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In my previous post, I wrote an overview of the Archos 7 Internet media tablet.  In this post I’ll take a closer look at the tablet’s Web browsing and internet media features.

WiFi

All of the Archos 7’s Internet features work over WiFi.  Setting up the  connection was easy and the connection was reliable.

Web Browsing

When you register the Archos 7 and do a software update, it gives you a free copy of the Opera Web browser.   This version of Opera supports tabbed browsing and has limited Flash support (more on that later).  It does a pretty good job of displaying simple Web pages.  Pages with complex programming a problem for this version of Opera.  Google Maps, for example, is totally non-functional.  This is a shame because it puts much of the Web off-limits.  (Google offers an HTML version of maps which does work on the device, but it’s not a great experience.)

Overall, the Web browsing is okay, but hardly a replacement for browsing on a laptop or desktop computer.   The larger screen makes it better than browsing on a mobile phone, though.

Flash Support

Archos claims the Archos 7 can display Flash content, but my results have been mixed.  It plays some videos but not others, and when the videos do play the process is slow and prone to crashing.  Web site content in Flash appears on some sites but not others.  On some sites, when the Flash content displays, it does not appear as intended (displaying in greyscale, for example, rather than in color).  I assume this has to do with the version of Flash used on the site.  Overall, Flash support is a disappointment.

NOTE: The Archos Web site now offers an updated browser and claims it supports Flash 9 content.  I’ll install this update and post my results.

Update: Looks like I already have the latest browser.

Internet Radio

The Archos comes with vTuner software for playing Web radio.  It offers a very robust directory of terrestrial and internet-only radio stations.  It also has a directory of podcasts where you can download-on-demand an audio file  for playback.  This process works quite well and is relatively fast.  I was pleased with the assortment stations and the variety of formats.

Internet TV

The Archos also has a directory of free Internet TV.  Most of it isn’t worth watching.   You can download video podcasts, but Archos makes you purchase a $20 H.264 codec to play them.  I have not done this, so I can’t comment on the process.  I have, though, downloaded video podcasts from C|Net and Revision3, then side-loaded them using DoubleTwist (which after a recent upgrade now supports podcasts and video podcasts) and they work just fine — DoubleTwist even converts them to a compatible MP4 format.

Bottom-Line: I found the Archos 7’s internet media features nice, but not stellar.

Next, we’ll look at where the Archos7 really shines — playing digital media files.

A new report from comScore found that users of high-end smartphones are heavy users of mobile media and the mobile Web.

iPhone and Android owners report using a lot more mobile media than other smartphone or mobile phone users.  In fact, at 80%, it seems that one of the main uses of their phones is for mobile media.

This isn’t surprising for the iPhone, which began life as an iPod — playing audio and video.  It’s pretty surprising for Android, though.  I’m also surprised that Blackberry users aren’t consuming more media.  I guess they are too busy reading all those crackberry e-mails.

Palm Barely Scores

There’s some bad news for Palm in this report — only 2% say they intend to buy a Pre.  There’s still time to turn this around and create more buzz for the Pre, but if Palm has to produce a really nice update of the Pre at CES.

So much cool tech.  So many choices.  But we still have a long way to go.

I’ve written here before about my Palm T|X, which makes a nice handheld media player thanks to Kinoma and wifi.  With the Download Helper plug-in for Firefox, I can download Flash video and watch it on the T|X.  Pocket DVD Studio lets me put other videos on the T|X.  But what about the latest TV shows?

I can download most of the TV episodes I’d want to watch (or save) from iTunes.  I can watch them on my desktop, laptop or on an iPhone/iPod touch.  Nice, but I don’t actually want to own most of these shows — I just want to watch those I might have missed.  And disk space on my old desktop is at a premium, so I have to archive HD videos immediately.  Why can’t I steam them and “pay” by watching ads, like on Hulu or the network’s own sites?

On my Samsung Instinct, over the Sprint mobile phone network, I can watch streaming video.  Most “channels” offer short clips.  A few offer full episodes.  I can watch Heroes on NBC Mobile (though sadly, this season hasn’t hooked me).  I can pay extra for channels with premium content.

We’re still not where I, as a consumer, want mobile media to be.  I want to …

1. Watch what I want to watch, where I want to watch it.
2. I want it to be free — ad supported is okay.  I only want to pay if I want to keep a copy.
3. I want to be able to watch programs on a variety of devices — stream to my phone or over wifi to a computer or PDA/media player.
4. I want to be able to watch on a mobile device, then plug that device into a TV to watch on a big screen.

That’s my wish list for 2010.  Let’s see how close we get to making it happen.

Sprint released a firmware update for the Instinct two weeks ago.  I’ve held off adding any new posts here while I lived with this update to see if it really addressed a lot of the weaknesses of the Instinct.  My verdict is: It Does.  If you haven’t downloaded the update, get it ASAP.

Here are some of the improvements I’ve seen:

1. Instinct’s data-intensive apps are a lot more stable.
2. The browser is MUCH improved.  I’d even go so far as to say it’s a pretty good browser now.
3. The video player is MUCH improved.  After the last update I found the player crashed frequently.  The image is now very clear, and it rarely crashes (though, sadly, I can’t say it never crashes).

Overall Stability

The update fixed nearly 250 open bugs — welcome to the world of the early adopter!  Overall, I found my Instinct much more stable after the update.  This update made the phone what it should have been on day 1.

Web Browser

The update gave the phone a totally new browser, built from a new codebase.  I was amazed and impressed with the new browser.  First, it’s much, much faster than the previous browser.  This is because it doesn’t attempt to render the full page, but rather, only the portion of the page displayed on the screen.  If you scroll to an unrendered area, you’ll briefly (for a fraction of a second) see a checkerboard pattern, then the page will render.

The new browser displays pages much closer to the way they look in a desktop browser.  It still doesn’t display Flash content, but I’m not aware of any mobile browser that does.

The browser still has only three size options for viewing a page — 1/2, 1x and 2x size.  For certain sites (Google Mobile Reader, for example), I find neither of these options particularly useful.  However, the update now gives you a ‘full screen view’ option.  Since the very beginning, you’ve been able to hide the browser controls on the right side of the screen to make better use of the screen real estate.  Now, by clicking the “Voice Command” button (on the right side of the phone), you can hide all of the on-screen controls.  Now the page will fill the screen, and be a bit easier to navigate and read.

Video Player

I immediately noticed that the image for streaming videos was clearer.  The videos also seemed to load a bit faster and more reliably, with fewer freezes and crashes.  I really think this is one of the Intinct’s big advantges over the iPhone.  Sprint’s mobile video service is pretty good, with a wide range of channel choices.  The Instinct was made to be a platform for these videos, so for the sake of the company’s future they need to get both the service and the phone working to people’s expectations.  I think the update goes a long way toward that.

More to Come

I’m still waiting for an update that will allow the use of 3rd party applications on the Intinct.  Right now, if you load a 3rd party JAVA application, you can’t use it because the application won’t recognize the Intinct’s on-screen keyboard.  For example, I can use Google Maps by navigating to the area I want to see, but I can’t enter the name of a place I’m trying to find.  Sprint is working on a fix, and it is slated for release by the end of the year.

The official Sprint posts on www.instinctinsight.com also say more application updates are on the way, now that the firmware update provides a foundation for them.  Among the coming updates is another video player update intended to fix “channel unavailable” errors and several other problems.

Get the Updates

You can force your Instinct to get all software updates by going to Main->Settings->General->Update Software