Quick Look: Archos 5 Internet Tablet

The Fedex man (his name is Gary) dropped off the Android-powered Archos 5 Internet Tablet this morning. I, in turn, opened the box and took photos of the aforementioned device.

Specs (complete list here):

• 4.8-inch touchscreen (800×480 resolution)
• 32GB storage, expandable via microSD
• Video playback: MP4 (720p), H.264 (720p), WMV (DVD resolution), MKV (720p)
• Audio playback: MP3, WMA, AAC+, Ogg, FLAC
• Photo viewer: JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP), FM transmitter, FM receiver, GPS
• Built-in speaker, microphone, and kickstand

Size

The tablet is about 5.5 inches wide, 3 inches tall, and .25 inches thick. It feels solid, but not too heavy. Kind of like a big smartphone. It’d definitely fit in a roomy pants pocket.

There’s a kickstand built into the back of the tablet, allowing you to set it on a desk.

Screen

The 800×480-resolution screen works well for watching video clips and navigating the Android interface, although you’ll need to do some side-scrolling on web pages. There’s a built-in accelerometer that orients the screen horizontally or vertically.

Software

There’s a built-in app store with Free, Search, and Update tabs along the top. Selection seems a bit limited and I was unable to find any for-pay apps but I need to play around more.

The video player works okay with locally-saved videos but I had some trouble with certain YouTube clips. One time I just got sound and no video and a few other times the player would start loading a clip and never end up playing it. The tablet uses a YouTube player – it doesn’t directly play YouTube Flash videos embedded in the web browser.

Music playback is handled via standard 3.5mm audio jack or using the built-in speaker.

The GPS software features overhead maps and voice guidance. It seemed to work well but I haven’t actually tested it in a car yet..

Other Info

• At first glance the tablet seems a tad sluggish (especially when typing), but I still need to put in some quality time with it.
• Archos also sent me the AV docking station so I’ll be able to hook the tablet up to a TV.
• The main screen can only be used horizontally, tilting the tablet vertically does nothing.

I’ll have a full review up in the coming weeks. Please leave any questions in the comments section below and I’ll try to address as many as I can.