Archos is well known in the Philippines as one of the early sellers of low cost tablets. The French company is now wading into the Android smartphone arena. I saw two of their products at a small shop in ATC, and the units are well built. The more interesting of the two is the Archos 53 Platinum.
The Archos 53 Platinum is a 5.3-inch phablet which comes in a reasonably thin 9.2 mm case. Inside is a 2800 mAh battery, which is bigger than the 2000 mAh unit normally found on low cost 5.3-inch phablets. Well this is the good news. The rest of the package is less than impressive.
The Archos 53 Platinum has a suggested retail price of Php11,995. It is being offered for sale at a Php500 discount, bringing the price down to Php11,495. For that money, Archos gives you a 5.3-inch qHD (540 x 960) display. There are a fair number of HD (720 x 1280) handsets at this price range. Inside you will find a Qualcomm M8225Q chipset with a 1.2 GHz quad core ARM Cortex A-5 processor and Adreno 203 graphics. While the Adreno 203 graphics can run a qHD display, Qualcomm itself recommends that the Adreno 203 be used in handsets with a FWVGA (480 x 854) display. These days you see the Qualcomm M8225Q on handsets selling at below 5K. The Qualcomm M8225Q also means that you get HSPA connectivity and not HSPA+ speeds you will see from MediaTek powered competitors. Like other Qualcomm M8225Q, it runs on Android 4.1, JellyBean.
The Archos 53 Platinum also offers 1 GB of RAM, 4 GB or internal storage expandable via a MicroSD card, a 8 MP autofocus primary camera with a BSI sensor and a 2 MP front camera. All-in-all, it is a decent enough package to give a good Android experience. Still, it does seem overpriced for what it offers.
