Archos 101 being returned

Luke

Luke

Luke

Soldato
Joined
19 Jul 2005
Posts
7,069
Location
S. Yorkshire
I bought an Archos 101 late last month and have been using it constantly but today have decided to return it.

The positives:
Battery life is very good, I can use it all day with regular browsing. Their stated battery times are pretty accurate
Flexibility - It is easy to get Android Market on it, and most apps run well.
Media - out of the box SMB browsing and uPNP streaming. AC3 playback requires the £12 cinema pack.
Integrated stand - why others haven't done this is a mystery to me!
USB - The ability to plug in a USB mouse and keyboard has been really handy.

The negative:
Viewing angles are really narrow. If the top of the screen is looking good, the bottom won't be. In portrait mode it is dire.
Screen - quite low density so pixels can be easily seen. It is also a fingerprint magnet like no other device I've ever owned.
Stability - the device rebooted itself at least once a day
Build - quite creaky and the case does flex.
SD slot - the killer - I couldn't get any SD card to be recognised. I tried known working cards formatted in FAT32, NTFS and EXT3. None worked.

It may be I had a duff device, but even working fully it just has a low rent feel to it. I'd rate it at 5/10.

I'm sending it back tomorrow and then the hunt for a new tablet starts. My wife has an iPad which is mch higher quality but doesn't do nearly all the things I wanted the 101 for.

Thought I'd share this as the A101 comes up in lots of threads here.
 
If you want ipad quality on an android tablet, unfortunately you have to pay ipad prices.

You've picked a good time to ditch it tho, with lots of shiny new tablets coming out shortly:)

On an aside, if you want another budget device, have a play with an advent vega, it's probably the best 'budget' tablet around imo.
 
I think I'll hold off for a couple of months and see what the honeycombe brigade have to offer. The vega feels cheap (and is very cheap) but the Galaxy Tab is just a little light on hardware for my liking.
I hate waiting...
 
Luke said:
I think I'll hold off for a couple of months and see what the honeycombe brigade have to offer. The vega feels cheap (and is very cheap) but the Galaxy Tab is just a little light on hardware for my liking.
I hate waiting...
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you're after a proper quality android tab, waiting is what you'll be doing. At least until some proper reviews are out, and shops start actually having stock on show, not just ipads.
 
Ok, call me impatient but I picked up a Samsung Galaxy Tab wifi today.

I'm loving it!

The quality is leaps and bounds ahead of anything else I've tried and is on a par with my wife's ipad. The 7" form factor works better for me as well. Even using thumb keyboard on the a101 I wasn't comfortable typing quickly.

The interface is much smoother and there has been none of the lag or stuttering I had previously.

No unexpected reboots, no issues with memory cards either.

Its what I hoped the archos would be.

I know it is still new, but many of the archos faults were niggling on day 1 but no such issues so far.
 
I had me an Archos 70 that went back. There was certainly a few things to like about it and it sold me on the tablet concept, but the shoddy build quality, instability and 5 or so duff pixels was rather off putting.
 
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