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battery battery's Blogs >> HP Pavilion dv6000 batteries Test: Archos 80 Titanium

Newest member of the French brand Archos, the Titanium range is, on paper, very attractive: more tablets, 7, 8 or 10 inches in unbeatable prices and properly equipped hardware side. Among them, 80 Titanium offers the same format as iPad mini, and is more than twice cheaper. What is behind this supposedly really good deal?

For some years now, Archos has swapped his MP3 high-end tablets low cost, quality often questionable. With the Titanium series, the French manufacturer drives the nail: € 149 for 8'' inch tablet equipped with Android 4.1, 8GB of expandable storage and a dual-core processor clocked at 1.6 Ghz A9. The offer is tempting, but it also remembers the latest Dell XPS M1530 products of the brand does not shine by their performance. When you first unpack the 80 Titanium is therefore mistrust that dominates ...

And, surprise, it turns out that the first impression is very good, no frills design of the tablet is pleasant and efficient. At the front, the rims white, although large, are not too dominant and rear aluminum shell is as pleasing to the eye and touch. The choice of white also seems interesting and allows it to differentiate - a little - other tablets on the market. The Dell XPS M2010 finish is itself of very good quality, especially for this price range: the parts are nested, the shell does not move and every button perfectly meets and falls well under the finger. Moreover, they are particularly well placed, both on the top and on the side. Little originality, which asks a little interest: the presence of a "home" button on the side, just above the volume, which allows (as the name suggests) to return to the main screen of Android. Anyway, just a duplicate of the virtual key already known on the Google OS.

8'' screen of good quality

Connectivity, we also pleasantly surprised by the presence of a micro-HDMI, rare on a tablet of this size and at this price. The rest is classic headphone input, micro-SD slot (apparent on the shelf, but suddenly, easy access), mini-USB and ... input to recharge the Latitude d630 device via a 5V power supply (included, do not worry). Yes, Archos made the strange choice to make charging via USB and not force us to lug around a charger (which quickly becomes an obligation, given the autonomy issue of the tablet., But we will return). Finally, last fault: the sheer lack of Bluetooth.

Now on to the 8-inch IPS screen, which displays a definition of 1024x768 and a pixel density of 160 ppi. It establishes only 5 contact points, two times less than most tablets on the market. A slight defect which is not annoying at final 5 points is more than sufficient for the vast majority of cases. Overall, the  VGP-BPS14 quality displayed by this screen is good, but still a good notch below the competition. The viewing angles are average, max brightness a bit limited funds clear touch display dither fairly visible. The colors, however, are rather faithful and the overall quality is satisfactory for this price range. By comparison, the Archos Gamepad, released a few months ago at a similar price, adopts a much worse screen quality.

His Achilles heel? Autonomy.

Now for the point angers: autonomy. First, know that the Dell Vostro 1510 battery management is bad enough, the tablet constantly pumping its resources, even in standby. So, leave it aside more than 24 hours and you will have all the chances to find it empty. In typical use, the situation is just as bitter half a day ago, the network turned on and the brightness to max.

Finally, the video playback in 720p empty battery after 3:57. 1:30 This is less than the Nexus 7, which showed far the worst score among all the tablets we've tested so far. Anyway, here is the main key of the default 80 Titanium, which is far from trivial, as the autonomy of the tablet seems to us to be a crucial point.

Equipped with a Cortex A9 dual-core 1.5 GHz, a GPU Mali 400 and 1 GB of RAM, the Archos 80 Titanium displays performance necessarily limited, but not completely to the street. Its 3D performance, in particular, are surprisingly convincing: 3720 in AnTuTu Benchmark (for an overall score of 11,412) and 46 fps on Epic Citadel. However, there is a big delay side CPU speed, twice with a score lower than most other tablets. Performance on SunSpider Benchmark and Octane, however, are quite satisfactory. In use, the Dell Latitude e6400 may display a few jerks, especially when moving from one page to another, but end up still with something very usable in good conditions, provided they do not expect a response to any event. Again, in this price range, it is hard to beat.

An unadorned Android

OS side, Archos is very simple in terms of customization and we are faced with an Android Jelly Bean almost crude suddenly at the interface very familiar. Only a few made in HP 484170-001 Archos multimedia applications have been added, rather thoughtful and pleasant to use. Archos Music, for example, offers a navigation in the list of songs very nice and intuitive.

In the end, what this Archos 80 Titanium? The fact is that for less than 150 €, it is faced with a 8 inch tablet that offers respectable performances, impeccable finish and a correct screen. Autonomy remains a black spot, especially that charging can not be done via USB. Unfortunately, a defect that can be prohibitive for many. This concern for Toshiba PA3465U-1BRS battery condemns any case Titanium 80 to remain a very sedentary tablet, which is reluctant to leave home for fear of being stranded too quickly. Anyway, if we ignore this gap, this tablet 8'' cheap is attractive.

Tags: Latitude E6500, Compaq Presario CQ60, DV4 battery