mainly I objective wanted the extra hard drive so I could backup all my laptops onto my music player. I was immoral! The novel Android version seems to have a whole original feel both in construct factor and the fresh 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 tranquil.
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 archaic Archos 5. Note: I mostly exhaust this as a media center to play music and video; secondarily as a backup drive.
Let's bag to it then, these are the things I adore about my unique Android:
1) 500GB -- totally awesome amount of disk, I can now set aside honest about every digital file I possess 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 hide, pops up with a minute thumbnail that you tap on and voila, resumes accurate 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) DVR -- this popped accurate into my old-fashioned 5 DVR and started playing suitable away. I aloof mediate 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 cloak.
7) Portrait/Landscape -- Archos has borrowed the iPhone trick of rotating the prove according to orientation. I guess they have an accelerometer in there now, I dunno. Collected, its fun to gape this feature on an Archos. Its a lot easier to navigate playlists in portrait mode.
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 build out a genuine stream of firmware updates.
9) WMV/MTP mode-- very detached 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 worthy easier to consume when it is docked on the DVR (which is where mine spends most of its life!) .
11) Sound quality is lovely beneficial, sounds vast through my Klipsch speakers and seems to have more oomph than my other players.
12) WiFi/Browser -- has a beneficial browser and WiFi connection has worked well for me. I mediate the keyboard is better than the Touch's, although Safari is probably the slightly kindly browser. The bigger veil also helps for browsing. Overall I'm inclined to give the Archos the top ranking for browsers.
13) I honest discovered Twidroid, one of many apps pre-loaded, allows me to check my Twitter in a really nice format -- care for it!
14) Portability -- well there's only so distinguished portability that can be expected with a cover and hard drive this broad. This recent earn is smoother and rounder so its a shrimp more comfortable in a pocket. It is very easy to carry around as a handheld draw, 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 assume its pleasing well-behaved for a shrimp computer -- which is basically what this is.
15) No extra glide 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 gradual their product. I've had to send in a couple of Archos units over the years and they have always been pleased to either repair or replace the unit without quibbling about it, as long as its under warranty. Note: it did win two weeks to procure my unit wait on!
17) Multi threading: now I prove 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 cherish the small 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 trustworthy touch hide -- sometimes you objective accept tired of trying to type a touchscreen keyboard with elephantine fingers! In general, this is one of my popular 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 gallop 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 coast camouflage 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) External hard drive EXT3 -- as I understand it, Archos changed to the EXT3 hard drive format for reasons of rush and reliability. The result for me is that I can no longer simply assume hard drive MSC mode, lunge the Archos into a Windows machine and inquire of 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 hiss.
2) The playlist interface didn't gain grand of an upgrade and its unexcited 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 gather the thing playing.
3) We lost the dedicated play button and removable battery a while succor -- but I collected miss them both! None of my current touch veil 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 procure one at the local Best Win I'm scared. In the past I've resorted to ordering my Archos cases from European companies like I-nique and Noreve. This is generally suitable 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 collect up. Some of the fresh features aren't fully functional yet. I do have faith that Archos will fix all the limited glitches with things like GPS over the course of the next 6 months. The Apps available are currently a bit exiguous. I seek information from this will improve over the coming months.
7) Retain 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 select some messing around to gather it unbiased the intention you want it. If you want something easy that requires minimum anguish then iPods are going to be more your cup of tea.
For me this is composed the best player of its class -- that class being sizable hard drive, ample conceal 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 cover and you admire apps I suggest you acquire an iPod Touch. If what you care about most is sound quality you may want to bag a Walkman X. For me those are your top 3 touch conceal players, it unprejudiced 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 unexcited. Detached 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 wonderful.
This is a ample scheme with a few minor interface issues and bugs. im not going to write a thesis on this, so ill unbiased boil it down. impartial to let you know, ive previously owned an archos 604wifi and an archos av420.
the pros:
- the interface is very slick, it takes some getting broken-down to but once you do it is tremendous! its Worthy tighter than any apple product in the method the interface works seamlessly throughout the entire experience despite what application you are using.
- plot up was very simple, streaming from either web radio, pandora, or my personal network (all via wifi) was wonderful. surprisingly the battery life doesnt seem abominable either. i havent done any strenuous tests yet, but i stale the scheme last night constantly streaming web radio via wifi, connected to bluetooth devices, and with the cover on and active while i was browsing the obtain a bit (looking thru applications to add) for 2 or 3 consecutive hours last night, and only seemed to expend 1/3 of the battery.
- its more knowing than previous versions, letting me know why distinct files i have wont play on this during the transfer process. it offered to collected let me copy them across for storage, but said i wouldnt be able to play them with the intention. previously it would copy them, let me add them into the playlist, then bail-out of playback whenever it came across it, which was very annoying since i tend to create gargantuan playlists and exercise race.
- built in fm transmitter! FINALLY! ive been waiting for them to achieve this into (or at least attached to) the intention themselves for a long time - basically since i bought the fm receiver for the av420 /thinking/ it was a transmitter. 
sadly i havent figured out how to gather this working objective yet, but i havent had alot of time to play with it in the car (thats my after-work project today) .
i havent had the chance to play with the GPS yet, but making this all inclusive like that is a mountainous opinion, i hope its executed well (however i havent heard favorable things about teleatlas) .
the cons:
- its ALOT thicker than it appears on the web - probably dictated by hard drive size, but its basically as thick as my 604wifi. the web image was very misleading, i was expecting something considerable thinner.
i dont acquire why all the applications consume the accelerometer to change orientation, but the home menu's dont? seems like a droll oversight.
- it seems a petite laggy, and its hung a number of times to the point that ive had to force-reboot it. im really hoping for a system update to fix this stability negate.
- text entry boxes are a slight curious, you cant easily click and hotfoot to highlight parts of text to delete or edit. hoping a system update fixes this.
- im graceful proper with tech toys, but i have not been able to secure this thing to "tether" to my phone yet. it seems to pair with phone, but my phone says there are no available services on the archos that its fervent in so it never "connects". not quite certain whats going on here.
- not a staunch con but since i am a previous owner it was a limited hard to win passe to: you cant resolve to add an entire folder of songs to a playlist when creating them on the plot anymore. at first i view they were forcing me to add one song at a time, but its not as abominable as that: what they do is form you enter the directory you want to add, determine any song and click to add it to the playlist from the menu. once you do it opens another dinky menu asking if you want to add honest that track or all the tracks in that directory. its mildly annoying b/c it requires a few extra steps for something that seems really basic: they could have impartial let me add the directory and automated that functionality. im really hoping a system update fixes this as well.
- booting up doesnt seem to be any better than it had been on the 604 (which was noticably longer than the 420 had been) . however it does have a "stand-by" mode that appears to utilize no battery life and boots up in seconds. not quite clear if this really is a con since they seem to have provided a solution that is tall, which is why its last.
Summary:
great plot, some bugs but very shrimp and easy to overlook so far, and they should be easily fixed (hopefully speedy) . im REALLY enraged for this product and hope to scrutinize archos throwing its continued assist slow it.
sorry, i guess that was alot longer than i hoped or expected.
I have to say that I went against my gut when purchasing this diagram, as it looked really nice, and really, I wanted it for watching movies, listening to music and checking the internet rapid when I am on the bustle in airports.
The movie section worked really well. For that, I give this map 5 STARS...I actually downloaded movies to my Amazon Unbox, then zigzag up the Archos and bam, instantly on my original Archos 5 (well, after the movie downloaded to my unbox in 1.5 hours) .
The music fragment also works flawlessly. Not really any hiccups there, and the sound was marvelous, but could be better. For that, I would give it 4 stars...
SO FAR SO Obedient Proper?
WRONG
First, I had the reset this design 5 times in 2 days because it objective slow froze up. I would obtain multiple error messages when I was connected to internet, dropping the connection frequently (and yeah, I'm glowing skilled at making that work) . Unpleasant Poor Abominable.
And I don't want to hear how a simple patch or download will fix this bid. If it doesn't work out of the box, than DON'T SHIP IT!! I've been reading that apparently, Archos is getting slammed with this stuff after only a week.
FOR THAT, it gets 1 STAR and should earn ZERO stars!!
Second, the Appslib was never installed on this draw. I called customer service, was talking to someone in 5 minutes, who then attach me on occupy for 45 MINUTES!! After 45 minutes (I only stayed on gain that long cause I was watching NFL game so I had nothing else to really benefit to at the time), the phone rang for 10 more minutes, and then, line went expressionless. PATHETIC!!!!
I am reading that some software update added actually might have been the reason for the Appslib to never appear, and if you leer at Amazon status, they pulled the 160GB version.
For that, I give it NEGATIVE STARS...Unpleasant service and Dreadful that this contrivance did not reach preloaded as advertised.
I am sending it befriend and will exhaust my Toshiba Netbook to eye movies on the plane rides for now. I'm really disappointed. The design itself was really nice and sleek looking. The interface was nice.
The resistive keyboard was kind of annoying as it took a radiant favorable finger press to acquire it acknowledge, but worked well enough. I learned to type aesthetic well on it in 2 days.
I'm ANNOYED!!!
I would have bought the ZuneHD but the mask is too minute for movies, as well as the Ipod touch..
I'm now considering the Viliv ex70 as I've heard mountainous things and it's gotten salubrious reviews.
I've read Archos history but wanted this intention to work...The Android platform has a lot of potential and anything google touches shapely considerable works as advertised.
Now, I'll have to shop around a petite.
I can assure you one thing...unless people launch giving this contrivance 4-5 stars when the bugs are worked out, I'll never consume another thing from this company.
EDIT TO REVIEW:
I have downloaded a unique firmware update and the method is no longer needing to be reset constantly. It also does not high-tail any longer and seems a slight more posthaste and responsive. I'm going to gain on to it for now and study how this plays out over the next 3 weeks. I'm actually flying to CA for a sales meeting next week and so it'll be tested well. If I win it is unprejudiced needing more debugging it's going aid and I'll also update again.
I have 2 movies that I unprejudiced loaded to it from Unbox. Wolverine and The Dim Knight...Both gawk very pleasurable, although I'd adore to salvage my hands on a HD version of these movies to push to the diagram.
I'm nervous, however, to capture the HD plugin because I've read somewhere that it does not work or does not read that you have purchased it.
One last thing:
I also objective read now that on the Viliv you can actually speed Windows 7. It has a camera, and if that is the case, you can snap photos and then ink on them which I do when I'm on job sites taking photos and marking up buildings and plans. That seems practical to me. However, it's expensive (around $800-$900) and this blueprint would be Ample if these bugs go away.
Let me also so, Acquire THE 32GB NOT THE 160GB model. The 32GB runs SSD and it very like a flash. It's also half the weight and thin.
I'd say it's as thin as my wife's iphone and as heavy as holding a sizable starbucks coffee. It's light and thin.
I have yet to try the GPS software but idea on downloading it from the disk provided to earn the 7 day trial out of it. I'd Care For that to work. Has a lot of potential when the 3D maps are available for the US in 2nd quarter of 2010.
BEWARE, not matter how mighty you want something...BEWARE
UPDATE #2: Done with it. It is going support NOW. I did the firmware update and it did NOTHING to befriend this machine. At first it appeared to create the system work faster, but then, it has frozen up 2 more times. Furthermore, I tried to install the GPS 7 day trial using the disk and the blueprint again froze up. Sorry, but I cannot absorb that these people would let these go out the door Vivid it has issues. How the hell can they NOT know? If everyone here but one person has given this thing splendid awful marks, are they only using fully functional and perfectly tested devices?
Literally, stare at the reviews and you will spy what I am talking about. It's fabulous to me that a company would do this. Yes, spacious companies have devices that periodically are returned inferior. But at the rate that these people are getting complaints, you have to wonder how this could go on for the period of time that it has.
So, Archos will never collect another dime from me, unless of course they advance out with a fully functional non brick like intention that people are raving about. I occupy my next draw will be a Viliv. I have read review after review on those devices and they are almost all clear. The machines do the draw they were intended to, unlike this one.
And it's too poor...this is such a nice looking and feeling draw. The camouflage is nice, it feels really easy to consume in the hand...It's a shame it objective does not effect.
