Category: Pixel Qi

Video review of the Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android

Posted by Charbax – October 30, 2009
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Reviews, Texas Instruments, Archos, Pixel Qi, Android

Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android provides the worlds first 800×480 4.8″ Android experience on an ARM Cortex A8 processor. It loads websites super fast and smooth. It plays all video codecs from DivX, WMV, Mpeg2 and H264 even MKV video files at up to 1280×720 resolution. There are thousands of compatible Android applications (now or later..) and more to test and to report on every day in the http://forum.archosfans.com as developers are optimizing their applications for Archos 800×480 resolution screen.

Why it’s the best: (better than ipod touch, zune HD and other Android smartphones)

– The screen is 2x larger at 4.8″ vs. 3.5″
– The screen resolution is 2.5x higher at 800×480 vs. 480×320
– The processor is 3-4 times faster with ARM Cortex A8 vs. ARM11 (the new ipod touch released last month does have ARM Cortex A8 as well though)
– It plays back every video codecs, including DivX, XviD, WMV, Mpeg2, VOB, H264, MP4, MOV, MKV up to 1280×720 and audio codecs Mp3, Flac, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, AC3 and WMA. Even RMVB might be supported (I have not tested RMVB yet)
– This device can stream Youtube HD and any other HD video format directly from the web over WiFi-N. It’s basically also a 180gr $200 (street price for 8GB version) full Blu-ray replacement. On the 500GB version (soon $400 street price), you can basically walk around with 120 Blu-ray quality movies in your pocket to connect and play on any HDTV using the HDMI Mini Dock.
– Archos comes with up to 500GB built-in storage for the hard drive based models.
– MicroSD card slot on the Flash based models.
– HDMI output through the HDMI Mini Dock (price not known yet) or the DVR Station ($130 or lower)
– USB and Bluetooth keyboards and mice are supported
– WiFi-N provides more bandwidth and broader coverage for connecting to WiFi Internet
– 3G Bluetooth tethering through a mobile phone for Internet when you are outside of reach of WiFi hotspots
– Video-recording and scheduling with electronic program guide like a Tivo (with the optional DVR Station $130 or below)
– Real GPS built-in for Archos provided Android GPS application or for any other Android based GPS and location based applications
– FM receiver and transmitter built-in
– Samba and UPNP file sharing for streaming of HD movies and TV shows on your local network (I have not tested this feature yet, I am waiting for my Fonera 2.0n to arrive hopefully next week)
– 1280×720 Android Desktop experience when outputting the screen to a HDTV using HDMI. This is the worlds first 1280×720 Android experience. Apps could be optimized for this in the coming months, for example I am expecting to see the full high resolution compatible and optimized Google Chrome available for ARM Cortex A8 based Android devices in the coming few months.
– All that, and it still fits in a pocket, it does not cost more than the ipod touch or zune HD, it is much cheaper than the currently available HTC and Samsung Android phones (at least when bought unlocked) and it is only 1.5x heavier than the ipod touch.

The Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android is, I think, the most significant alternative to Apple’s and Microsoft’s portable multimedia consumer electronics products on the market for real tech geeks. In my opinion, Archos already has released the industry’s best ipod touch and zune HD killer with what we have now. Even though I do look forward to them improving a few things in firmware updates to come in the next weeks and months.

What Archos can improve in the next firmware updates:

– They should fix the audio-synch issue with H264 720p HD video files such as MKV HD and Youtube HD playback. I am confident Archos can fix this in on of the soon to come firmware updates. Mostly the audio-synch issue I am experiencing is only very slightly noticable and the TV episodes as still very watchable and look fantastic using HDMI output from Archos 5 Internet Tablet to my 42″ HDTV.
– They should try to support more than 3500kbit/s MKV high profile h264 720p so that MKV 720p 4GB+ movies will play smoothly and that MKV 720p TV episodes will not sometimes drop some frames (usually for 1-3 seconds) on the high peak bitrate scenes (see my tests of MKV high profile h264 720p playback in this forum thread http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=26603)
– Hopefully Archos can add support for the DTS audio codec, which is often used in 4GB+ MKV 720p movies.
– USB Webcams or Headmounted camera for live video broadcasting applications like Ustream and Qik.
– USB 3G Dongles would be really useful even though carrying and connecting the USB 3G dongle to a Mini Dock, HDMI Mini Dock or Battery Dock is not the most compact of setups.
– Archos has promised Android 1.6, Android 2.0 and Flash 10.1 support in updates. It’d be nice to see all these officially add support for all the Google apps such as Gmail client, Google Maps, Google Contacts, Google Listen and the Google Marketplace for apps, considering it should be possible for Google to just filter the apps for Archos’s specific screen resolution and also filter out apps that require the Camcorder and the electronic compass, unless Archos does provide a Dock or USB webcam and headmounted camera add-on support that ads support for those features.
– It will be interesting to see if Archos specific hardware advantages will be taken advantage of by third party Android application developers. For example, it will be interesting to see if third party developers will be able to provide some apps that support HD video streaming, peer-to-peer downloading and streaming, video games emulation up to N64 and Dreamcast, advanced 3D games such as Quake3, and many other such really advanced things.
– It is going to be interesting to see also up to what extent Archos, Google and third party developers can take advantage of the 1280×720 output when using the HDMI output to a HDTV. I would like to be able to use my Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android as a full Desktop/Laptop replacement. That is, if the ARM Cortex A8 platform inside of it and with all the hardware acceleration can be powerful enough to provide me with the complete performance that I need for full screen, full keyboard and mouse computing.

If they can quickly improve the firmware with these improvements and added features, I believe the Archos Android Tablet could become the absolute must have product for all geeks.

Discuss this video:

You can discuss this video review in the forum http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=26754

In my next videos:

In my next videos that I will post here during the next few days, I plan to show you 3G Bluetooth tethering, Youtube HD playback (which now works in todays new Firmware update 1.2.03), some awesome Android apps that work, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse fun, remote desktop, local and remote file sharing and streaming and many more awesome features.

Some pictures:

I posted some high resolution pictures of it comparing it to things you might know the size of (click on the images to see them in full size on Google Picasa):
Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin Archos 5 Internet Tablet is thin

The next hardware:

For the next Archos Phone range due to be released or shown at CES in January 2010, I wish for Archos to integrate a Pixel Qi 3Qi Capacitative touchscreen (watch my video from Computex http://techvideoblog.com/computex/pixel-qi-screen-demo-live-from-taipei/), a 720p camcorder and an electronic compass together with the 3G HSDPA sim card modem. Archos is getting to be very close to absolute perfection in mobile computing.

Full disclosure:

Full disclosure: I am the biggest Archos fanboy in the world. I run the worlds biggest Archos fans community here at http://archosfans.com and at http://forum.archosfans.com and have done so for the past 5 years. Archos did send me this new Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android 4 days ago for free and have told me that I could keep it since I also need it to support the thousands of Archos users in my online community.

Google OS will take over the world, also for Corporate types

Posted by Charbax – July 15, 2009
Category: Exclusive videos, Opinions, Google, Pixel Qi, Android

Ryanair and Easyjet are full of Corporate World types, who just enjoy that they can save money on flight tickets. Sales of Business class tickets on any airline company are tanking. Saving money and getting smaller, better, cheaper laptops is absolutely a universal thing, not only for the mass market, also for corporate types.

You will get £100 Google OS Laptops, running 15-20 hours on a 3-cell battery, fully sunlight readable with the Pixel Qi screen, highly optimized with built-in HSDPA always-on connectivity, connected standby features (rings or blinks an alert light from full standby on incoming emails or calendar alerts), all Google OS laptops will be based on ARM Processors.

Basically Chrome OS = Android 2.0 optimized for Laptops. It will absolutely take over the world, as the absolute best OS for ARM Laptops, instantly putting Microsoft, Apple and Intel out of business.

I posted this as a comment on http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/15/google_chrome_os/comments/

Pixel Qi vs Kindle vs Toshiba R600 vs regular LCD tablet

Posted by Charbax – June 7, 2009
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, E-readers, Displays, Exclusive videos, Computex, Pixel Qi

Side by side comparison video showing the Pixel Qi 3Qi LCD screen next to the E-ink based Amazon Kindle, next to the transflective Toshiba R600 and next to a regular resistive touchscreen tablet laptop. Comparing performance in direct sunlight, in the shade and in a dark room with and without the backlight.

Mary Lou Jepsen answers comments

Posted by Charbax – June 7, 2009
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, E-readers, Displays, Exclusive videos, Computex, Pixel Qi

Following the initial video that was released showing the Pixel Qi screen during the Computex trade show in Taipei, Mary Lou Jepsen, CTO and Inventor of the Pixel Qi screen technology, answers user comments that were posted on the Engadget and Mobileread threads (among many other blogs who linked to the first video) with users from all over the world commenting and asking questions about the screen in the first video.

Mary Lou Jepsen’s Home Lab

Posted by Charbax – June 6, 2009
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, E-readers, Displays, Exclusive videos, Computex, Pixel Qi, OLPC

Mary Lou Jepsen, CTO and inventor of the Pixel Qi technology, explains more of how the Pixel Qi 3Qi screen works, shows us a bit of how she works with her screen technology in her home lab, testing the angular performance in the OLPC screen and tells how power consumption can be saved further with a few motherboard modifications to behave like the OLPC laptop (turning off the processor and motherboard when they are not needed) and more.

Also watch my other Pixel Qi videos:
http://138.2.152.197/2009/06/02/pixel-qi-screen-demo-live-from-taipei/
http://138.2.152.197/2009/06/07/pixel-qi-vs-kindle-vs-toshiba-r600-vs-regular-lcd-tablet/
http://138.2.152.197/2009/06/07/mary-lou-jepsen-answers-user-comments/

Pixel Qi screen demo Live from Taipei

Posted by Charbax – June 2, 2009
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, E-readers, Displays, Exclusive videos, Computex, Pixel Qi

This is it, the revolutionary LCD screen by Pixel Qi that turns your netbook into a Kindle by the flip of a switch. As you can see in this video, thanks to Pixel Qi technology, your next LCD screens can now be very usable outdoors as well under the sunlight, in a very high resolution black and white mode and also keep a full color and bright back light indoors mode.

This is a demonstration from the first batch of the first working prototypes of this screen, and as you can see, it already looks amazing. Mass production of these screens are planned to be launched soon and should be available in any netbook (and later other devices such as smartphones) as long as the manufacturers decide that they want to integrate it in their products.

Find more informations about this screen at http://pixelqi.com

You can click on the pictures to see them in full 5 megapixel qualities:

Pixel Qi 3Qi in black and white mode

Pixel Qi 3Qi in black and white mode

Pixel Qi 3Qi in color mode

Pixel Qi 3Qi in color mode

ARM in OLPC XO-2

Posted by Charbax – January 29, 2009
Category: Exclusive videos, Opinions, Google, Pixel Qi, OLPC, Android

OLPC is probably looking for a non X86 architecture for XO-2, probably ARM, where several providers can provide the processor. Using ARM Cortex, OLPC can use any of Texas Instruments, Mavell, Freescale, Samsung, Qualcomm, Nvidia and others, all interchangeably, independently of the deals that will be put in place. The idea being that having all these ARM Cortex providers being more or less compatible with each other, enabling minimal changes in motherboard designs to have them all be compatible, this enables competition in the processor market. This will more quickly drive the prices down much further. This is the only way you can optimize the interpretation of Moore’s law which says that you can cut the price and power consumption of laptops by half every 18 months.

There is a basic reason AMD is not too enthusiastic about this whole new low cost laptop market. The reason is written on the wall, everyones can see it coming, cheaper laptops means it will be much harder to find profits in the industry. AMD isn’t exactly having an easy time already as things are today, Intel’s profit margins and overall income have shrinked 90% in 2008 compared to 2007.

I believe OLPC should use Google Android with Sugar on top, and they should increasingly rely on cloud computing such as the recently rumored Google Web Drive service to store and share all the data on. With XO-2, you should much further synchronize the way the school servers synch storage, processing power and contents to and from the cloud. Basically what you get is an overly simplified Internet access terminal, one with a small ARM Cortex processor behind the next generation of even lower power and lower cost Pixel Qi screens. One that just relies on basic Google Gears for local content caching, and let most of the rest happen using the much cheaper cloud.

$100 laptops using ARM are possible today already. Chinese GPS manufacturers are making them already using uber simple Linux and last generation MIPS or ARM processors: http://techvideoblog.com/category/laptops/

This makes it obvious that OLPC can achieve a $75 price point on XO-2, consider also the advantage of using a dual touch-screen, is that ou can even more easilly mass manufacture exactly the same model for the whole world. Since all the different keyboard layouts and all of the local interfaces are simply going to be a software function of the touchscreens. Mary-Lou Jepsen has done it once already. She can do it again.