Archos 32 3.2-Inch Internet Tablet with Android - Official New Excellent Gadgets, Tools & Accesories

By 

M. Homer (Vacaville, CA USA) –

  

Let’s cut to the chase. For $150, you can’t go wrong. This is basically an iPod Touch, but it runs Android, and is $70 cheaper. Oh, and the sixth generation iPod nano? Complete junk compared to this. Its junk compared to any comparable PMP devices, but if you’re in the market for a PMP in this price range, you can’t go wrong for the Archos 32.

First, the good. I’m no videophile, so the screen looks good enough to me for a $150 3.2 in device. If you’re one of those people that hates resistive touch screens, this is VERY finger responsive. Yes, it is difficult to see the screen in bright sunlight; but once the brightness is turned all the way up, I could see it just as well as most of my devices. I’m no audiophile either, but the sound is good compared to my Zune. It supports many file types from MP4, to OGG. There are no internal speakers, however, it does have bluetooth, so I’m sure you could find some portable bluetooth speakers somewhere. The bundled earphones are, of course, a POS.

It has a camera, and it does it’s job. Just don’t expect it to replace your Flip HD. Is it pocketable? Yes it is. Pretty much the exact same size as the ZuneHD, I don’t feel it at all when its in my pocket. It has a fast, and smooth webkit browser. You’re gonna love browsing the web with this. Flash support coming in October of course. This thing acts like a usb thumb drive, so you can add and transfer files from any operating system like Windows, OSX, and Linux. No proprietary iTunes or Zune in the way.

There are some things that just hurt the Archos 32… but compared to the sixth gen iPod nano, or other comparable devices, you wouldn’t care. First, no SD card slot. You’re stuck with the 8 GB for apps, files, music, and video. If you like styluses, it doesn’t come with one and thus, no way to store one on the device. Like I mentioned before, no internal speakers and the camera is nothing to write home about. There is also a very WEIRD design (flaw?)… on the front of the device there are a “+” and “-” sign to increase or lower the volume. There is ALSO a volume rocker. I don’t plan on using this as a PMP because one of my criteria for a PMP is physical buttons to change volume AND song, which is why I can’t part with my Zune 1st gen. So, there are two ways to change the volume… interesting?

Finally, the biggest flaw. No access to the official Android app store (without some hacking). Instead, you’re given “AppLib”, Archos’s own App store for Archos Android Tablets. This isn’t them trying to be greedy or anything. Google forbids non approved devices access to the app store. One of the criteria to be approved is to be a phone. This is not a phone. Thus, no app store. If you want to know what apps they have available (not much), feel free to browse here: [...]

Alternatively, there are third party app stores (like AppLib). Like “SlideMe” and “AndAppStore”. Check those out.

So there you have it. The Archos 32 has features features that blow out any other $150 PMPs.

**Update**
Concerning Apps, if there is an app you want, and cannot find a place to get the .apk file /or purchase it, contact the developer and see if you could work something out.

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Let’s start with the Pros and Cons
Pros:
-Very responsive touch screen (no multitouch)
-Slim
-Good media player
-Aesthetically nice
-Android OS
Cons:
-Atrocious wireless reception (Achilles heel of this device)
-No native android market
-Comes with Android 2.1 installed

Now the dirt:

The point for me in getting this device was to be able to connect to my university’s wireless internet to stream Pandora internet radio, and do general web surfing while walking around campus. Unfortunately this device gets subpar wireless reception. This device will pretty much only get stable internet reception if you can see the access point. For comparison, I’m sitting here on my Lenovo laptop which gets a signal strength of excellent (full bars) from an access point a couple of floors below me, and this Archos 32 barely registers the signal. I can’t get any signal if I try to hold it in any comfortable and realistic way. Having “wireless n” in no way aids this device. For this reason I’m now in the process of returning it.

Selling a device with the label “internet tablet” on it while the device gets poor wireless reception, is misleading marketing in my opinion. A customer service rep told me this when I inquired about the poor wireless reception “this is just a Portable Media Player with Internet Capabilities.” Exactly, and they should market these as what Amazon puts on the product page “Archos 32 3.2-Inch Touch Screen with Android”.

Supposedly there will be a software upgrade sometime in the future that will enable Android 2.2. Only problem with this is that one of the main benefits to Android 2.2 is flash support in the browser, but how is somebody supposed to experience that with limited wireless reception.

Playing media that is physically on the device is really where it accels. It has a slim form factor, has good sound quality, and can play pretty much anything you throw at it. The only real benefit to having the Android OS on it is the video games for which the accelerometer works well enough (at least for the demo racing game that comes preinstalled). Where Android hurts it is that the software can start to lag a bit at times when all you want to do is listen to some music. Of course the reason for this is when you go to the system monitor you find a bunch of programs that you’ve unknowingly had running in the background. Another thing is that it’s not fully Android supported so there is no Marketplace. However, with a little searching online, that can be easily fixed

The screen is nothing spectacular, but it has a good enough resolution that you most likely won’t be bothered by it, and the image quality is decent. The touchscreen is surprisingly very responsive. It’s only single touch, no multi touch, but you will find that it won’t inhibit you in any way, and is quite excellent. I had no problems typing on the onscreen keyboard, even with the screen in portrait mode. The device supports screen rotation through the accelerometer, but in order for the screen to respond to a shift in the way you’re holding it, it often requires a little shake, and seems to never respond immediately. It can be annoying but it’s livable.

Also a note on Archos customer support; they are very quick to respond through emails. I was getting responses within a couple hours of my replies. Of course when I inquired about my wireless strength issue, all it turned into was an argument about whether or not enterprise security effects signal strength (of course it doesn’t, but my support rep insisted on that being the problem). They also apparently don’t support all of the functionality of the Android OS (as in my case the Android OS supports connecting to a wpa2 enterprise network, but my support rep kept insisting that I connect to a personal level network and that would somehow mysteriously solve my wireless problems-yeah right). Why ship a product with software you don’t support?

To Conclude, if you’re looking for a for a media player that just happens to be able to connect to the internet then this is the device for you. If you’re looking for something where the main purpose is accessing the internet (my case) then this is not for you, and you will only find yourself becoming frustrated with its inadequacies.

Update 12/28/10:
I’ve had my iPod touch for a couple of months now, and where this pmp should have been getting wireless reception but didn’t, my iPod is able to get a signal just fine. Really just a poor hardware design on Archos part.

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Ok. I hemmed and hawed for quite a while on these Archos tablets. I had my sights set on the 43, but got impatient and bought the 32. Guess what… I’m not at all disappointed. This is a sweet little piece of technology. I wish it had a speaker and an SD card slot, but for $129.99 I can’t complain.

Don’t worry about the touch screen being TFT. Typing is not an issue… it’s about as bad as typing on your GPS device (about the same size screen!). Sometimes you miss, but it’s not like the world comes to an end… that’s what the backspace button is for! Don’t expect it to be a full-size keyboard and you’ll be fine! Whenever I have to type more than a short web address or my login information, I just tilt it 90 degrees and use it landscape. It’s as simple as that.

Screen resolution? I can still read the text at font size 6 and most of the time with the websites completely zoomed out, I can make out what it’s saying. Is it as good as the ipod? No… but I doubt you’ll ever notice unless you scrutinize them side-by-side. Movie playback is fantastic.

No google market place access, which is not Archos’ fault. But hey, look around and you’ll find they’ve already released an apk hack for froyo to solve that. Works great. I used to have an Compaq Ipaq… this does everything that device used to do (except handwriting recognition… but hey, there’s probably an app for that) but better and faster. I wouldn’t call it a productivity tool, but it’s pretty close once you install some of those apps that let you view office documents and pdfs (all free).

Camera isn’t amazing, but once you hold this thing in your hands, you’ll know why: it is sooo thin! (no room for auto-focus) It does fine, however, for the quick pic here or there and posting it right away to your facebook or attaching it to an email. It’s good enough for the barcode scanner to work most of the time… just make sure you have enough light on the barcode and it’ll scan it.

Wifi reception? Well, I was sitting in the middle of a parkinglot, a good 100 yards away from a Perkins and picked up their wifi signal. Come on… you can’t be too upset about that??? I have reception from my wireless N router anywhere in the house.

All in all, I am really impressed with this little device… I love it! No regrets… and I am sooo happy that I didn’t have to break down and get an ipod to get the PMP+internet experience I’ve been looking for. I didn’t say anything about how it looks yet! Duh… it looks great and feels solid. Nice shiny finish to it (yeah… can’t really use it in direct sunlight, but that’s true for most devices…go find some shade!).

Buy it with confidence and realize that some people just gotta have something to complain about.

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