Why my next tablet won't be Archos Gen 9

[Diknak]

My first tablet was the Archos 7 Home Tablet. I wanted a cheap tablet to see if I would actually use it and if it made sense for me. After loving it, I was soon frustrated with just how low end it was and all of the things that were missing.

Then I got the Archos 70 IT and I am loving the tablet for the price. I have had some problems with the latest firmware, but other than that, it does what I want. There are two things that I really wish it had, a rear facing camera (I don't need the front facing) and GPS.

- As you can see, I like the 7" form factor, so the Gen 9 not having a 7" model is a real disappointment. I love being able to slip it in my cargo shorts in the summer but that would not be possible with such a large model.

+ GPS

- Still no rear facing camera. Why not steal the Notion Ink Adam idea and just have one camera on a swivel?

With the onslaught of Android tablets coming out, I'm afraid Archos will not be getting my business for Gen 9. Such a bummer because I like this community and the price of their devices are great.

[WMTOANDROID]

Those are valid points.

The Gen 9 announcement got me all excited until I realized:

- they won't be coming out until the end of the year (which means Tegra 3 tablets will will be everywhere and the processing speed of Gen9 won't mean much anymore).
- no rear camera... bummer
- still no word about ram... Archos shortchanged every Gen8 owner with 256mb of ram. Will Gen9 have 512mb?? We'll see....
- Archos firmware seems to break too much, at least with Gen8... every firmware update broke an important feature: tethering, proxy settings, etc. I'm happy to say with with the many firmware updates that I've gotten on my Asus Transformer, none of the updates broke anything.

For the price, Gen9 is a wicked tablet - if it came out TODAY! By the end of the year, there will be at least a half-dozen better tablets being brought to the market.

[The_Blood_Raven]

Those are valid points.

The Gen 9 announcement got me all excited until I realized:

- they won't be coming out until the end of the year (which means Tegra 3 tablets will will be everywhere and the processing speed of Gen9 won't mean much anymore).
- no rear camera... bummer
- still no word about ram... Archos shortchanged every Gen8 owner with 256mb of ram. Will Gen9 have 512mb?? We'll see....
- Archos firmware seems to break too much, at least with Gen8... every firmware update broke an important feature: tethering, proxy settings, etc. I'm happy to say with with the many firmware updates that I've gotten on my Asus Transformer, none of the updates broke anything.

For the price, Gen9 is a wicked tablet - if it came out TODAY! By the end of the year, there will be at least a half-dozen better tablets being brought to the market.

What are you talking about? The release is slated for September. Also Tegra 3 won't be much faster than the OMAP4460 (quadcore wont make a difference on a platform that barely supports dualcores), so I'm not sure why your so excited for it. The stock GPU on the OMAP4460 is very good and is better than Tegra 2 as is.

[exelletor]

I hope we will see more Gen9 models coming...

[The_Blood_Raven]

I hope we will see more Gen9 models coming...

It is likely, but we don't know. I have no idea why they would NOT show all their cards now, even if the others are shipping later.

[WMTOANDROID]

Those are valid points.

The Gen 9 announcement got me all excited until I realized:

- they won't be coming out until the end of the year (which means Tegra 3 tablets will will be everywhere and the processing speed of Gen9 won't mean much anymore).
- no rear camera... bummer
- still no word about ram... Archos shortchanged every Gen8 owner with 256mb of ram. Will Gen9 have 512mb?? We'll see....
- Archos firmware seems to break too much, at least with Gen8... every firmware update broke an important feature: tethering, proxy settings, etc. I'm happy to say with with the many firmware updates that I've gotten on my Asus Transformer, none of the updates broke anything.

For the price, Gen9 is a wicked tablet - if it came out TODAY! By the end of the year, there will be at least a half-dozen better tablets being brought to the market.

What are you talking about? The release is slated for September. Also Tegra 3 is just the OMAP4460 with a different GPU, so I'm not sure why your so excited for it. The stock GPU on the OMAP4460 is very good and is better than Tegra 2 as is.

Sorry, I thought most people considered Q4 "end of the year"... anyways, this is good news for everybody, but I think there will be better tablets come Q4 than Archos. We'll see how the playing field looks in October

[craigercsm]

Diknak how did we pages look on the 70 was text cut off did you have to squint your eyes to read? I am leaning twoard the 8" because price and weight.

[bmar29]

Sorry, I thought most people considered Q4 "end of the year"... anyways, this is good news for everybody, but I think there will be better tablets come Q4 than Archos. We'll see how the playing field looks in October

This is the quote from the official press release:

The ARCHOS 80 G9 and ARCHOS 101 G9 will be available at the end of September and will be shown beginning of September at IFA.

So there you have it. September, not the end of the year.

[Diknak]

Diknak how did we pages look on the 70 was text cut off did you have to squint your eyes to read? I am leaning twoard the 8" because price and weight.

The 70 is the prefect size for web browsing in landscape mode. I don't squint or anything and I never have to zoom in on pages to read them. Nothing like viewing web pages on a phone.

[craigercsm]

Diknak how did we pages look on the 70 was text cut off did you have to squint your eyes to read? I am leaning twoard the 8" because price and weight.

The 70 is the prefect size for web browsing in landscape mode. I don't squint or anything and I never have to zoom in on pages to read them. Nothing like viewing web pages on a phone.

Thanks, I guess for portrait mode the 10" would good? Not sure if the weight would be great on the new 10" one holding it for awhile?

[JamesDax]

Sorry, I thought most people considered Q4 "end of the year"... anyways, this is good news for everybody, but I think there will be better tablets come Q4 than Archos. We'll see how the playing field looks in October

This is the quote from the official press release:

The ARCHOS 80 G9 and ARCHOS 101 G9 will be available at the end of September and will be shown beginning of September at IFA.

So there you have it. September, not the end of the year.

Ahh huh... Don't look for these tabs in good supply until November. Also, even by end of September there will be a half a dozen or so tablets in the same price range with simular or better specs. The Huawei MediaPad, for one, comes to mind.

[The_Blood_Raven]

Sorry, I thought most people considered Q4 "end of the year"... anyways, this is good news for everybody, but I think there will be better tablets come Q4 than Archos. We'll see how the playing field looks in October

This is the quote from the official press release:

The ARCHOS 80 G9 and ARCHOS 101 G9 will be available at the end of September and will be shown beginning of September at IFA.

So there you have it. September, not the end of the year.

Ahh huh... Don't look for these tabs in good supply until November. Also, even by end of September there will be a half a dozen or so tablets in the same price range with simular or better specs. The Huawei MediaPad, for one, comes to mind.

Uhh... how so? The Media Pad's processor is slower, has less storage, and is a different form factor so its hard to compare. Note that Android 3.2 is 3.1 for 7" devices, nothing more. We also have no idea what the price on it is.

[sequitur]

I had the power connector break on my A101 which is ironic as I was getting tired of it. I had to reload the A70 and the A101 because it constantly said it was out of memory. After reloading they both worked fine, then the A101 started acting up again and when it does this it becomes quite slow. I don't expect Honeycomb on gen 8 as I think it really doesn't have the memory for it. I was going to sell the A101.

I have been looking at several tablets and find much more interesting than before. Samsung's new Tab is beautiful and finally at a decent price point and guess what. No SD card. Acer and Asus have nice offerings and Asus is kicking tail sales wise with a $400 tablet. in a few weeks though Toshiba has one with... replaceable battery, full size HDMI and USB and full size SDXC! 8GB goes for $429 and you can get a 64 GB SDXC card for around $115 on Amazon. Plus it's Honeycomb right NOW. My A101 is going back for RMA and will be sold when it comes back.

Having said that, and not needing 3G as I tether my Android phone with portable hot spot I'm still getting one or both of these tablets. The processor is awesome and even though I decided no more hard drives having that much storage is intriguing as an alternate or favorite tablet. The prices is still looking better than anything else so far and when this launches the OMAP 4460 will be the processor to beat. Looking at the whole as a package if I were looking in September these would be compelling.

[bmar29]

Ahh huh... Don't look for these tabs in good supply until November. Also, even by end of September there will be a half a dozen or so tablets in the same price range with simular or better specs. The Huawei MediaPad, for one, comes to mind.

Ahh huh... the only thing that the MediaPad has that the Archos doesnt is a 5mp rear camera. Not really a compelling argument seeing as how most people have that type of camera on their phones.
It also has much less storage. I don't think anything will come close the the G9's features with the same price range.

Hell, nothing has even come close to the Gen 8's features with the same price range

[syounger64]

I had a 7HT home tablet then moved on to archos 101. I enjoy using it for the nook, internet, games and watching my movies/tv shows. I don't like not being able to do video chat though. I prefer to go with a bigger company for my next tablet as I'd get more support for what I want. The Sony tablets are looking sweet to me.

[deet]

The Sony tablets are looking sweet to me.

Sony - aren't they the guys that root your devices or disable them if you do something they don't like?

I won't be fooled again.

[gottahavit]

Those are valid points.

The Gen 9 announcement got me all excited until I realized:

- they won't be coming out until the end of the year (which means Tegra 3 tablets will will be everywhere and the processing speed of Gen9 won't mean much anymore).
- no rear camera... bummer
- still no word about ram... Archos shortchanged every Gen8 owner with 256mb of ram. Will Gen9 have 512mb?? We'll see....
- Archos firmware seems to break too much, at least with Gen8... every firmware update broke an important feature: tethering, proxy settings, etc. I'm happy to say with with the many firmware updates that I've gotten on my Asus Transformer, none of the updates broke anything.

For the price, Gen9 is a wicked tablet - if it came out TODAY! By the end of the year, there will be at least a half-dozen better tablets being brought to the market.

What are you talking about? The release is slated for September. Also Tegra 3 won't be much faster than the OMAP4460 (quadcore wont make a difference on a platform that barely supports dualcores), so I'm not sure why your so excited for it. The stock GPU on the OMAP4460 is very good and is better than Tegra 2 as is.

Generally once an os is optimized for muticore it does need to be revamped just because you now have more cores. Comparing 2 new board neither of which exists is pre-mature,but my money says a quad tegra is gonna smoke a dual a9, not to mention get more attention and support from google, just like tegra2 is now.

My money is also on the g9 not being available until nov-dec, and no chance of me handing archos another 400 dollars of my money anytime soon.

[Charbax]

I hope we will see more Gen9 models coming...

It is likely, but we don't know. I have no idea why they would NOT show all their cards now, even if the others are shipping later.

It might be a rule for working with Honeycomb, they may not have Honeycomb 3.2 ready on 7" tablets, so my guess/hope is Archos does have a 70 G9 in their labs, but that they won't announce it nor release it before Honeycomb for 7" really is officially supported by Google.

Also, Archos can enjoy massive press coverage yet another time for each new size for G9 that they may announce later.

That is, of course, only if they want to release more skews.

We know Archos got $43 additional money from investors last month, they may use that to launch the production of 215 thousand G9 tablets if the average BOM and Manufacturing cost per G9 tablet is $200 and if they spend all of their money on makign them. Maybe Archos does prefer to make around 50 thousand of each of 80, 101, in 16GB and 250GB sizes, and if they add 70 in Flash and HDD, then that also needs a part of their money in manufacturing so unless Archos receives massive investments or bank-guaranteed pre-orders from big potential retail partners, then they might prefer to limit the skews.

I suggest they sell only 32GB and 250GB of each and both at same price $279 for 80 and $349 for 101, thus I think they should aim that low and forget about doing the 16GB.

Some big retailer or carrier should partner with Archos and get them to release the 70 for $239, also in 32GB or 250GB both at the same low $239 price. Then also they should make a 50 for $199. Their 3G stick should work all the way down to the 5" tablet size.

Obviously, I am just guessing out loud what Archos may or may not be able to do in terms of number of skews and release schedule.

Another reason for delaying Archos 70 G9 may be that Honeycomb for some reason only works on 1280x800 screens in 16y:9 for now, and that it may be too expensive to put a 1280x800 screen on a 7" still for now. So perhaps Archos really needs there to be official Honeycomb support on lower resolution screens such as 1024x600 or even 800x480.

[Charbax]

my money says a quad tegra is gonna smoke a dual a9

I don't think so. OMAP4460 is 1.5Ghz, Tegra3 is likely 1.2Ghz. So OMAP4460 will actually be faster than Tegra3 for tasks that are not parallel processed. But for things like some types of web browsing, the Quad-core makes things about 50% faster than Dual-core, but since OMAP4460 has likely 25% faster clock speed than Tegra3, in best case scenarios for Tegra3, it may be comparable to a 1.8Ghz OMAP4470 (which TI also is to sample in October to release in products early next year), that means in some cases Archos G9 will be 25% faster than Tegra3 and in other cases for apps that can take advantage of multi-core processing, Tegra3 might be max 20% faster.

In any case, Tegra2 performance was pretty cool and nice. Archos G9 is 50% faster than Tegra2 just on the core part, and is much faster on memory bandwith (which is very important for things like smooth multi-tab and flash web browsing), much faster on GPU, so in any ways the G9 is awesomely crazy fast. If in some cases some Tegra3 tablets are about 20% faster, then those might also be 40% more expensive.

[syounger64]

Honestly I'm a little turned off. I got this 101 to do video chat and a lot of other things. I wasn't able to accomplish everything but I'm realistic. Coming out with a newer tablet soon makes me wonder if I should sell this for the newer tablet.