Archos 7 160 GB Internet Media Tablet

Posted by HDTV in Electronics Jul 31st, 2009 | no responses

Archos 7 160 GB Internet Media Tablet

ARCHOS, award-winning for its constant technology innovation and leadership in portable media players introduces a concept: the Internet Media Tablet. The ARCHOS 7 is the jewel of this range, redefining media on the move and offering customer uncompromised access to the Internet, media content and TV in a handheld device.With its built-in capabilities, your Internet Media Tablet becomes the ultimate way to surf the web. The amazingly sharp and high-resolution screen lets you navigate effortlessly through the web just like you would on a PC. Browsing becomes almost seamless with the ARM Cortex processor and the Adobe Flash 9 video support. Surfing on a handheld device has never been so fast and smooth. The full email application lets you read, write, download and send attachments, and manage your contacts.The ARCHOS 7 features an incredibly high capacity internal hard drive, in slim and sleek enclosures. Everything will fit in, and you can still have room for some more. You can download a vast number of music and video from the unique selection of renowned movie and music partners assembled in the Media Club. So you have plenty of movies to watch when youre away on a trip or in vacations. You can play movies in HD or DVD quality for the richest media experience on the go.Enjoy your ARCHOS content back on your TV, with the DVR Station. Schedule recordings in few clicks any TV program from you cable channels or your setup box, and choose when and where you want to watch them. Play back all your digital content from your ARCHOS 7 to your TV, even in HD quality, at 720p. With the TV snap-on, digital free TV is broadcast live on your Internet Media Tablet, wherever you are.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Amazing PMP, but not everything your were expecting
I own a 604 which I purchased a few years ago and have loved it.

For the archos 7:

The good-

1. Video: Larger screen, amazing quality of movies

2. Audio: still very good

3. Battery is not internal (like the 5), so if it locks up, you can take it off briefly. Also on long trip you can bring along a fully charged spare.

4. Internet: love listening to internet radio while browsing the web.

5. Internet radio - love it. You can also select your own stations using shoutcast website. Other sites like last.fm do not work.

The not so good-

1. Internet: Flash 10 support does not exist so sites like Hulu will not work for movie streaming. Some flash does not work and website will have blank sections.

2. Internet TV: some links are dead and I do not see a way to update or fix these. Some working sites do not have updated or much content. So, I stopped using this feature.

3. Internet radio: have not seen a way to change the links for the preset stations. Glad shoutcast works.

4. TV snap on, although previously advertised for the 7, has yet to exist.

5. Plug ins cost extra money, esp if you want to view your dvd movies on the archos.

6. GPS, does not exist yet for the 7.

7. Basically you can only install the limited software that Archos will let you. Compare this to a netbook with windows - you have much greater options for software to purchase and install.

Overall, I am fortunate that I bought the archos 7 for what it does very well. The other features I listed as good are special surprises for me coming from the 604. For that, I give it high marks. If you need a perfect Internet experience or want more flexibility choosing applications you want to install&run, you are better off with a standard windows netbook which is also cheaper (Archos 7 retails for $450 on Archos website). If you want an amazing portable movie/music player with some internet features, you will like the archos 7.

1 Star Terrible Customer Service
The ARCHOS 7 is great if it works, However the ARCHOS customer service is the worst i have ever encountered. I had my unit for 45 days sent the unit in because it didn’t work. 2 1/2 months later and I am still waiting on my ARCHOS 7. Most of the people in customer service are very rude and could care less about the customer. This experience has been so bad that I will never purchase a product from this company again.

5 Stars Excellent media tablet
I use the Archos 7 for listening to music with earphones and reviewing photos or film clips. It does both outstandingly. I also own a 605 and a Zune for the same puposes and prefer both for these tasks since they are less cumbersome but neither has the large screen of the Archos 7. The DVR station is highly improved in connectivity over the 605 DVR. This is a major advantage of the Archos 7 over competitors. If your interests are music and photos, buy the less expensive 605. If you want to record via your HDTV, buy the Archos 7 with the DVR.

3 Stars Great media player, not so great Internet tablet
This is my first review on Amazon; I hope it helps some people out.

For those looking for the short and sweet version, here it is…The Archos 7 is a fantastic mp3 player and a terrible Internet tablet.

Before I get into the more in-depth portion of my review, I should say that I purchased this product to upgrade from my Nokia N810. I really liked the N810, I liked the OS, and I did not like the small storage space. I thought the Archos 7 was a great solution; the specs are ideal–large hard drive and a seven inch screen.

What is good about this device: I am really happy with the music player and video player. I uploaded my music library via the USB cable and was able to create playlists easily and search my music without a problem. The video player is great as well. I rented a movie through CinemaNow, watched it just fine, and my own videos played perfectly.

I am not really interested in TV, so I did not really look at the WebTV component and have no need for the DVR functionality. So, I cannot give any informed opinion on those. It also seems to have built in UPnP support, but I have not explored it in depth.

What is not so good about this device: Plain and simple, the operating system is extremely limited and does not provide basic functionality a user would want or even need. The desktop is not customizable in the least. You cannot remove unwanted icons, setting your own wallpaper does not let you scale, center, tile, or stretch the image. Even though the picture viewer allows you to view images as you like–and they do look great, when you select “Set as Wallpaper”, it stretches the image to fit the resolution or cuts it off to fit the screen. You have no control of this.

So, I had to take the time to make my image into an 800×600 background. This irks me; this should be a basic operation for any internet tablet.

Furthermore, the ability to multitask is restricted. You can start the music player and then access the internet, but if you want to go back to the player, it closes the web browser. In fact, there is very little ability to switch between tasks. There is no minimization of windows.

The web browser leaves a lot to be desired. You are not always connected to your preferred Wifi spot, it disconnects after a period of inactivity. So, it takes longer for the browser to open because it has to reconnect first. The flash plugin works for youtube, but other sites are not as fortunate. For instance Hulu.com does not work on the device. There is no way to copy and paste in the browser. The onscreen keyboard sometime covers up the textbox you are trying to enter information in. And you only can have five tabs open at a time.

The PDF viewer is slow, and trying to listen to music while reading PDFs can cause the system to freeze. Perhaps this will be addressed in future OS updates. It should also be noted, you cannot play any DVD ripped to an ISO, natively or by the cinema plugin that can be purchased. You need to convert them to a support format.

Conclusion: Really, this cannot be called an internet tablet. This is a media player that has a web browser. Archos is developing a device that utilizes Android; I hope this will be an improvement from their in-house dilapidated excuse for an OS. However, I have my doubts. If you can, I would recommend waiting until this new Android powered device hits the markets and is reviewed. Otherwise, you are really paying for a 320 Gig mp3 and video player. The Archos gets a rating of 3 in my mind, 5 for the media aspects and 1 for the internet tablet “aspects”. Thanks for reading.

1 Star Archos products just don’t deliver
Web/TV Product code does not work so unable to download, complained to Archos and told-have to pay again. “Once code is used cannot replace it, and as it didn’t work-tough!” Spent over three months trying without success to get the DVR Station to work. Unable to record from TV, although the system goes through the motions when you try to open the recorded file to view, you receive an error message stating “damaged and incomplete file”. Had daily contact with technical support but still no joy. When playing a video via the internet sometimes you get a blank space with a Flash 9 jpg. The Archos 7/Opera is supposed to support Flash 9-but it doesn’t work on many Flash 9 websites so beware.

My advice to any would be purchaser is don’t buy an Archos unless you

a) Want a heart attack from the frustration or b) Like throwing over