Debunk in bold.
Harfainx wrote:You sure you own an A101? You just kind of sound like you're bashing on Archos here.
Never said I owned one, however I have had quite a bit of time with one, I am also a slightly disgruntled A5A owner, you know, 1.6, everything else got 2.0+ around the same time. Also, this is the TF101 thread in the competitors forum, sounds like fair game. A fair game Archos really need to step up, at no point did I bash them, I bashed what they did, their mistakes and stupid moves.
1: People DO care about HDMI-out. It's a HUGE feature, to be able to hook up to a TV and watch instead of watching on a small screen. Many iPad owners will tell you, and complain that they can't do HDMI-out. I use my HDMI-out at work, in my basement, and when I go to other people's houses. It's extremely easy to use my A101 to watch movies in places that don't otherwise have HD media capability for movies on a hard drive. You are not the average user, I'm talking the other 90% of people out there, no one I know with a mHDMI phone have ever used it, and trust me, I know quite a few. Also, buy an ipad 2 and an apple TV, now you have a convenient and useful setup. (Airplay, wireless video and music. Yes it's $100 more, but it's worth it.) My point is that it's not a deal breaking feature for many and most don't care or care to know, most don't buy a tablet for that.
2: It's not just MKV, Archos devices support the widest variety of media, out of any tablet or device out there, other than a full-blown laptop/desktop solution. Go ahead and try comparing the media support on an Archos device to that of an iDevice, or any other tablet on the market. I realize they have their video player, but the future is not some setup where you have to work with file formats, if the user has to think about formats you are doing something wrong, the other tablets are going cloud based entertianment, Youtube rentals etc, just you wait for Google's music idea to go to videos, Archos will be SOL.
3: Maybe you've never tried to watch 720p on the screen of your alleged A101, because you can. I watch 720p movies all the time.
720p on a 1024x600 Screen? That is 600p. 720p is 1280x800, TF101,Xoom, Acer A500, Galaxy tab 10.1
4: Legitimate apps? Does your ASUS Transformer have their own app to control it from another Android device? All Android devices have access to almost all the same apps, outside of proprietary apps. Right now actually, the devices on FroYo have access to more apps than devices on Honeycomb because a large majority of Android apps haven't been re-worked for Honeycomb yet.
Two words: Android Market.
People shouldn't buy devices expecting to get upgrades, they should buy products for what they already offer.
I should not buy a car expecting parts to be available when it breaks down, or that gas from a week from now will work, or that I should buy a GPS that will work in a year or a computer that runs the next version of windows...in a month? They can and must, a $350 expenditure should be stood behind. The computer industry works like that, and guess what, to have Ice Cream Sandwich, Archos will be forced to update for two whole years as per contract. It's the cost of being a good company that stands behind it's products.
Yes, I will fault Archos for the whole Flash problem. They did claim Flash support before the device came out, and they still haven't delivered a customized Flash player that has proper hardware acceleration for Archos devices. They shouldn't have advertized it until it was already done.
I don't buy devices for what they might get, or what updates may come. I bought my Gen8 devices with Eclair, and I'm glad they got FroYo. I'm happy with FroYo on it, as I bought it as advertized with FroYo.
Now, you claim that they run an outdated OS, so why is FroYo still the main Android OS on the market? (Why is there more last year Chevys than this years?) Yes new tablets have Honeycomb, but you need to remember the date that these devices came out. They didn't come out when Honeycomb did like the Xoom, or the ASUS Transformer. These devices came out last year, LONG before Honeycomb, or any of these other devices. (Gingerbread was a month out.) I don't see the Galaxy Tab getting Honeycomb, so does that mean Samsung has poor support too? (Yep!) They might claim that they will eventually get it, but if it's like the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S lineup, it will take 8 months longer, just like it did to get FroYo. The Archos devices had FroYo months before even Samsung's mainstream phones had it...True, but that is what it was marketed as.
Also, I respect Archos for some things, for it's time, at launch, the A5A was a honest attempt to make something great, but things have really changed, and while features and bragging rights have gone up for Archos, at the end of the day, Gen8 just can't play.
I'm not any kind of Apple fanboy, I do own the iPad 2, but I don't think it's perfect, it's just way better than Archos has ever done. Also, I don't hate android, I own a Gingerbread Droid 1, read that: Gingerbread, device released around the same exact time as the A5A, no it's not official, but the hardware can do it and the company made it easy to flash, Archos kinda makes it hard.
Staples as them on pre sale ,1 to 10 days but that could be a take my money today and delivery someday in the far future.