G9 Hands-On Look with Video and CF Benchmark

[Craig@ARCHOS]

http://www.slashgear.com/archos-80-g9-h ... -23182477/

[butterflygirl]

From the unboxing video, it looks like this charges with the micro usb cable. Is that correct? This would definitely be a selling point for me.

Great link.

[exelletor]

The Flash versions do, the HDD versions don't.

[roach]

Jebus, those videos made me feel like i had cataracts.
I had to stop watching the unboxing, it was just too much.

[Craig@ARCHOS]

Ya, the auto focus was annoying, but hey, what are you going to do.

And yes, the flash units charge with the USB.

The HDD units charge with a wall DC.

[Joost]

Hi Craig,
is it also possible to charge the HDD version with a car charger? The most import reason to buy the hdd version is because i want to use it on vacation (campsite) and then charging it in the car would be ideal. At home i can stream from my popcorn hour.

[exelletor]

Hi Craig,
is it also possible to charge the HDD version with a car charger? The most import reason to buy the hdd version is because i want to use it on vacation (campsite) and then charging it in the car would be ideal. At home i can stream from my popcorn hour.

I think it is, as long you find a proper DC charger(the HDD uses normal round hole for charging).

[heron61]

Here's a more extensive look by Slashgear http://www.slashgear.com/archos-80-g9-r ... -25182615/. On Vellamo, it outperforms the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (a fact that impressed the heck out of me), so this device definitely looks excellent, and I'm sure the 1.2 GHz will be even better.

[Oaxhachul]

Wow, camera seems to be really bad. Switching from 360p to 720p on YouTube makes absolutely no difference. I don't care much about the camera quality, but for those that do, this is not the tablet for you
I care about video playback, HDMI mirroring, books, comics, and web surfing, so this tablet should work well for me. The low ram capacity and "only" 1 ghz dual core should not limit these features in the foreseeable future, I think. It's never going to be the most powerful tablet out there, but again, that's not really what I need.

By the way, as one of the mods pointed out earlier, the internet facilitates global communication so easily that we forget that we are talking to people a thousand miles away, and there can be great differences in pricing from one country to another. Some people say "why get this when you can get the transformer for the same price?" Well, here the transformer is 50% more expensive than the A80, and the iPad costs twice as much. None of those tablets offer the codec support that I get on the A80. And no, you can't just download rockplayer/mobiplayer/whateverplayer - try playing a 1080P MKV on your transformer or iPad, it is just not gonna happen. You need proper hardware support to do that, not just software support.

But IF the tranformer is the same price as the A80 in your region, and IF you don't care all that much about video playback, well sure, then I'd go for the transformer. Build quality, RAM capacity and support will be better, no doubt. Also, if you want a gaming tablet, this is probably not the tablet for you - in six months the new games will probably need at least a gig of ram and maybe a more powerful processor as well. And if you need a tablet for work, you should maybe look at more "reliable" brands. For me, this will just be a toy, and I don't want to spend more than I have to.

Anyway, my unit should arrive today, I'll post again and let you know if I'm happy with my purchase.

[Myth0S]

Anyway, my unit should arrive today, I'll post again and let you know if I'm happy with my purchase.

Do a damned user review, there nowhere online to see that. Open apps, open browser open games , make ram choke. Let us see its power! xD

[Oaxhachul]

Had the A80 for a few hours now. It does not seem like the battery will charge (neither with wall charger adapter or straight ind the computer usb port), the battery remains at 0%. It gives the unit power, but does not charge it. Also, Windows is not able to recognize it. So, basically, a pretty horrible user experience so far.

[Myth0S]

Had the A80 for a few hours now. It does not seem like the battery will charge (neither with wall charger adapter or straight ind the computer usb port), the battery remains at 0%. It gives the unit power, but does not charge it. Also, Windows is not able to recognize it. So, basically, a pretty horrible user experience so far.

w00t, craig i am smelling fire

[Oaxhachul]

Still no charge. The battery light goes on (which supposedly indicates that the unit is charging). After a while it starts flashing (which according to the manual indicates that the battery is fully charged), but the system still says 0% battery life, and the device shuts down when I remove the charger. It has been charging for several hours.

Also, Windows tells me I have connected a "Board", and that it cannot find any suitable drivers. So I can't move any data to the device to at least test the video playback while connected to the power supply.

I also tried registering the A80, so I could refer to my account when telling Archos Support how extremely disappointed I am, but I can't seem to find the serial number. It is certainly not on the back of the device as described in the registration app, and on my invoice it says

Serial Number: <blank space here>

Sigh. Fortunately I love to tinker with gadgets, and I still hope to make it work somehow, but it would have been nice if first impressions had been a little better

[Myth0S]

Besides my humor, i dont find by your description any mistakes by your side, how can the battery not getting charged.. Hmmmm any ideas?

[czesiu]

Still no charge. The battery light goes on (which supposedly indicates that the unit is charging). After a while it starts flashing (which according to the manual indicates that the battery is fully charged), but the system still says 0% battery life, and the device shuts down when I remove the charger. It has been charging for several hours.

Also, Windows tells me I have connected a "Board", and that it cannot find any suitable drivers. So I can't move any data to the device to at least test the video playback while connected to the power supply.

I also tried registering the A80, so I could refer to my account when telling Archos Support how extremely disappointed I am, but I can't seem to find the serial number. It is certainly not on the back of the device as described in the registration app, and on my invoice it says

Serial Number: <blank space here>

Sigh. Fortunately I love to tinker with gadgets, and I still hope to make it work somehow, but it would have been nice if first impressions had been a little better

have you tried to reset the device?:)

[Oaxhachul]

Yeah. Also tried full reinitialization twice, charging while on, charging while in deep sleep, and charging while completely off. Battery remains at 0%.

On the plus side, the UI seems to work pretty smooth so far

[czesiu]

Yeah. Also tried full reinitialization twice, charging while on, charging while in deep sleep, and charging while completely off. Battery remains at 0%.

On the plus side, the UI seems to work pretty smooth so far

It seems you have received a device in even more beta state than others

[czesiu]

out of curiosity, what is the amount of memory (RAM) reported by tools like this:
https://market.android.com/details?id=o ... ysinfo.pro ?

[Craig@ARCHOS]

Still no charge. The battery light goes on (which supposedly indicates that the unit is charging). After a while it starts flashing (which according to the manual indicates that the battery is fully charged), but the system still says 0% battery life, and the device shuts down when I remove the charger. It has been charging for several hours.

Also, Windows tells me I have connected a "Board", and that it cannot find any suitable drivers. So I can't move any data to the device to at least test the video playback while connected to the power supply.

I also tried registering the A80, so I could refer to my account when telling Archos Support how extremely disappointed I am, but I can't seem to find the serial number. It is certainly not on the back of the device as described in the registration app, and on my invoice it says

Serial Number: <blank space here>

Sigh. Fortunately I love to tinker with gadgets, and I still hope to make it work somehow, but it would have been nice if first impressions had been a little better

Oaxhachul,
I hate to here about the experience you are having with the A80. Please tell me where you are located so I can help?

Also, for you future reference the serial number is located behind the kickstand - just lift up and you should see it.

[Oaxhachul]

Hi Craig - thank you for your reply!

The device finally charged. I have no idea why it took 12 hours, but it suddenly seems to work. Yay
However, once I started using the tablet, I immediately encountered another problem - the screen.

It is hard to explain, but applying even very light pressure on the screen causes a large collection of pixels in two different spots to be "squashed"
It's much easier to show you - this video shows the middle spot, there is a smaller one on the left side of the screen as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FK37WbzToo

I'm sure you can see that this is detrimental to the user experience when typing, surfing og playing games.

This is one of those defects that will certainly not be corrected by a firmware update, so I'm pretty unhappy about it.

Anyway, I'm in Denmark, Europe, so I suppose I should contact Archos Support directly?

TIA - Oax