My Archos 80 G9 8GB arrived! Any questions?

[Guest Paul]

My Archos 80 G9 8GB arrived! I thought it was DOA but it seems to have booted now. :P

If you have any questions, post them here!

I bought the unit from Archos direct for £199.

P

[Guest removed-14]

Hi Paul. What is the screen quality like? How would you compare the whole device to more expensive competitor? Is it missing anything you would consider important to an Android tablet? Cheers

[Guest NeoBlade]

Hi Paul,

Does this website www.streamingthe.net work on the tablet (or any Android tablet) at all? What GPU does it use? And lastly, what's score does it get in CF Benchmark?

I know benchmarks are not the be all and end all, but it will just be interesting to compare. Still on the lookout for a tablet for the parents!

Many thanks.

[Guest newbe5]

First has to be the obvious one... How locked down is it? Archos has a rocky history with allowing people easy access to mod it's android tablets.

Only other question is: How are the viewing angles and the max volume?

newbe5

[Guest Cass67]

First has to be the obvious one... How locked down is it? Archos has a rocky history with allowing people easy access to mod it's android tablets.

newbe5

damn you beat me to that question :P

[Guest 3shirts]

I want a budget tablet to fabricate into my car dash. All I really need is a solid Android tablet with good touchscreen and decent battery life (when idle). At the moment I was thinking AndyPad but this might be a better fit. What do you think?

[Guest Nielzs]

Hi Paul,

How's the overall build quality?

I've read it's made of plastic rather than metal.

[Guest Paul]

Hi Paul. What is the screen quality like? How would you compare the whole device to more expensive competitor? Is it missing anything you would consider important to an Android tablet? Cheers

Screen seems pretty good, it's a plastic rather than glass screen I think, it has no auto brightness. Max brightness is pretty bright.

The main thing missing I guess is 1GB RAM and the res at 1024x768 is lower than most tablets.

P

[Guest T39andcounting]

What accessories does it come with in the box? Is there an HDMI cable in there? What type of HDMI cable does it use, and what's it like plugging into a TV?

Where did you get yours from? The sites I've seen seem very vague about the specs and variants - think this could be the tablets downfall, too many variants with similar product names.

[Guest Paul]

Hi Paul,

How's the overall build quality?

I've read it's made of plastic rather than metal.

Cheap but not nasty. Very plastic, as you'd expect at the pricepoint, but feels pretty solid.

P

[Guest Paul]

What accessories does it come with in the box? Is there an HDMI cable in there? What type of HDMI cable does it use, and what's it like plugging into a TV?

Where did you get yours from? The sites I've seen seem very vague about the specs and variants - think this could be the tablets downfall, too many variants with similar product names.

No HDMI cable in box, it uses mini HDMI.

I bought mine from Archos direct.

P

[Guest Igniztion]

How is the touch response?

Have they really managed to add a capacitive screen at this pricepoint?

[Guest terminal 7]

id like to know did itcost any import duty from france ?

..

forget this , just found the website ... tax included .

damn good deal.

gonna buy .

.

Edited September 27, 2011 by terminal 7

[Guest evad]

How does it compare hardware-wise with AndyPad Pro? In other words - which one feels cheaper? ;)

I am also very keen to see how Archos is performance-wise. I had some brief play with high-end, Tegra-equipped Honeycomb tablets in PC World and was really shocked to see basic operations stuttering like it was some plain old i386 inside. :(

[Guest HugoQueiriga]

Screen seems pretty good, it's a plastic rather than glass screen I think, it has no auto brightness. Max brightness is pretty bright.

The main thing missing I guess is 1GB RAM and the res at 1024x768 is lower than most tablets.

P

Same res as the touchpad and ipad, wonder how touchpad would behave like with honeycomb. ;)

[Guest petllama]

I'm looking into tablets for my work. As a quick description, we deal with digital document storage (think of a digital filing cabinet) and we want to be able to offer nice tablet solutions for viewing said documents, as well as signing digital documents (ie, a client filling out digital paperwork at a doctor office with a signature). A few questions:

1.) Another tablet I am looking at is the HTC flyer (http://www.htc.com/www/tablets/htc-flyer/) mainly due to its stylus and note taking features, does the archos come with a stylus? if no, can you test a stylus on it if you have one handy?

1.a) If you have any experience with the flyer (or have watched the intro vid), how does the archos compare with its meeting / note taking features?

2.) How is the accuracy of the Touch Screen? If you were to sign your name into an application (digital ink note pad, a paint app, etc), is your signature accurate? is it legible? Is there any input lag if signing your name quickly?

3.) How capable is the web-browser? is it capable of displaying a PDF in a frame of a webpage, or would that PDF open in adobe reader?

4.) Build Quality - You mentioned that its Cheap but not Nasty, Plasticy, but feels solid. Do you think its build quality would stand up to daily use around an office? Do you think there are any weaknesses in the build that could be problematic with excessive use (ie, any flimsy port covers, back casing (cover?) with fragile "notches" that lock it in place, etc)

Im sure ill have more questions at some point :-D

Thanks

[Guest mark2410]

how does it do for pdf reading? specifically for what would be an A4 sized pdf. i know its only 8 inches but its so far the only 4:3 android tablet

[Guest Paul]

How is the touch response?

Have they really managed to add a capacitive screen at this pricepoint?

Yup! Touch responsiveness and multitouch is excellent.

P

[Guest Paul]

id like to know did itcost any import duty from france ?

..

forget this , just found the website ... tax included .

damn good deal.

gonna buy .

.

No import duty to UK as it's EU.

P

[Guest Paul]

How does it compare hardware-wise with AndyPad Pro? In other words - which one feels cheaper? ;)

I am also very keen to see how Archos is performance-wise. I had some brief play with high-end, Tegra-equipped Honeycomb tablets in PC World and was really shocked to see basic operations stuttering like it was some plain old i386 inside. :(

It feels more premium than the APP.

P

[Guest Paul]

I'm looking into tablets for my work. As a quick description, we deal with digital document storage (think of a digital filing cabinet) and we want to be able to offer nice tablet solutions for viewing said documents, as well as signing digital documents (ie, a client filling out digital paperwork at a doctor office with a signature). A few questions:

1.) Another tablet I am looking at is the HTC flyer (http://www.htc.com/www/tablets/htc-flyer/) mainly due to its stylus and note taking features, does the archos come with a stylus? if no, can you test a stylus on it if you have one handy?

1.a) If you have any experience with the flyer (or have watched the intro vid), how does the archos compare with its meeting / note taking features?

2.) How is the accuracy of the Touch Screen? If you were to sign your name into an application (digital ink note pad, a paint app, etc), is your signature accurate? is it legible? Is there any input lag if signing your name quickly?

3.) How capable is the web-browser? is it capable of displaying a PDF in a frame of a webpage, or would that PDF open in adobe reader?

4.) Build Quality - You mentioned that its Cheap but not Nasty, Plasticy, but feels solid. Do you think its build quality would stand up to daily use around an office? Do you think there are any weaknesses in the build that could be problematic with excessive use (ie, any flimsy port covers, back casing (cover?) with fragile "notches" that lock it in place, etc)

Im sure ill have more questions at some point :-D

Thanks

1. No stylus. A capacitive stylus would work I guess, the Flyer is n-trig. I have a Flyer too, if you really really want pen, the Flyer is second to none.

2. Not tried, but would you really do that with your finger?

3. PDFs will open in a PDF reader.

4. Yes, I think it would be OK. The 3G dongle cover is kinda 'lightweight', but feels good enough.

P

[Guest Paul]

how does it do for pdf reading? specifically for what would be an A4 sized pdf. i know its only 8 inches but its so far the only 4:3 android tablet

Any PDF you'd like me to try specifically?

P

[Guest petllama]

1. No stylus. A capacitive stylus would work I guess, the Flyer is n-trig. I have a Flyer too, if you really really want pen, the Flyer is second to none.

2. Not tried, but would you really do that with your finger?

3. PDFs will open in a PDF reader.

4. Yes, I think it would be OK. The 3G dongle cover is kinda 'lightweight', but feels good enough.

P

Appreciate the answers, thanks :) per #2, thats why i was curious if a stylus would work. I will be looking into the HTC Flyer much more now, hopefully i can convince my boss to order us a test model to play around with.

[Guest mark2410]

Any PDF you'd like me to try specifically?

P

how about this one test pdf

[Guest sionyboy]

Oh snapplecakes, good thing that I just checked Twitter to see who was chatting about the G9 80, very interested in this tablet.

Quick question, how much of the 512mb is available for apps to use? Is any of it reserved for GPU or other resources? How much is free after ATK'ing anything running?

My main concern with the tablet is how it runs on 'only' 512mb of system memory. I've got a Galaxy S which has a max of 329mb free, and out of that the most I see is 150mb. Multi-tasking isn't that great as a result. With a tablet I'd imagine that I'd be wanting to multi-task a lot more than I do on my phone, so the memory issue is one of my hurdles to actually getting my money out.