Archos 7 8GB Home Tablet with Android (Black)

As others have said, it's a good value for $200. But I take that a little bit further and say that I'd rather have this gadget than the $500 iPad. Why? Here's why.-It is smaller and almost half the weight. This makes it comfortable to hold and view with one hand, which is difficult with the iPad. I plan to hold on to it and watch videos while stationary biking at the gym, which would be difficult with a bigger tablet.-The screen is matte. It has much less glare than the iPad.-I use it mainly to watch videos. In this capacity, it excels, supporting more video formats than the iPad, and coming in a widescreen format instead of 4x3.-It does most things as well or nearly as well as the iPad. Aldiko is a great ebook reader, you can download Swype to make typing super fast, videos and music play great, etc.-It plays youtube and flash videos if you use the Skyfire browser.Of course, there are drawbacks. I wouldn't give it a low rating though because it's missing features that only come with $500 tablets.-The screen is resistive, and occasionally doesn't register your tap. This improves with time, if you turn on the click-on-tap sound setting.-The Android marketplace doesn't work from the device. To get apps beyond the basic ones, you must either install another marketplace (like Slideme) or search around the web.-The chip is supposedly slower to lower the pricepoint. I haven't noticed this much.So for a student, or younger working type without much cash, this is an insane buy. Tons of tablets will be coming out this year, but this one works perfectly fine and may still be cheaper than anything else coming out for a long time. 7 inches is a perfect size right in between small phones and big iPads, and I've enjoyed using it in various situations during the week I've owned one.Enjoy!

I have read and agree with the criticisms..and I still really like it because it does what I want to very well.I was initially looking for an e-book reader for my wife, but then I came across this product. Having not owned an e-ink e-reader, I cannot make direct comparisons. But on its own merit, the archos 7ht is a very functional e-reader. I easily loaded my wife's ePub books and I can control things like font, font size, portrait or landscape view, multiple bookmarking, and the best thing for me is reversing the colors so that the text is white on a black page. This makes reading in the dark very easy on the eyes, and probably extends battery life as well. It also allows changing the brightness, which is helpful in various lighting conditions.In addition, I get a versatile movie and music player and a decent web browser!Pros:great form facturegreat battery lifegood screengood e-readerdecent web-browserversatile movie and music playerdroid marketplace is a bonus, as this isn't something my wife would even look atCons:touch screen inaccurate/insensitiveglitchy firmwareold techalthough it advertises playing movies at 720p, it cannot play a high bitrate movie smoothly.This is not a hassle-free product, but I wasn't expecting it to do everything really well. If it did, it wouldn't be $199. Screen tapping twice every so often isn't a big deal. Doing some research [...] will really help minimize/avoid frustrations with this product. After becoming familiar with the product, I am very satisfied with what it does.

I almost considered not buying this product due to a lot of negative reviews I read. But because of the really cheap price, I still considered getting one.I work as a stage and rigging supervisor and we do outdoor stages and roofing system here in the Philippines. This is my 2nd touchscreen device, my first was a Garmin Nuvi 1410 GPS and I would say that the screen responsiveness of archos 7 is just similar to garmin GPS.I mainly use this thing for viewing photos, pdfs, sometimes as an audio player/ online radio, browsing the web (when I'm too lazy to switch on my mac desktop), and to watch youtube movies.PROS:1. Great photo viewer to show clients plans, designs, proposals, and old stage setups.2. Very handy during stage setups. It serves as the bluprint of our stage design that I follow and it becomes the checklist of things I need to finish.3. Fits in my back pocket because of its slim design.4. The item seems solid and rugged. For me, you don't have to be very careful on this device. This can handle itself with bumps, scratches that it experiences during my rugged stage setups.I dropped this thing once during a setup, It hit a steel truss then fell on a concrete ground about 3 feet high and its still working fine. If it breaks, I don't mind, I'll get another one. Its very cheap not like the iPad or galaxy tab.5. Great for watching Youtube (you need to download a modified youtube app to make it work), great for HD 720p movies. Accepts divx, mkv, avi, and almost any format I throw into it.6. Touchscreen is not as sensitive as an iPad or any capacitive touchscreens but surprisingly responsive. Maybe its because of my big and heavy hands. My sister hates this thing cause she's used to her iPad's too sensitive touch. I sometimes I use the other end of my ballpen as a stylus and its pretty responsive. But this thing works for me.7. I love the micro SD card expansion. I can expand its capacity up to 40gb8. Battery life is longer than I expected as long as you turn the wifi off.CONS:1. Slow on 3d games but not really a big issue for me. I have another dedicated device for 3d gaming2. The kickstand wiggles and feels very cheap.3. weak wifi signal strength you need to be near the wireless router to get great wifi connection.4. Does not charge via micro USB port so you have to bring the dedicated charger most of the time.5. Very crappy earphones included.6. Randomly restarts. it just happened now while I'm writing this review. This was the 2nd time it restarted by itself. the first time was when I dropped it.7. No bluetooth tethering with my phone. I wish it had a bluetooth so I may connect online using my phone anywhere I am. But, as the name suggests, it is a HOME tablet. you can get the Archos 70 tablet with bluetooth but at twice the price of this.All in all, a really great product for what it does. For only $149.00, It does almost anything I need it to do. Oh, by the way, this is the Archos 7 Home Tablet Version 2, The one with Android Eclair installed, not the cupcake 1.5 version. I purchased this Feb.7 and got it Feb.14, 2011.Thanks for reading and I hope this review helps.