Fairwell Archos, you have been great to me.

[Hajile_Ibushi]

The Acer has already been returned.

Really?! You returned it rather than installing another video player app (many of which are free)? No matter what tablet you buy there will always be formats/codecs that aren't supported by the stock player. Even the Archos stock player won't play AC3 audio or MPEG 2 video with buying their plugin.
This seems kind of like returning your PC because Microsoft Office or Photoshop isn't pre-installed.

Third party players only increase the supported containers. You can have the same h264 profile in MKV, AVI, MP4, but the stock android players usually only support certain profiles on MP4 containers. Rockplayer just lets you pull the data stream out of other file types and send it to the onboard decoder. If the hardware decoder doesn't support the data stream, then rockplayer plays it in software (Curiously, do dual cores now have the processing power to decode high profile HD videos in software?).

If it was a simple matter of running a third party program, you wouldn't have all those people asking how to re-encode their videos to run on the transformer.

[beermebeerme]

In my previous post dated September 5, I had returned the Acer and decided to wait for the G9. After reading about more delays, problems with the screen, 1/2 gig of ram, etc, I have made my final decision. I ordered a refirbed Acer A500 10.1 from Best Buy. It will be here on 10-3. For $299 and with proven hardware / software I just couldn't put myself through more broken promises from ARCHOS.

My first Archos was the A5 and a DVR station. I still have it and still love it for its size and portability. As many of you know, I can record directly from almost any video source for playback on the 5 or, if I record to SD, on my phone or other device.

From there, I purchased the ill-fated 7HT. What a piece of poop. I made due with it until the 7o came out and I bought it, promises and all. Over all I have been satisfied but rather frustrated with promises of what the next firmware would bring. I began hearing the same rhetoric about the G9 and just gave up.

So, what I would like Archos to learn from all of this is; 5 inches and portability are great enough assets for me to hold on to an old product. Perhaps a G9 5 incher would be a good move. 4.3 is too small to not also be a phone. Also, in business it is far better to under promise and over deliver than is the opposite strategy that Archos has adopted.

Randy