Why did you chose an Archos device?

[butman]

As the title says, it's always interesting to know the reasons why did you buy an Archos, and not an iPad, Galaxy, iPhone, iTouch, a Cowon, etc.
I invite to put in few lines why did you get one, and if you're satisfied with it.

Needless to say, this lines will be usefull for many peoples.

slds!

[loganss]

I'm satisfied and bought one primarily because of
price
weight
feature set (video out port, external drive compatibility, flash, 10" screen size, video codec support, ... the list goes on)

[wdl1908]

Android, Price, Screen Size, Weight, Codec Support, USB Host in that order.

A101IT

[MarcusMarcus]

Price, 7" Size, Codecs, and a quick look at previous Archos generations reviews looked more positive than negative.
I am satisfied for the most part, Will be more once they get certified flash to us and get some more bugs worked out.

[Union Man]

Honestly? For me, it was the price. I just bought my Archos 28 yesterday.
It was either this or find a Maylong m-150 that's on sale for $100. Duane Reade was selling them for that price over the Christmas holiday.
This is at the moment the cheapest Wifi enabled device for me to check my e-mails.
Previously I held on to a Palm PDA with a SD wifi card and I've also lugged around a Thinkpad T40. The fact that this was half the price of the lowest priced Ipod Touch did it. And, the fact that I'm unemployed and broke was another reason. This device will keep me connected.
Since I just got it yesterday and don't have wifi at home I didn't do any initial setup and firmware upgrades of the item.
I have tested the wifi on a pay network and was surprised it was quite speedy loading up the pay homepage.
I know people will say penny wise and pound foolish but I'd rather have something in my hands now than nothing tomorrow. Who knows if I'll be here tomorrow? Those with health insurance, 401K's, retirement plans etc, of course, will have a different view. I'm just giving people mine.

How's that for a first post?

[sweetypie]

I bought it cos it's nice.

[ashram]

Price/size vs a galaxy tab, codec support, angry birds
my only wish is for more ram.

[dungdo]

I just want to try the new geek toys made by the French technologies. so far working ok.
1. Price is low Vs. Ipad
2. Android system ok for now
3. Size fit right in my pocket 7" Archos 70 250 Gig

[blokey]

can do so many things with a great price/quality ratio and no need for a phone contract.

has the best firmware support.

uses a non google-ized version of android.

no need to waste time hacking it as there are lots of black market stuff easily available ootb, as well as plenty of open source projects and apps.

had enough of apple a long time ago.

[nekogami13]

Curious about android, archos was the least sketchiest maker of tablet devices in the price range.

[Mustang394]

Price
No contracts
Screen size
Does everything I want it to, so very happy with it.

[sisgo]

price
no contract
android OS
cheap
10"

[julian67]

I bought a 43 16GB to take over from my Nokia N810. Archos advantages: can play a much greater variety of audio and video and at much higher quality. Bigger internal storage and a microSD slot instead of the Nokia's miniSD (one less adapter to lose/damage). The Nokia can have some trouble with SSH due to an MTU size bug on its very old not-updateable (thanks Nokia) ssh client, its flash version is now too old to support youtube or bbc iplayer. A really big factor for me is that Archos encourage people to install other OS so I'm hoping the device won't gradually become useless when a new line comes out. Nokia's community building and support was terrible; as soon as a new device is out you can forget ever seeing a bug fix or update for your expensive purchase, and they added enough proprietary modules to the kernel that nobody has ever managed to make a fully functional alternative. They might as well shout "We had your money already, sucker!" and give you the finger.

My reasons for choosing the Archos over small tablets are that cheap Android devices often do a rotten job of multimedia playback (I found out the hard way with a SmartQ) and I was confident that Archos would get this right. I tried a gen8 43 and a 70 instore and they were great. I don't want a big tablet, basically I need a pocketable PMP with ssh, wakeonlan, maps, fbreader, mpd client and a www browser. It's very neat to get a Cortex 1GHz in a small, reasonably priced device and looking through Archos changelogs I realised they were putting the effort into making the thing work nicely. Running Froyo is great as iplayer is a big deal for me. I also need support for Ogg Vorbis so iPod Touch is out and anway the screen is too tiny for me, it costs too much and has no expansion slot. I already had a 16GB microSD. When I buy something that doesn't have a user replaceable battery I assume I can expect it to last 3 years and not much more, so I'm not going to spend big. Archos hit enough of the targets, nobody else was close.

[xbs]

Inputs / outputs
multimedia capabilities
price
display size
Android OS

[lhanson]

I bought the A70 because of Archos's marketing promises for the following:

Bluetooth connectivity (at present it is lousy, all sorts of problems)
Cell phone tethering (again all sorts of problems)
802.11 n wifi (Archos did not advertise that connection speeds would capped at 65mb/s, not the 200 to 300 mb/s it should be; might as well be 802.11 g)
Flash (no flash optimized for gen 8 available yet. Adobe could care less about Archos customers, i.e Archos has zero clout)

Overall I am disappointed.

Many of my colleagues at work who are considering purchasing a tablet have asked me what I think of the Gen 8 devises, I have been bluntly honest with them, I believe Archos has lost many potential sales as a result. Will this impact Archos overall sales, I doubt it, maybe Archos doesn't care about their customer's product experiences in the near term; there will likely be long term concerns for futures sales however if customer satisfaction issues are not resolved.

[Antitoon]

At first I focused on the A101 because it was cheap. It was also mentioned on the italian version of PC Magazine. I thought that you got what you paid for at first, so I didn't rush to buy it. But week by week I found out that it had HDMI out, Micro SD support and, the most important thing, a full USB port!!! An almost perfect tablet, which only lacks 3G connectivity, for that price is really a great deal! You get MORE than what you pay for! And you won't find many of these features even with a double budget (galaxy tab, toshiba folio...). Of course there also are some drawbacks, that is, the device looks fragile, bad screen viewing angles, bad support from Archos especially in Italy... But overall I am very happy with my purchase.

How's that for a first post?

That was great.

[Zenstrive]

Android
Cheap
Lightweight
from reputable multimedia vendor
minimal fuss when comes to app compability

[mplant1999]

Love the screen size and form factor. Then comes price (Dell Streak would have been nice but WAY to pricey), then Android. Also, have lusted after an Archos for years... wound up buying two.

[warlock257]

best value for the money

[drs]

This forum!

I wanted to get a Wifi-only (no phone company contract) internet device a little more than a year ago and I was considering the Ipod touch and the Archos 5. The initial reaction on this forum was pretty critical of the Archos 5 so I ended up getting the IPod touch.

One year later I wanted to get a Wifi only tablet (Archos vs. guess who)...and I once again went to this site...this time generally favorable comments on all of the new Archos devices, so I got the Archos 70 and I haven't regretted it.

This is my first Archos device and I would definitely buy another one down the road. This forum is one of the reasons.