Archos 53 Platinum - 5.3-inch quad core phablet

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.