Archos 7 Home Tablet

Leading the way with one of the first products to make it to market in the post-iPad tablet deluge, Archos presents its inexpensive, more-compact answer to the iPad: The Archos 7 Home Tablet ($199.99 direct;8GB). The 7-inch tablet runs an Android-based operating system that's as open as Apple's iPhone OS is controlled. The Archos 7 can be forgiven for its less-than-graceful user interface because of its low

price tag, but the most glaring annoyances—an unpolished interface and a touch screen that lacks proper sensitivity—prevent it from being a cure-all tablet.

Design
At 4.2 by 8 by 0.5 inches and 13.7 ounces, the black plastic Archos 7 is manageable to hold while still offering a large, 7-inch, 800-by-480-pixel touch screen. It comes with a built-in kickstand—something Apple should've implemented for the much larger, heavier iPad ($699). The kickstand makes it even easier to manage for video watching and other hands-free uses. Unfortunately, the aforementioned screen sensitivity, or lack thereof, makes the kickstand less useful when you need to type or select on-screen options—a light tap doesn't always get the job done, and the kickstand doesn't provide sufficient resistance. The top panel of the Archos 7 houses the Power/Lock switch, a MicroSD card slot, and a charging indicator. On the right side of the device, there's a headphone jack, the AC adapter connection, and a USB port. On the front face are built-in speakers and a microphone. Included in the package: earphones (something you don't get with an iPad), a USB cable, and a power adapter. The most notable design omission: There's no accelerometer, so when you turn the tablet sideways you're looking at things, well, sideways. The Archos 7 connects to 802.11b and g Wi-Fi netowrks.

Features and Performance
Before we go any further, let's get one thing straight: If you love the iPhone OS and its App Store, you probably won't like the Android 1.5-based OS that the Archos 7 runs. Quite frankly, it lets everything through the door in terms of apps. For those who dream of an unlimited—and, more importantly, unedited—selection, this OS is the perfect antidote to the squeaky clean world of the Apple App Store. Just be prepared to dig through a seemingly endless pile of apps—some of which are naughty and many of which are buggy or simply not optimized for the Archos 7. Personally, I can see the merit of each operating system, but I prefer the Apple ecosystem, which is controlled, yes, but runs more smoothly because of it. At least Archos lets you confine your search to only "approved" titles in its app store, AppsLib, which you can access right on the device. Also, an Archos rep assured me that the company tests various new apps for the Archos 7 approval process every day.

My primary issue with the Archos Android-based OS is redundancy. On the main screen, there are a variety of apps that are all customizable. The fact that the music section—as well as video and photo sections—are all considered independent players seems less useful than, say, having a music, video, and photo menu like many portable media players—and most Archos devices, like the 605 WiFi ($300)—have. If you select the Apps menu by dragging an arrow to the left on the main screen, you see all of your apps—including the same ones that exist on the main screen's customizable desktop, which is otherwise dominated by a large Google search window that takes you directly into the tablet's browser. It's less confusing than it is pesky. It just adds more clutter. A more grave issue is that, surprisingly, the new player apps offer no real upgrade over the ones in existing Archos devices. Navigating artists or song selection can still be a counterintuitive process with superfluous steps and a touch screen that doesn't always do what you want it to. Compared with graceful touch-screen systems like Microsoft's Zune HD ($219.99 direct), the Archos 7's navigation can feel a bit low budget.

The virtual keyboard works intuitively but falls victim to the touch-screen's sensitivity issues—and that's too bad, considering how well the e-mail app works. You can set up multiple e-mail boxes, selecting one as your primary account. You can also choose how often, in increments of five minutes, you'd like to be notified about new mail—an icon appears on the top border of the screen regardless of whether you are on the home screen, listening to music, or using the browser. But scrolling through the settings menu with downward finger swipes often means inadvertently selecting an option. The browser works intuitively, as well, but again, you should expect some level of annoyance when trying to type on the keyboard or select options on a Web page. Also, many of the sites you visit will default to watered-down mobile versions—like PCMag.com and ESPN.com. As with the iPad, there's no native support for Flash, so much of the Web's video content can't be watched on the Archos 7. It is easy, however, to resize a site to fit your screen with a simple tap of a button at the bottom of the touch display.

Syncing the device using Windows Media Player is a simple process, as is loading video or photo content on to the player. The process isn't as seamless as using iTunes or iPhoto with an iPad, but it's certainly not a headache. The user-adjustable EQ is something every media player or tablet should have, as are included earbuds. Sure, the earbuds don't sound great, but that's better than nothing—which is what you get with the iPad. More importantly, though, video and photos looks sweet on the sharp, bright, high-res screen.

Archos has always offered robust file support and this tablet is no exception. For audio, it will play MP3, WMA, WAV, APE, OGG, FLAC, and AAC files; it can display JPEG, BMP, and GIF photo files, and play H.264 and MPEG-4 video files.

Archos estimates the battery life of the home tablet at 42 hours for music playback and 7 hours for video; we'll post our lab results here shortly.

If the glossy, edited world of the iPhone and iPad call out to you, you're unlikely to hear the call of the Archos 7 Home Tablet, which uses more of a "by-the-people" platform—but is it for the people? Only the ones who want every possible app at their fingertips, and are willing to sift through some stinkers. For $200, the Archos 7 is a fair deal—but don't say I didn't warn you about that finicky screen.

Spec Data

Screen Resolution 800 x 480 pixels

Screen Size 7 inches

Storage Capacity (as Tested) 8 GB

Dimensions 4.2 x 8 x 0.5 inches

Weight 13.7 oz

Networking Options 802.11b, 802.11g

Email Access Dedicated email app

Web Browser Yes

Music Playback Formats AAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA

Photo Formats BMP, JPEG, GIF

Video Formats MPEG4, H.264

PRICE:$199.99

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