They claim it has better battery life and performs a lot quicker. You can follow this thread here Slate Droid. And below is a video of it booting up with the new ROM…

This is the thread where you can download the ROM from…

I was pleasantly surprised at how fast and smooth this device feels compared to other devices. The Archos 7 Home Tablet feels like it was made in the 1960’s compared to using this. Having said that, it does not play .AVI or other formats so no movie watching straight out of the box.

A summary of what I really liked about the Dell Streak:

1. The UI is smooth and the capacitive touch screen allows for multi touch.
2. Unlike the Archos 7 Home Tablet, it comes with the Android Market!
3. The Dell UI does feel more intuitive than most alternative home configs out there.
4. ScummVM plays full screen with sound!
5. Youtube plays full screen with sound out of the box!

Cons:

1. This might not be a big one for most, but for me it’s really big… Youtube doesn’t allow you to log in with your YouTube account. It connects you to your google/gmail account and doesn’t allow you to change. My Subscriptions and favourites are lost.
2. Is it a phone or is it a tablet? I can’t quite figure this out.
3. It runs Android 1.6 :’( – NOTE: there is talk of a 2.2 upgrade later this year.
4. If you are thinking of using it as a phone, it is too big. Period. Are you really going to hold this thing next to your head when someone is calling? It reminds me of a scene from “Trigger Happy TV” in the Library.

If this device was available last year about this time it would have made a killing! Android 1.6, 5″ display… all brilliant for 2009. Unfortunately we are in 2010 and the IPad and IPhone 4 is what you need to compete with for a price tag of around £399 (ouch)!

All things aside, the device definitely bridges the Smartphone/Tablet gap. I am just a little unsure of who the target market would be. Let’s wait and see!

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For no particular reason I targeted the “Allfine PC703 Mini Netbook”. Going for about +-£80/£90 (DO NOT pay more than this for any of these. You have been warned!). Loads of people are fooled into buying these at higher prices expecting a fully fledged netbook. Let me set this straight right now… they are running Windows CE. It may look like Windows, but it is not. Windows CE is a completely different platform designed to run as Firmware on devices. Your GPS navigator, ATM or even some printers are running a version of this. Don’t expect to upgrade or run any windows programs. There is almost no support for apps or older versions (like CE 5.0) and it’s almost impossible to find decent apps for it.

Scared yet? Well… let me calm you down. Don’t worry, in my opinion, I don’t think it was meant to be targeted for ages greater than 12. I can see a 5 – 8 year old having this on his/her lap next to her daddy with his Laptop/Netbook watching TV drafting a cookie recipe on the Win CE version of Wordpad. Watching youtube, browsing the internet or clasping the dog’s tail with it. I mean, for £80 who cares what they do with it, as long as they leave yours alone!

After switching the device on, opening WordPad, Excel and Paint, it soon becomes very clear… I need apps. After about 2 hours of searching I found a version of ScummVM that can run games like Monkey Island, Full Throttle, The Dig and Day of the Tentacle. I could get it to run, but needed to request a driver from one of the developers for the device so it can run full screen. They were willing to provide one for £15. Luckily I was still sober, so I gratefully declined. I was surprised that I could view Youtube videos with it. Well… it was a mixture of youtube and “Core Player” working together to provide this to me.

If you like hunting down apps you could probably get this thing to serve some purpose. And for the price of £80, this is the right device to fiddle with.

I still think the Allfine Mini Netbook is most suitable for kids and I personally think that OLPC (one laptop per child) should take a note of these.

Technical Specs:

7-inch widescreen LCD screen
Easy to use Windows CE version 5 operating system
128MB memory
Window media player
2GB SSD (solid state disk) shock proof storage
SD / SDHC Card reader
SD Card slot for storage expansion – up to 32gb extra storage
2 x USB 2.0 ports for input devices (keyboard, mouse)
1 x WIN CE ActiveSync USB port
Audio connections: Mic In (3.5mm jack) Stereo out (3.5mm jack)
Touch mouse pad
Email application
10/100Mbps Ethernet port
AC adaptor / charger
Input Voltage: 9Vdc 1.5A

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The main negative, which most other reviewers kept hammering on about, was the lack of G-Motion sensor. That’s right, you cannot turn the device on its side to flip the layout.

But let’s put that negative on the back burner for a moment and look at the positives of the Archos 7 home tablet.

• It plays almost any video (most formats) in beautiful high definition quality without a single hack.
• You can insert mini SD cards (up to 32GB) and take your whole music/movie collection where ever you go
• Using Dolphin browser and Swype keyboard removes all the lag that the other reviews complained about.
• It has a kickstand! I know, it sounds silly, but its hard to explain how handy this is!
• It claims to have a whopping 44hour battery life while playing music and 7/8 hours of video playback. Now I only had the Archos 7 home tablet for one day, but so far no charging (other than the initial) was necessary.
• Last, but certainly not least – It will only cost you around £129!

With all these positives… do you really care about the G-Motion sensor? I certainly haven’t yet missed that feature.

Now, my only concern was the device’s capability of reading e-books. I am not going to read books horizontally as it just doesn’t feel right. Not to worry though, it comes with Aldiko reader which flips the screen vertically on start up!

OK, let’s be honest. It is no IPAD and the price should be the main indicator for that. The age old “you get what you pay for” is very appropriate here. However, I have seen some really crappy Android devices and this is definitely not one of them. The Archos 7 home tablet is the first android tablet that just feels like a “real” product and I can’t help but smile when I watch Indiana Jones in bed knowing I only paid £129 pounds for this!

Applications I have working on my Archos 7 Home Tablet:
ScummVM (Play games like Day of the Tentical, Full Throttle, Monkey Island)
Dolphin Browswer
Slide ME (Alternative app store)
Seesmic (twitter client)
WordUp! (fun word game)
Facebook
Robo Defence (tower defence game)
Advanced Task Killer
TubeDroid (download high quality youtube videos)

Wiki:
http://wiki.archosfans.com/index.php?title=Archos_7_Home_Tablet

Forums:
http://forum.archosfans.com/viewforum.php?f=59

Full list of specs:
http://www.archos.com/products/ht/archos_7/specs.html?country=us&lang=en

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For instructions please go to HERE

It seems like quite a process and android will quickly sap your battery (about 1 hour from fully charged). This is because the drivers for the power management side is not completed yet. There are also a few bugs, but it is assured that you cannot brick your phone! The iphone was designed to be un-brickable! So give it a shot… what’s the worst that can happen?

The Android OS will be fully functional. You would be able to make and receive calls, sms etc.

Watch this space or subscribe for an update!

It does however show that loads of Android tablets are nearing the horizon. Early tablets, like the “EKEN M001″ is only a glimpse of what we might see in the future. The best thing about Android tablets so far are their prices. The “Archos 5 Internet Tablet” is going for a mere £140, while the bigger brother “Archos 7″ would be around £180 and is being launched in June.

The current Windows 7 tablets out there leaves a lot to be desired, but it looks like its gaining ground (have a look at the iiView VPad here). The biggest problem with Windows tablets, like the “Archos 9″ and the “iiView” is battery life. Having to plug these in the socket for use seems a bit pointless!

“All good things come to those who wait” seems to be a fitting way to end this post, but subscribe to view updates on this topic.

The IPad is making quite a scene on the hardware stage at the moment, but what about us geeks who likes to crack open the device and hack the hell out of it? The £500 price tag is going to stop me from doing that with any IPad for quite a while.

Yesterday the “7″ Eken M001 Apad” got delivered to my door. I left the box on the table for a bit, too scared to open it. Why was I scared? Well… it only cost around £100. How could something that costs about a third of the price of a normal PHONE, be usable at all?

After about 10 minutes of it laying on the table, I switched on the device. To my amazement, it actually switched on! Yes, it had the Android Logo and everything! After about an hour I was really getting to know the device. I kept having to remind myself of the price of this gadget and to compare it to a digital photo-frame or an old mobile phone. As a developer, I could see endless possibilities with Android SDK, but I was struggling to see a normal user getting excited about the device. For a few reasons…

1. It is quite slow. It has lag when dragging.
2. Video plays poorly
3. Browsing is not great

But as a developer I had hundreds of .apk apps on my SD card in minutes. I customised the home screen, had twitter, facebook, youtube, terminal and other favourites up and running in no time. A few hours more and it was actually performing up to a standard of usability I could live with.

I came up with the following usability cases for normal users. It will, however require quite a bit of tweaking.
1. I could use it as a music dj outside when I have guest over for a bbq (the app “I Music Tao” reminds me of Spotify) as I can hook it up to some wireless speakers or plug some wired speakers into it.
2. I could use it as a digital photo gallery.
3. I could use it to view recipes when I cook
4. I could use it as a coaster (hey, it IS cheap).

If you are thinking about getting one and you are willing to spend a few hours tweaking… then keep an eye open for another post with all the .apk apps I tested and found useful. If you are looking for an IPad…. get an IPad!

Specs Below:

• VIA MW8505 600mHz CPU
• 7″ TFT LCD Screen – 800 x 480
• WiFi Protocol 802.11 B/G
• Stereo Output
• Expandable to 16GB TF Card
• Ipod Dock Connector

It took me less than 30 minutes to come up with the current design of Marc Dormey and the best part? Its unique! With all the possible combinations, it makes it much more difficult for another sod to have the same design as you! And it still looks miles better than I could have came up with myself!

Once you picked your design, it takes about 4 seconds to export, upload to wordpress and start using it!
As I said, I only played around for 30mins, but if you have used artisteer, or plan on using it, please put your final designs in the comments box below for us to see it’s potential.

forfiles /P "PATH-TO-FOLDER" /D -7 /C "CMD /C if @ISDIR==TRUE echo RD /Q /S @FILE &RD /Q /S @FILE"

This will delete all folders/files in a specific location that is more than 7 days old.