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Factorite (Junior) Posts: | 48 |
Location: | Spain | Status: | |
| For 129$ dollars, it's a great (no chinese ) device.
Display: 10.2 inch TFT LCD Digital display
Operating System: Windows CE 6.0
Processor: Samsung 533 MHz
Memory: 128Mb RAM, 2Gb ROM
Audio: Integrated speaker, 3.5 mm Stereo Headphone Jack
User Interface: Buttons (Power on/off, Reset on/off ), LEDs (AC/DC Power, Battery status )
Interfaces/Ports: Standard SD card slot (up to 32 Gb ), 3 x USB 2.0, RJ-45, DC-in
Wireless Network: WLAN 802.11 b/g
Battery: 2100 mAH
Dimensions (WxDxH ): 182.5 x 270 x 31 mm
Weight: 1.1 Kg
http://armdevices.net/2010/10/18/archos-arnova-10-2-inch-samsung-53...
Regards. |
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Global Moderator H/PC Guru Posts: | 7,188 |
Location: | USA | Status: | |
| It sure didn't get a very good review on Amazon UK:
"This product is the epitome of why notebooks are on their way out. In just 24 hours usage it has already crashed twice, runs slowly and of course has no actual internal memory space meaning that it blanks itself every time it crashes. This is a lot of work for little gain."
Sure sounds like all the other netbooks we've seen requiring software installation into special non-volitile memory areas... |
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Factorite (Junior) Posts: | 43 |
Location: | United Kingdom | Status: | |
| I have had the chance to use one of these machines for a few hours and thought I would share my thoughts.
HARDWARE
Build quality is very good despite the low price the keyboard has a good travel and easy to touch type on (using it for this article).
The screen is absoultely gorgeous. It is very bright and has even colours, but it is only 800 by 600.
Mouse is good but the left mouse button needs a good press to work external mouse works fine.
Battery is built in but has a cover to access it next to a reset button on the base.
The whole unit looks smaller than its photos but is much larger than my Psion netbook Pro which I'm using to compare with.
SOFTWARE
This unit came with a licensed copy of Textmaker which I thought was pretty good value AND thats about it???
Archos for some strange reason has stripped Win Ce 6 down and removed the startbar. On startup the unit goes to a custom screen with 9 large icons which give you shortcuts to Internet, media Player (TCMP), control panel, usb, sd card, Textmaker, Messenger, wifi ctl sound.
Will try and post pictures later.
I cannot find anyway to get a normal wince desktop and start-bar even though the keyboard has the win key (does nothing). Going into sdcard icon opens windows explorer and here I found another strange thing. Control panel reports a 1.69GB disk but win explorer doesn't display it and so I cant see how you store programmes on it. I found the standard windows media player in win folder and it works fine with good quality through headphones and is quite loud through two speakers on the front.
The Psion NBP runs aprox 3 times faster (subjective not benchmarked) on programmes and 10 times faster opening and rendering web pages. This is a testament to the good design of the Psion and maybe wince 4.2.
This is my first experience with ver 6 and I did expect it to be better especially as the Archos has a faster and more modern cpu.
If anyone knows how to display the desktop I would be interested in trying to hack it.
I also found I couldn't get a single app to run ... tried total commander, Reso explorer, a load of games, regear, GAPI.etc they installed ok but wouldn't run.
One last thing no email programme really strange!!!!!
Any comments on what can run on wince 6 so I can try them and how to release the start button.
Allan |
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Factorite (Junior) Posts: | 43 |
Location: | United Kingdom | Status: | |
| Update
I have done a hard reboot and all installed programmes now run (system didn't lose any apps ).
Also found using Total commander that all programmes are installed by default on to the 2GB flash drive which is quite good. I can now run regedit so all I need some guidance on what to change to release the task/start bar.
Allan  |
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H/PC Elder Posts: | 1,953 |
Location: | BC, Canada | Status: | |
| hmm very interesting.
Does it have standby mode? If it does it could be one of very few CE 5-6 laptops to support instant-on.
However if the NBP runs "3 times faster" then this one is quite disappointing 
Plus of course you need the start menu and task bar to use apps properly. Are you just launching the apps thru explorer?
Have you tried Opera Mini 5 or Mobile 10?
What about battery life?
Anyway I hope you get the shell hacked soon. Good luck! Edited by takwu 2011-01-11 12:50 AM
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Factorite (Junior) Posts: | 43 |
Location: | United Kingdom | Status: | |
| Quote takwu - 2011-01-11 12:49 AM
hmm very interesting.
Does it have standby mode? If it does it could be one of very few CE 5-6 laptops to support instant-on.
However if the NBP runs "3 times faster" then this one is quite disappointing
Plus of course you need the start menu and task bar to use apps properly. Are you just launching the apps thru explorer?
Have you tried Opera Mini 5 or Mobile 10?
What about battery life?
Anyway I hope you get the shell hacked soon. Good luck!
Since doing a hard reboot the unit now runs much faster about the same as nbpro, video playback and sound are far better than the nbpro (sound doesn't have the terrible noise of the nbpro ). Web rendering is still slower though.
I have only played one mpeg1 video and that runs fine using tcmp.
Standby is exactly like the nbpro instant on to the last app in use.
Yes I have to launch apps through explorer, again since I did a reboot all apps install correctly and now run, just cant run them from start menu. I will try Archos support later and see what they say.
Haven't had it long enough to test battery life, will update later. I dont have links to Opera for wince 6 so haven't tried them.
The large screen and good keyboard/build quality really make this unit appealing just need to release wince6 in all its glory.
Allan |
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H/PC Elder Posts: | 1,953 |
Location: | BC, Canada | Status: | |
| Well Opera wasn't written for CE. I was referring to the Windows Mobile versions, hoping that they might work somehow?
I think the current versions require WinMo 5 or up, which is on CE 5. I don't have any CE core device > 4.1 (due to lack of instant-on models! ), so I am curious about compatibility on CE 5-6.
Thanks for the info  Edited by takwu 2011-01-12 1:34 AM
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Global Moderator H/PC Oracle Posts: | 12,667 |
Location: | Southern California | Status: | |
| I'm guessing that bringing up the core CE desktop would involve adding in explorer.exe in the HKLM/init key in the registry (assuming that explorer.exe is present in ROM ), and removing whatever file generates the proprietary GUI, as on some other CE-based devices. But that doesn't work on every device, so I don't recommend trying that unless there's a reflash image for this device. Anyway, even if it does work, it's possible you'd lose instant-on because that function may be a component of the proprietary GUI file rather than of explorer.exe.  |
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H/PC Elder Posts: | 1,953 |
Location: | BC, Canada | Status: | |
| is it possible to simply leave the GUI running in the background, and somehow covering it up with explorer, or any other shell/launcher/taskswitcher that may exist for CE? |
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Global Moderator H/PC Oracle Posts: | 12,667 |
Location: | Southern California | Status: | |
| I wish it were that simple - then I could run explorer.exe on top of shell32.exe on a Pocket PC and have the core shell when I want it. As kitor will tell you, it takes a little more than that.  |
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Factorite (Junior) Posts: | 43 |
Location: | United Kingdom | Status: | |
| I changed the registry entry to allow the task bar to be displayed and on top. On reboot the unit crashed and the Archos GUI fails to load and I get an error message. I rebooted again and the error message comes back but clicking ok brings up the normal desktop screen but still no start button and taksbar.
If reboot and keep pressing the windows key the start menu is displayed the seems to be suppressed as the boot process continues. So it looks like no way to get normal windows on these machines.
Allan |
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Factorite (Junior) Posts: | 43 |
Location: | United Kingdom | Status: | |
| In reply to battery life I got just over 4 hours thats with 60% screen brightness wifi on all the time and music playing in the background.
I must say after using it for a couple of days Win Ce 6 appears to be much faster than Win Ce 4.2 (nbpro running at 400mHz as comparison) and quite pleasant to use its just a shame I cant get the full windows to work.
There is no task switcher ie alt tab does nothing cant see taskman.exe anywhere so I cant really multi-task. Windows player will play in the background but once its there you cant get it to the front again to adjust volume, tracks etc.
Allan |
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H/PC Elder Posts: | 1,953 |
Location: | BC, Canada | Status: | |
| How is it as an internet browser? Is it IE7 for CE? I have no idea what CE 6 has. Does it come with flash lite or can u install flash? How is rendering accuracy and speed? Features like zoom and favorites etc... Anything else concerning web browsing...
Sorry for asking lots of questions. Just curious really and thanks again for your valuable information. |
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Global Moderator H/PC Oracle Posts: | 12,667 |
Location: | Southern California | Status: | |
| CE 6 has IE CE 6 - except in the case of CE 6 R3.  |
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H/PC Sensei Posts: | 1,169 |
Location: | Russia | Status: | |
| >except in the case of CE 6 R3
But what's there instead? |
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