Will this upgrade to Android 4.0?

This is your Brain:



This is your Brain while using Archos:



Get the picture?

jdevenberg wrote:Archos tablets are cheap for a reason. If you want a budget tablet running an out of date version of android spend the extra $50 for either a kindle fire or nook tablet. You'll be happier. Especially if you root the nook.

As a happy owner of a rooted kindle fire, I can tell you that's also a great way to go, too. Got mine cheap on the last gold box sale big-A had. Best part is the stock browser. Reflows web pages into an easy-to-read format with 1 click. I'm very happy with it.

teknokill wrote:No Name? They have been doing PVPs and tablets since before you were born.

Yeah and they may get it right before you die.

Well over a decade ago I bought an Archos Jukebox 6000, which I recently gave away. It was an MP3 player with a hard drive, the first one made. Later they added an LCD screen and gave it the ability to play movies, thus inventing the portable media player.

Archos has been on the leading edge for a long time. They've had all kinds of clever, and some not so clever, ideas. A lot of tech ideas of today came from them.

Unfortunately they fall down in terms of quality control. When their products work they're great, but a lot of the Archos products I've bought had to be replaced in the first month. Fortunately they're very good at standing behind what they sell.

Barry

brb, driving to Woot headquarters to force their employees to use these picture frames as tablets. =)

Funny comment! But - the French word for "plate" is "assiette" - as in ASS-EEE-YET.

OK- kindle fire rooted is fine, but you can buy the Acer iconia a100, that has 2 cameras on it, does not need rooted and upgrades to ICS via Acer update-> for $180

http://bensoutlet.com/products/acer-iconia-tab-a-series-android

Why would you buy a kindle fire instead? There is nothing the Kindle can do that the Acer won't do (or do better). And the Acer gives you more without even rooting.

I bought one of these last time they were on Woot. While my Samsung Galaxy 5" will smoke this tablet, the 10" screen of the Archos is great for streaming a movie from my network media server. I often use it to watch a movie while load/unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, etc. I just wish the viewing angle was a bit wider.

nightcrawler51 wrote:I bought one of these last time they were on Woot. While my Samsung Galaxy 5" will smoke this tablet, the 10" screen of the Archos is great for streaming a movie from my network media server. I often use it to watch a movie while load/unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, etc. I just wish the viewing angle was a bit wider.

Are you streaming the native format or is your media server doing live transcoding for you? Would appreciate details about your setup, thank you!

gak0090 wrote:
Why would you buy a kindle fire instead? There is nothing the Kindle can do that the Acer won't do (or do better). And the Acer gives you more without even rooting.

In response to a question not directed towards me. I have a Nook Tablet rooted that I picked up for 141 shipped so it was cheaper. It has pretty strong support over on xda. It also functions very well as an e-reader and tablet. I have multiple cameras on every other device, don't really need it on this.

Do I need pants to use this device?
I prefer no pants

Bought 1 and half the keyboard was dead,returned it and the second one the wifi did not work, returned and 3rd was just slooooowwwww. Refund!

The good news for everyone that doesn't manage to get the elusive Brick of Carbonite the next few times it comes up is that Woot will probably be handing these things out in bags of crap because from all the people hating this product I foresee a very large warehouse with lots of dusty Archos boxes.

So the next time you miss a $5 Brick of Carbonite, be thankful and smile, you might could have very well ended up with one of these things, and they aren't worth $5... not even 5 cents.

Is this the 101 G9?

gak0090 wrote:Acer,Samsung,HTC,Asus just to name a few make screens that are equivalent, and hardware that is at least equivalent if not exceeding Apple standards. At least you have a choice of what to buy with Android which allows for a range of possibilities. When is that 7" minIpad coming out?

Your reply totally invalidates itself when you come across as being an Android fanboy. You need to be more honest when posting information which could be misleading to people looking for valid info.

The best info is impartial, but states facts when applicable.

hjlhjl wrote:Bought 1 and half the keyboard was dead,returned it and the second one the wifi did not work, returned and 3rd was just slooooowwwww. Refund!

Now you're talking about what Archos is known for. Unreliability.

kayoige wrote:In response to a question not directed towards me. I have a Nook Tablet rooted that I picked up for 141 shipped so it was cheaper. It has pretty strong support over on xda. It also functions very well as an e-reader and tablet. I have multiple cameras on every other device, don't really need it on this.

I'm just saying, that for another $40 you are getting more hardware (gps,cameras) and don't have to even worry about rooting. At the time you got yours though, this deal might not have been running. I have nothing against rooting (I have a couple rooted Evo's)but for me, It's not worth my time for the $40 difference.

I bought one of these when it came out. it's painfully slow, has a hacked 2.2 with tablet modifications. And since I stopped yang it, there still hasn't been a way to root it and/or re-rom it.
On the good side, hdmi out works almost 40% off the time. The USB host I'd pretty cool, setting you to plug in mice, keyboards, and flash drives, although the mouse rarely works and shows the tab to a grinding halt (as if it wasn't slow enough). I've also yet to get a USB hub with more than one device working.
oh yeah, and the viewing angle is so terrible, it's impossible to have two people look at it at the same time. I'm talking 10 degrees here...

Save your cash and put it towards a different tablet. You can get a much newer one for a similar price, with much better performance.

Don't get too wrapped up in the hate for this tablet, it's actually decent.

Sure it's a bit slow by newer tablet standards, but it still works perfectly fine. You can read a book while listening to pandora without any noticable lag. The web browser is also fine. Flash is a little sluggish but it works. It can be a bit laggy moving in and out of applications but at no point was has it really angered me.

Media playback is spiffy, it'll play just about anything and does a fine job.

You can easily add the legit android market and netflix to this but you do have to sideload them. Some applications meant for phones don't scale well to the tablet (if at all) but i've always been able to find a compatible app for whatever i wanted to do.

The only real downside here is the TFT LCD is merely OK. If I upgrade it'll be to an IPS. But for $150 this isn't an awful deal at all. If you are willing to spend $250 you can do better but in this price range i'd take this over a generic chipad any day.

lukeluca wrote:Avoid 2.2 Android tablets like the plague. It's a phone OS stretched to run on a tablet, and the improvements made in 3.X and 4.X for tablets are significant. Most real tablet apps won't even run on a 2.2 device, even with large screens.

It was a bad idea for manufacturers to do this, and it's an even worse idea to buy these things.... unless you have lots of experience hacking or have some specialized purpose you know this will work well with.

Please don't let your opinions of this tablet affect your opinion of real Android tablets, as they are two different things.

Amen.
I agree with most of your statement.
Unfortunately, for almost two years there was no such thing as a "real Android tablet" even though the market was filled with Android tablets. Many of them were brought over from Asia and in no way satisfied in the least. Other reliable companies tried to offer the best of Android but the infrastructure was not there yet. Is it even there now?

For us early adapters having such bad Android devices soured our taste in the format and some of us (many?) jumped ship to what was known for it's dependability and overall system and market.

chorpie wrote:I bought this right when it came out. It was most decisively the worst $300 I have ever spent. It's slow. And there's also the fact that it's slow. The touch response is horrible and sometimes doesn't register. Battery life is ok, but not great. Did I mention it's speed? It's like using a 14.4k modem again.

You have to hack the android market onto it, and it sometimes works ok. Honestly, I wouldn't even try to read books on this, it's that bad.

I too paid full price for this when it came out so I could get started with Android development. The plus side was it could play any kind of video and had a lot of space for when it was released.

The touch screen is responsive but slow and sucky - you actually have to occasionally calibrate this capacitive screen. The device is solid, but I dropped it from the side of my bed onto a carpeted floor and cracked the screen - less than 3 feet. I could still plug in a usb mouse and use it which was cool, but eventually the crack spread and the thing died.

Very low end tablet, consider it like an old compaq or hp desktop. It was made to hit a low price point, not quality.

This thing is clumsy at best. I've had it for about six months, and have noticed the following quirks: poor battery life, low touch screen sensitivity near the outside edges (despite calibrating), unimpressive resolution, no USB charging, lack of available apps that will run on this device. For this price, it would probably be a good toy for a pre-teen or teenager, but I would have gladly spent $100 more for something a bit nicer.

I don't recommend this one. I got it for basic things, thinking it isn't a bad price for my needs. It was fine for a while for games and random internet browsing, but after a few months, the touch screen has become randomly unresponsive.

pphilipp wrote:Your reply totally invalidates itself when you come across as being an Android fanboy. You need to be more honest when posting information which could be misleading to people looking for valid info.

The best info is impartial, but states facts when applicable.

Do you think that Apple has a factory that makes their own capacitive touch screens? I think not. All the hardware they use comes from the same places that other manufacturers use. Higher end manufacturers use higher end components period. There is nothing magical about Apple (despite what everyone thinks). Android has a wide variety of hardware that ranges from poor stuff like Archos up to things made by Samsung,Asus,Motorola,Sony etc. If you compare the top tier hardware, newest models, the processors out do the Apple stuff. Android will always have a leading edge in development because they are open source allowing multiple manufacturers to compete with each other prompting innovation. I am an Android fanboy, but my points are also valid. Most Apple products are better, until you start getting near the $ per $ comparison- once you reach a threshold- the Android products more than surpass Apple at about 70% of the price. Android at least gives you the ability to buy multiple brands of hardware, at various prices and has the community to support changing the software and configuring it to whatever device-> but then again Apple has Itunes the epitome of the software ball and chain.

CowboyDann wrote:

Here is a 10 minute video review of the product. It had the most views and the best ratings.

At the time this was an amazing tablet because it was ONLY $300. Android tablets hovered around $800 forever until ASUS saved us with the transformer that not only was awesome to use. This was not a great machine - but the fact that it existed at this price point at all was an accomplishment.

I bought an Archos several years ago before they had touch screen models and loved it. Single greatest PMP (Portable Media Player) I have ever owned. It only recently died after a series of mishaps ultimately my fault. I see a lot of people hating on Archos, but honestly for the price they are great. A friend of mine recently bought the internet tablet. He loves it. I do admit the touch is not quite as nice as say an iPad or something twice the price, it was still very usable. Also, the media plug-ins were only $20 not $50... and from looking at their website it looks like they combined the two optional plug-ins into 1 for $40.

When it comes down to it, with most electronics you get what you pay for. Archos offers a cheaper very functional alternative to an iPad or other tablet.

timg wrote:I'm skipping this one.

It's Android 2.2, no update to Honeycomb or beyond, no Google market, 1024x600 resolution, and no Flash support.

Agree. Unless you want to root this baby, I say stay away from 2.2. It is stable, but so outdated. I have Xoom on ICS and love it.

donkeeler15 wrote:Will this upgrade to Android 4.0?

No, it does not have a dual core processor.

I love mine.

rcm1301 wrote:No, it does not have a dual core processor.

You don't need a dual core processor for Android 4.0. But you do need hardware that's better than this to make it worthwhile for someone to compile a ROM, because the manufacturer I'm sure has sunset this product. Don't waste your time or money on this- read through the posts and find a better option.

I have this tablet (link below), it's single core and comes with 2.3.4, but has a manufacturer update to 4.0. It's not bad, but for a little more ($180 you can get the Acer a100 which is better)

http://www.amazon.com/SKYTEX-Skypad-Alpha2-Capacitive-Touchscreen/dp/B006K4K6DQ

It seems that a lot of Woots lately are low priced items that are outdated enough that they're still not a good value, like this tablet and the Velocity tablet a few days ago. Or it's a low price on an overpriced item that you'd be crazy to buy, even at a discount (anyone for a Dyson fan?)

Back on topic: I recently bought an Acer A200 16GB 10 inch tablet and like it a lot. It's a good value for a more up-to-date tablet if you don't need HDMI out or a rear camera.

Ah, geez, all the Archos haters come out of the woodwork, so I gotta speak up. No, I don't work for Archos, or anyone who sells their stuff.

About 2yrs ago I bought an Archos 28 for $99 my 7yo. He liked it, but the screen was too small for decent apps, so it was just treated like a really nice music & video player. It was worth the price, never broke, FW upgrades went without a hitch, and it did what it said on the box. No complaints aside from the twitchy resistive screen, and he just used a dull pencil as a stylus.

The Archos 28 stood up to the abuse w/o a problem, so I bought an Archos 43 last year as an upgrade. The kid just turned 9, and he still loves the 43. With Skype installed, it's pretty much a cheap and sturdy everything-but-a-cellphone, upgrades went fine, it's stable, doesn't crash, plays a billion games w/o problem, browses, gets email. Anyway, he'll graduate to an ICS phone in about a year (to coincide with moving from the schoolbus to the city bus), but this has been a fine mini-tablet.

In a pinch, I've borrowed his Archos 43 many times, and it's a very capable device. It does web, email, and tons of games no problem. He loads movies on it and borrows the hdmi mini-projector for sleepovers, and his iFruit friends are envious of the media support. Battery life is good, etc etc. It's the same generation as this Archos 101, which has a much nicer screen and bigger battery.

So I just don't get what all the Archos hate is about. This Archos series isn't a 5-star device, but it's not a 1/5 star either. The whole line is solidly middling, for dirt cheap. The 101 is still a solidly capable device with a *good* screen and tons of expandability for less than 1/4 the price of the bleeding-edge iFruit. It's an order of magnitude better than the random Chinese no-name ePad/iPlop/etc tablets that have no mfr support. Archos is a solid company that's been making mid-market equipment for years, and for moderately-able geeks, this is a hell of a deal. Don't believe me? Go browse around ftp://support.archos.com/ and have a look at the gobs of stuff they make available... and pay attention to the software and updates they keep making available for truly ancient systems.

If you know what you're buying, this is a solid deal: A 3-star device for a 1-star price. Just don't expect a 5-star device for the price of a cheeseburger.

For $200 you can get a 1st gen iPAD 16gb. I BOUGHT A 32GB MOTOROLA XOOM WITH ANDROID 4.0 REFURB FOR $225. Why spend $155 on old tech that can't be upgraded.

I've had one of these just about since it came out. I'm a little annoyed that the G9 came out months after I bought this, but whatever.

The viewing angle is crap. There's no way around that - this uses the same low-end WSVGA LCD that a lot of first-gen netbooks use. The screen is really washed out compared to other tablets I've used (iPad, TouchPad, Viewsonic GTab, Vizio tablet).

Not enough RAM means it does run kinda slow. The touchscreen is definitely not as responsive as the iPad, HP TouchPad, or the 7" Vizio tablet I got last time it was on Woot.

That said...

The built in media player is really great and supports pretty much every format you throw at it, plus it has native support for mapping to network shares and such. It can play H.264 without any problems.

It's very, very easy to sideload the market and other Google apps.

Archos is pro-dev and, as such, provides an easy way to reflash the tablet with a bootloader that allows using custom ROMs without any hacking. There is an active project that keeps up with rooting all of Archos's firmware updates.

There are a few ROM projects out there - UrukDroid, an independent CM7 release (Bull final was released on April 9 and uses 2.3), and ICS (although dev on that one is slow).

The features are good - microSD and USB host are extremely handy, and the aforementioned Archos software is pretty great. I also like how very lightweight and slim it is.

I guess overall I'd give it a B- or so. Not terrible, but I wish I'd bought something else...

ultrawolf wrote:It seems that a lot of Woots lately are low priced items that are outdated enough that they're still not a good value, like this tablet and the Velocity tablet a few days ago. Or it's a low price on an overpriced item that you'd be crazy to buy, even at a discount (anyone for a Dyson fan?)

Back on topic: I recently bought an Acer A200 16GB 10 inch tablet and like it a lot. It's a good value for a more up-to-date tablet if you don't need HDMI out or a rear camera.

I am hearing you. Woot has become Amazons clearing house, and it is unfortunate because other sites like 1saleaday and Bens outlet are showing up with the cool stuff competatively priced. Woot has officially become the man, by either not offering good products, offering products at prices that are not competative, or a combination of both. This is my suggestion:



Don't buy unless they shape-up, Caveat Emptor baby

Does anyone know if this would be fast enough to read CBR and CBZ files? That's really the only thing I want a tablet for. That and occasionally as a browser when my laptop is tied up.

Can you use it as a cutting board?

KcBeaner wrote:Is this the 101 G9?

No, this isn't the G9. The G9 shipped with Honeycomb I believe.