Again: Avoid The Archos 97 Titanium

Prise en main Archos 97 Titanium HD [Google English]

Many crashes (the famous “Force Close” Android, or forced closure of an application) that we encountered will, hopefully fixed in future versions of the Android operating system of the tablet. An update that will almost 300MB download for hours on the official website of Archos, since it shows a very low rate.

The amusing detail of this tablet is that despite its definition announced (and native) 2048 x 1536 pixels, the manufacturer has decided to turn the system into a lower default definition (1600 x 1200 pixels), simply because he realized his mistake: Mali 400 MP4 processor (a quad clocked at 250 MHz) is not fast enough.

The same chipset within the Galaxy S3 Samsung smartphone should turn 440 MHz to provide smooth animations on a screen resolution much lower (1280 x 720 pixels). Suffice to say that if the interface of the Archos tablet is already slow in 1600 x 1200 pixels, it is even more sluggish in 2048 x 1536 pixels!

There are no amount of firmware updates that can save this turkey. The dual-core CPU and GPU combination just cannot handle that Retina-class screen properly. Stay away from this tablet.

Let’s see how the Archos 97 Platinum — with a quad-core CPU — does once released.

Previously here:

The Archos 97 Titanium Tablet Is Garbage
The Archos 97 Titanium Tablet Is Junk

Video Review Of The Onda V812 Tablet

The Onda V812 is the basis for the upcoming Archos 80 Platinum tablet.

Onda V972 has 8″ Super IPS 1024×768 screen, 2Gb RAM, 16 Gb of flash memory, dual 0.3 Mp and 5 Mp (with autofocus) cameras, metal back panel, HDMI out, etc. The tablet is based on Allwinner A31, which is interesting not only by its quad core 1008 MHz Cortex A7 CPU, but also by the very powerful GPU, PowerVR SGX544MP2, which is about 1,5 times more powerful and much more advanced than the PowerVR SGX543MP2 used in iPad 2, and almost as powerful and more advanced then SGX543MP4 used in iPad 3. This GPU is slower than owerVR SGX545MP4, used in iPad 4, but is equal by the functionality.

The main differences between it and the Archos:

1) Archos will offer 8GB internal storage, not 16GB
2) Archos will include its own apps
3) Archos might not permit root access by default

Spoiled Forever By PalmOS

Palm: I’m ready to wallow now: The Palm operating system

One of the design goals for the original Palm Pilot, and all Palms that came after it, was that instead of competing with a regular computer, Hawkins realised it had to compete with paper (like a paper diary, address book, and so on). Other than meaning that the system had to be fast, it also meant it had to be simple, straightforward, and task-focussed. All this combined was governed by a set of design philosophies called ‘Zen of Palm’.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Reading that made me realize that I’m still looking for that speed experience.