Sound Quality
Even if the 32 were perfect in every way – and it obviously isn’t – it doesn’t work for sound reproduction. It doesn’t “sound bad” – it plain doesn’t work. We loaded ordinary MP3 files ripped from our own collection, all of which play and sound fine on every other music player or cellphone we’ve loaded them on to. But vocals on the 32, when you can hear them at all, sound like faint echoes in the distance. Many tracks sound like original Beatles’ stereo recordings, which had half the instruments on the left, half on the right, and if you shifted the balance, you heard only half the mix. On the 32, you often lose the cohesive stereo mix and get distinct left-and-right instrument segregation. For sound reproduction, this fundamentally off. There must be something wrong with the circuitry.
Even when vocals are properly mixed – maybe one track out of 10 – music sound muddy and tinny.
These problems aren’t limited to music. Archos pre-loaded some AVI clips, including a complete copies of Batman Begins, You’ve Got Mail and Saving Private Ryan. Even with pre-loaded test videos, not ours, dialog again sounded faint or non-existent, like watching a silent movie with only music and some sound effects audible.
Camera
The Archos 32 has an included VGA camera and camcorder that’s barely worth the effort – even most free cellphones include a megapixel imager. Aside from the small-but-average VGA images, the lens is on the right rear edge (it’s on the left on all other cellphones), which makes it tough to avoid getting a finger in the picture as you grip the device and try to hit the touchscreen shutter release. Even though there’s a setting for audible shutter release, we heard none, and there’s no LCD screen pause or review to let you know you’ve captured a shot, just a pop-up “Picture Taken” with date message.
Conclusion
There is no reason to delve any deeper into the Archos 32. You can’t listen to music on it. Whether this sound reproduction flaw extends to Archos’ other “Internet tablets” I don’t know, but caveat emptor. But even if other functions performed moderately well – and the opposite is true – if you can’t hear the music, this tiny tablet is totally useless.
Highs:
- None
Lows:
- Voices in music and video sound faint or missing
- Fuzzy screen
- Limited number of Archos-optimized Android apps
- Slow processor
- Poor VGA camera
- No expandable memory
The guy is a moron, or obviously not very good at knowing how technology works, unless its branded with $$$ or is a Apple product. Archos is quality, in just about every product I've seen/used. Too bad they give these lame reviewers their products for free. Hopefully I get a chance to get my hands on this by christmas haha.
Bad sound quality on Archos product? lol
Nothing with a screen under 6 inches can respectably be called a tablet. Period.
It's the exact same processor as Droid X, omap3630, if you look at system monitor apps you will see it can peek at 1ghz as well, it's just a fact that less processing power is needed to display WQVGA compared with WVGA.Installing Google Marketplace is not a "hack" it's an app, just find the appropriate 4mb Market4Archos.apk for it to work (once the product has been released broadly enough for users to compile that apk). Your argument of not mentionning it is like someone saying Windows does not support PDF or Flash just because those are not pre-installed for licencing reasons but that users simply have to go to adobes website and download the .exe files to install by simply clicking on them from the file browser.There is a firmware beyond 1.0.59 already, your eventual aac or audi bugg is caused by you probably not even auto-updating it over wifi. You should say what firmware you are using in yyour test and provide exact file specs of whichever file you claim is not working.
Thanks to all for pointing out that the Archos 32 does in fact support AAC files, we've amended the review to reflect that. As for the Cortex A8 processor – yes it's the same chip, but it's clocked significantly lower (800MHz on the Archos 32 vs 1GHz on the Droid X). And Google Marketplace? It doesn't come installed on the Archos 32 and Archos does not explain how to install it in the documentation, so we're not chalking that up as an official feature. We wouldn't include capabilities that iPhone users can access by jailbreaking the phone, and we're not going to include capabilities the Archos 32 can gain through third-party hacks, either.
I have never been impressed with Archos products, they always felt too cheap IMO. Their GUI looks straight out of 1990 and their video players ARE slow. Period. I am surprised this company is still in business.
Their GUI has been Android for over a year, and since 2004 just basic embedded Linux GUI with Opera for the browser, which was the best mobile browser until Android arrived to the market.
Disagree. It looks old school.
I am surprised by this review. I've seen two other reviews of this product and neither one reported anything like this.
Cnet gave it a 6/10….not much better.
You and Donald Trump (or what's his name) on cnet are notorious for your totally unreasoned apple fanboyism. Not much to see there in terms of objective reviews.
By the way, Google Marketplace works on this device since yesterday: http://archosfans.com/2010/10/08/google-marketpla…
"Voices in music and video sound faint or missing"
- You seriously need to change your audio settings, it has full EQ control unlike every other android devices. The sound quality is JUST AS GOOD as any other device ever released. Archos has been making Mp3 players for 10 years, you can be sure they know how to make this work. You didn't test it right, use better headphones or update to their latest firmware.
"Fuzzy screen"
- It's the best most reactive resistive screen ever released.
"No AAC compatibility"
- Try again, it definitely support AAC audio. This device supports more audio and video codecs than any other device on the market.
"Limited number of Archos-optimized Android apps"
- As you know, Archos last year's tablet has had the full Google Marketplace since November 2009, just look for "Google Marketplace on Archos" on Google. Obviously, these new Archos tablets will have the full Google Marketplace as well.
"Slow processor"
- This is the fastest ARM Cortex A8 processor from Texas Instruments, at 45nm process, just as fast as any of the latest ones in iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S, in fact it is the SAME processor as the Droid X released just barely a couple months ago.
"No expandable memory"
- How come you don't mention this on any of your iPhone 4, iPod Touch or iPad reviews all rated 8.5/10? At least, Archos supports streaming Terrabytes of music or videos over Samba/Upnp file sharing and any expandable storage can be added over the USB host.
Here are the codecs that it supports:
Video Playback:
• MPEG-42 HD (up to 720p, 30 fps@6Mbps)
• MPEG-42 (ASP@L5 AVI, up to DVD resolution, 30 fps@8Mbps)
• H.264 HD (HP@L3.1 up to 720p, 30 fps@5Mbps)
• WMV9/VC1 (AP up to 720p 30 fps@10Mbps)
• M-JPEG (Motion JPEG Video) in VGA resolution
With optional plug-in:
• Cinema: MPEG-2 (up to DVD resolution MP/D1, 30 fps@10 Mbps)
With the above codecs, the device can play video files with the following extensions: AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, MPG, PS, TS, VOB, FLV, RM, RMVB, ASF, 3GP
Audio Playback:
• Stereo MP3 CBR & VBR
• WMA, WMA-Pro 5.1
• WAV (PCM/ADPCM)
• AAC, AAC+ 5.13
• OGG Vorbis
• FLAC
With optional software plug-in:
• AC3 5.1
Incorrect, the process on the 32 is 800Mhz, not the full 1GHz found in the other competing products.
It's the exact same processor as Droid X, omap3630, if you look at system monitor apps you will see it can peek at 1ghz as well, it's just a fact that less processing power is needed to display WQVGA compared with WVGA.
I call B.S. I don't care if its the same CPU, it's underclocked!