CES2015 is currently ongoing in Las Vegas. There are some fine new gadgets and cool inventions being announced every hour followed by the respective press conferences. Some people I personally know are there at the event (lucky them) covering the event for their own tech blogs or magazines. But there is one product that caught my attention during its launch yesterday.
Most of us may not know the brand name Archos, but I know that they made some awesome Android based gaming console before this which looked similar to Sony PSP. That was how I got to know Archos before this. And now in Las Vegas, Archos revealed their new mid-range 4G enabled Android smartphone which I think is worth the try.
Most of my friends would know me by now that I would only use a phone for a maximum of only 6 months. After which I will sell it off to purchase a newer model or try a different type of Android phones. In this case, I may consider the new Archos 50 Diamond smartphone. Why? Read on…
I like to try something new. I will always try the unknown or less famous brands like for example, Lenovo, before they got famous for selling cheap smartphones. I have used a Spice (CSL) brand phone as well, whereby the internal components are similar to the high-end devices at that time but not many people know about it. So for me to tryout this Archos 50 Diamond smartphone is something that I’m used to, like exploring the unknown.
Why I would love to get myself this Archos 50 Diamond? First of all, it looks good. I will ignore the yellow colour as what the picture sample shows. I will always go for black or white instead.
Second thing is the hardware. It uses the new 64-bit enabled Snapdragon 615 Octa-core which is based on big.SMALL architecture with the speed of 1.7GHz for the big quad-core and 1.0GHz for the small quad-core. It also comes with 2GB of RAM which is sufficient enough for any devices running on Android KitKat or Lollipop. You will also get 16GB of internal space and it is expandable with an external SD card up to 128GB. The graphics are being rendered by Adreno 405 GPU clocking at 550Mhz for a liquid smooth gaming experience.
It comes with a full HD IPS display at 1920 x 1080 resolution and 440ppi. The 5-inch screen is at my favourite and most optimum size for a smartphone display. I don’t like my phone screen to be too large somehow. So 5-inch screen is good for me.
Now the camera on this Archos 50 Diamond is something that I’d like to see. The main shooter is 16-megapixel and the front shooter is 8-megapixel. It is said to be able to produce good quality photos in low light, but that has to be tested first. Need to see the review on that later on. The camera shoots video at the maximum HD resolution at 1080p with 30fps.
This device is also dual SIM enabled. Now what’s better than having a dual SIM capability? How about dual SIM LTE enabled device! Yes, as I understand it, the Archos 50 Diamond supports LTE connectivity on both SIM. How cool is that? Fine, the LTE network in Malaysia is not that good yet but I do get some awesome full signal around places that I frequent. So far I have no problem with my LTE network (thank you Maxis). To support the LTE network, we need a bigger battery. The Archos 50 Diamond comes with 2700mAh battery capacity that can last you the whole day with a full charge. That’s good enough for me.
Some phones will come with their brand’s user interface (UI) or “launchers”. For example, Samsung has Touchwiz, HTC has Sense and OPPO has ColorOS. These launchers are known to carry bloatwares which in time will slow down your smartphone if you don’t know how to maintain it (ie: cleaning junks, cache, etc..). Good news about the Archos 50 Diamond, it comes without any launchers. What you will get is the purest Android experience, similar to Moto X/G and Nexus brands. Without any launchers, your device will run smoothly as how it should.
The Archos 50 Diamond is expected to be in retail before February. I don’t know whether it will be available here in Malaysia or not but I’m hopeful. Retail price is rumoured to be around RM900.
Source of info: Archos.com
