Archos 605 WiFi owner into buying an Archos 32, have a few questions about it

[davidbix]

I may need a new PMP soon (My Archos 605's battery is dying out) and with the codec support, UPnP, and composite out, the 32 looks like it might be the one for me, but I have some questions.

- The review at Digital Trends ( http://www.digitaltrends.com/tablet-...tablet-review/ ) totally slams it, most notably saying that the audio processing seems completely broken (the review has the full details but their qualms were mainly with problematic stereo separation and the strength of speech and vocals), which seems really odd and I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere. What's up? Assuming they got 2 duds, how's the audio quality in general?

- CNet's review says that it has major problems with MP3s with sampling rates below 44.1 khz (common for podcasts). How bad is it? Has this been fixed in an update?

- How much is the Cinema plugin? Do any international resellers have it at a discount like with the older plugins? With UPnP, does PlayOn work fine?

- Is there an "official" composite A/V out cable or just the ones on eBay (I saw a specific one recommended in a ArchosFans thread)?

- Does the screen lock or not? CNet says yes via the power button somehow, some reviews say no.

- What are the major negatives? How do they impact the experience if I'm mainly using it as a media player and not necessarily for the other apps?

Thanks!

[Greg_E]

All I can say is that overall I'm happy with the sound quality of my 43, I haven't tried any files except aac+v1 at 64kbps and aac+v2 audio stream at 32kbps. The onboard speaker is nothing wonderful, what do you really want from a speaker that small. Headphone out is decent with low impedance headphones and most line input devices.

Not sure if there is an analog video cable, I know my 43 has HDMI.

Haven't tried to lock the device but I have read that with the newest firmware it sometimes powers up locked, sometimes powers up unlocked so it seems kind of like a roll of the dice if it works or does not work.

There are other players that do not require the cinema plug in, check the general gen 8 thread at archosfans for a list of those players. Playing movies on something like this doesn't really thrill me since the screen is so small.

[davidbix]

Originally Posted by Greg_E

All I can say is that overall I'm happy with the sound quality of my 43, I haven't tried any files except aac+v1 at 64kbps and aac+v2 audio stream at 32kbps. The onboard speaker is nothing wonderful, what do you really want from a speaker that small. Headphone out is decent with low impedance headphones and most line input devices.

So are the claims in the Digital Trends review BS then?

As far as the sampling rate issue, could you grab a lower than 44.1khz MP3 podcast to check it for me?

Not sure if there is an analog video cable, I know my 43 has HDMI.

The 32 is built to have SD analog video out over the headphone jack (like some older iPods did) but AFAIK there's no official cable.

There are other players that do not require the cinema plug in, check the general gen 8 thread at archosfans for a list of those players. Playing movies on something like this doesn't really thrill me since the screen is so small.

That would be more for using w/ the composite out so I can use it for PlayOn (along w/ streaming files in formats supported out of the box from my NAS) on my TV. That's part of why I'm looking at the 32: It's the only Gen8 device w/ SD video output, which I need.

If you could use your device ID to check the price for the Gen8 Cinima Plugin at Archos.com (the only way to check, you can't get plugin prices w/o one) that would be swell.

[Greg_E]

Pretty sure the price is $15 USD as a few people have complained about it going missing with a firmware update. Shoot me a link to a podcast and I'll give it a try. I haven't read that review but I'll read it to see what to expect out of the files.

[Greg_E]

The only thing that applies to my 43 is the camera, it is pretty much junk. MAybe that was a problem with the Android 2.1 firmware, but I never found any issues with the audio on low impedance headphones and a few line input devices. I'm not saying the output of the 43 is perfect, it has issues with my unbalanced to balanced transformers that my old Jukebox with it's 10GB hard drive never had, but it is also substantially better than the couple of Sony E series players that I tried.

They also couldn't even bother to get the models correct, the 24 (does is really the 28) and the 70 (with a 10 inch screen???) With simple mistakes like that I don't put a lot of credit in their review.

But again, this could be something specific to the 32 that my 43 does not show.

[davidbix]

Anything on BlogTalkRadio.com should be lower than 44.1 khz.

[Greg_E]

I'm listening to the AndroidGuys live show (#83), it sounds reasonable considering the low bit rate and mono audio. Missing all the high frequencies which is a technique for low bit rate audio feeds, sounds like they are rolling it off at about 10-12khz (that should be about 20 to 24Khz sample rate) and compressed to about 32kbps or less (can't see the bit rate on the a43 so I'm not sure). Sounds basically the same on my Samsung QX410 laptop.

Hard to really tell because a lot of the content sounds like skype or other Voip connection to bring them all together. Some sound better than others but the entire thing sounds decent enough to listen to on both platforms.

I hate to try and sell you this thing based on what is playing with my 43, but it seems to be fine and extremely similar between a43 and laptop.

Oddly enough this episode is talking about Android 3.x.

[Greg_E]

I did just find one thing that I do not like! I hit the home button to go do something else while listening to the stream, and the stream quit, now I get to start from the beginning. If you can download the entire shows, then you should be able to play them in the audio app which allows you to do other things, but this playing from the browser sucks.

The nice thing is that once you launch it again, you can click on the approximate place in the progress bar and it will jump ahead to that point.

[mikee]

Does the archos 32 have a microsd card slot? Is the screen really annoying like some reviewers have said? How easy is it to type on? I currently have an aging ipod touch 2g jailbroken which can't do crap. I want a device also that can listen to pandora in the background while doing other things which my old ipod touch can't do without crashing due to jailbreaking to enable multitasking (Thanks for sucking apple!)

[starrlamia]

Originally Posted by mikee

Does the archos 32 have a microsd card slot? Is the screen really annoying like some reviewers have said? How easy is it to type on? I currently have an aging ipod touch 2g jailbroken which can't do crap. I want a device also that can listen to pandora in the background while doing other things which my old ipod touch can't do without crashing due to jailbreaking to enable multitasking (Thanks for sucking apple!)

the biggest difference will be that the Ipod touch has a capacitive touch screen and the Archos resistive, the Ipod's touch screen is superior in that sense.

[Greg_E]

No, the 32 does not have an SD card slot.