Recently, I decided to buy a new tablet. I looked around, and found one that I felt was going to fit my needs. This tablet had a large 10 inch screen, and all kinds of bells and whistles. Upon seeing it, I was hooked. I searched all over town trying to see if anyone had one in stock, and finally found one. I got the last one they had, and the last one, as it turned out, they were going to have in stock. So, I spent just over $200.00 and got an Archos 101. It was so much bigger than my last tablet. It came with a good amount of storage space, and the ability to expand it up to 64 gigs with an external SD card. My eyes and my mouth watered at all of the possibilities. I saw massive numbers of games, and applications being at my beck and call.
The other features such as a camera and being able to hook into any micro HDMI device was also a super plus. I even liked the fact that I could hook up a micro USB host adapter to it. I didn’t know what a micro USB host adapter was, but I wanted one. Sadly, no one in town sold one. Oh well, I could do without it for now. Well, I started playing with it, and I noticed one minor but annoying problem. The screen would stop working constantly. It was easy to re-calibrate, but I found myself having to do it several times an hour. This was not cool. Something had to be done.
I went out in search of an external keyboard and mouse combo, and found one for $50.00. It used the built-in Bluetooth abilities of this new toy, and for a time, it was a perfect solution. That is until one night, when for some reason, even with the keyboard, I had to press on the screen anyways. That was when everything went wrong. You see, instead of a screen like many other Android devices, which appear to be hard glass, this screen was very flimsy, and thin. This made the screen very fragile, and well, it cracked from the top to the bottom of the screen. For a short while even this was not a problem, as I could still use the keyboard and mouse, but very shortly, even that did not work. It wasn’t long before the tablet itself began opening up applications all by itself. The dream of an awesome tablet died within 2 weeks of ownership. I felt betrayed especially since I could not get anyone on the customer support team to answer their phones. I tried to e-mail them and still no answer. In fact, as of this writing which has been more than a month since I last emailed them, I still have not received an answer to my request for help.
For a tablet that held so much promise, it was a big disappointment. I had spent as much on this tablet as I would have spent on other better made tablets, and now I had nothing to show for it. It took me about a week to get the store I bought the Archos 101 from to take it back, and I was not able to get a refund. I had to buy another tablet, and while the one I got is far netter than the Archos 101, I had to accept what I could get. Bottom line, before you spend your hard earned cash on something that looks so superior to everything else out there, you need to do your homework.
If I had just taken a little bit more time to read all of the reviews instead of just looking at the specs, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble, and I am sure I would have gotten a better tablet for my money.
I have worked in and around many different types of computers. In the Navy, I used a magtape drive computer that was a step down from pen and paper. I later worked for a big computer company and after that, taught computer class’s nation wide. I had the privilege of teaching 14,000 students in a 2 years period of time. Afterwards, I owned a small computer training and repair shop for a few years. I have owned C-64’s, Pc’s of various types, Amiga’s, and even Mac’s. I now have included the android to my collection. At any time, I have close to 15-20 computers or combinations of computers and game systems in the house. I look forward to more.