My first experience

[d_questions]

Hi, I just received an G9 8.0. The firmware has been updated. I have a Nexus S. The Nexus S is rock solid.

The G9 crashes randomly and frequently. Applications crash randomly. The OS crashes randomly, which causes an automatic reboot. This occurs at least 8 times a day. Application crashes occur more often. This does not happen on the Nexus S.

The OS freezes randomly, which requires a hard reset (10 sec or so power button). This feels like the "old" Windows OS on a tablet, where you get the looping sound at the freeze, the crashes and so on. Today I really felt like, OMG, this is just like Windows, welcome back to the past I hated so much, shouldn't I better buy an iPad?

There's the Android Market. I don't know what it is, but about 50% of the stuff I want to download/install can't get installed. Applications like pulse, ezpdf, tagesschau, and so on, many essential apps just won't install. Did Archos modify the Market or what? I can't believe Google would offer such an unreliable software.

Ok, this tablet is about 50% cheaper than an iPad (I have no Apple products, I once had an iPod), but this is like buying an apple where every second bite contains a rotten worm. You just don't know what you will get, you don't know what you can expect, because even if a software is installable, sooner or later it will crash.

I want to use this tablet so that it displays one single web page inside an Opera Mobile browser 24/7/365. And occasionally launch a game, type an email or surf on amazon or check out the news. But what I really want is Opera to be able to display that page. The Nexus S has no problem with this. This one, you're lucky to get that page for one hour, it then either freezes, or the OS reboots.

Same goes for video streams. On the Nexus S I can have a stream like twit.tv run for a day (vplayer). I can stream upnp tv-recordings at native dvb-c to the phone without a single crash, on the Nexus S, that is. This one instead likes to crash A LOT. Kind of useless. When you buy cheap, you also buy new problems; this is a known fact and it's always the compromise between the new problems and the low price. In this case, there's something way too wrong, definitely. Those crashes and freezes really spoil the experience. That dual core processor, I don't know, the Nexus S has a single core CPU at the same speed, and everything over there just feels a bit snappier. Only the web pages load faster on the Archos, but still too slow to be really enjoyable. And some pages are just horribly slow, no matter which device. But I'd expect native Android apps (no WebView) to be really fast on this device. For some reason they are not.

Battery life is OK. The sound is distorted, as if the speaker was broken. The mic is apparently pretty good. Not that much in quality, but in "boost".

Skype video really looks bad. I mean, the webcam, it's not really good, it's poor quality.

And the screen, well, I don't know if this is a Honeycomb issue or what, but for some reason it feels like it's interpolated. Like VGA vs DVI. Like this screen is VGA and the Nexus S DVI. Single pixel lines get displayed/blurred on multiple pixels with antialiasing, even vertical and horizontal ones. Like OpenGL-Rendered instead of precision memory-mapping. It may be an Honeycomb thing.

But the key is that it just isn't capable of displaying a page without crashing after a couple of quarter-hours. Or to let me install any app which I can find on the store.

I really think I'm sending this back, unless I get to hear some really good things.

Kind regards,
Daniel

[tuxor]

Nobody has reported crashes before, maybe your device is laggy?

[Farsquidge]

Nobody has reported crashes before, maybe your device is laggy?

Is that a technical term?

[tuxor]

Well, it's in wiktionary and urban dictionary, but I think I used it in the wrong place anyway. Let's just say, his device is defective

[Harfainx]

Quite a few of your complaints are the exact opposite of some other people's reviews. Sounds like you got a bum device.

Maybe you should get in touch with Archos RMA department and try for another one.

[Craig@ARCHOS]

Also make sure you have loaded the latest firmware - 3.2.56

[KNight]

Hi, I just received an G9 8.0. The firmware has been updated. I have a Nexus S. The Nexus S is rock solid.

The G9 crashes randomly and frequently. Applications crash randomly. The OS crashes randomly, which causes an automatic reboot. This occurs at least 8 times a day. Application crashes occur more often. This does not happen on the Nexus S.

The OS freezes randomly, which requires a hard reset (10 sec or so power button). This feels like the "old" Windows OS on a tablet, where you get the looping sound at the freeze, the crashes and so on. Today I really felt like, OMG, this is just like Windows, welcome back to the past I hated so much, shouldn't I better buy an iPad?

There's the Android Market. I don't know what it is, but about 50% of the stuff I want to download/install can't get installed. Applications like pulse, ezpdf, tagesschau, and so on, many essential apps just won't install. Did Archos modify the Market or what? I can't believe Google would offer such an unreliable software.

Ok, this tablet is about 50% cheaper than an iPad (I have no Apple products, I once had an iPod), but this is like buying an apple where every second bite contains a rotten worm. You just don't know what you will get, you don't know what you can expect, because even if a software is installable, sooner or later it will crash.

I want to use this tablet so that it displays one single web page inside an Opera Mobile browser 24/7/365. And occasionally launch a game, type an email or surf on amazon or check out the news. But what I really want is Opera to be able to display that page. The Nexus S has no problem with this. This one, you're lucky to get that page for one hour, it then either freezes, or the OS reboots.

Same goes for video streams. On the Nexus S I can have a stream like twit.tv run for a day (vplayer). I can stream upnp tv-recordings at native dvb-c to the phone without a single crash, on the Nexus S, that is. This one instead likes to crash A LOT. Kind of useless. When you buy cheap, you also buy new problems; this is a known fact and it's always the compromise between the new problems and the low price. In this case, there's something way too wrong, definitely. Those crashes and freezes really spoil the experience. That dual core processor, I don't know, the Nexus S has a single core CPU at the same speed, and everything over there just feels a bit snappier. Only the web pages load faster on the Archos, but still too slow to be really enjoyable. And some pages are just horribly slow, no matter which device. But I'd expect native Android apps (no WebView) to be really fast on this device. For some reason they are not.

Battery life is OK. The sound is distorted, as if the speaker was broken. The mic is apparently pretty good. Not that much in quality, but in "boost".

Skype video really looks bad. I mean, the webcam, it's not really good, it's poor quality.

And the screen, well, I don't know if this is a Honeycomb issue or what, but for some reason it feels like it's interpolated. Like VGA vs DVI. Like this screen is VGA and the Nexus S DVI. Single pixel lines get displayed/blurred on multiple pixels with antialiasing, even vertical and horizontal ones. Like OpenGL-Rendered instead of precision memory-mapping. It may be an Honeycomb thing.

But the key is that it just isn't capable of displaying a page without crashing after a couple of quarter-hours. Or to let me install any app which I can find on the store.

I really think I'm sending this back, unless I get to hear some really good things.

Kind regards,
Daniel

Also make sure you have loaded the latest firmware - 3.2.56

ThatÔÇÖs quite a tall order for a firmware upgrade.