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Review: Archos 50 Helium 4G

archos-50-helium-android-4g-3-52c5d50e74dae

Sadly we’re a bit late on this one. The Archos 50 Helium 4G seems to have been replaced by the 50b, which offers pretty much the same specs as this, but with KitKat instead of Jelly Bean. Anyway, the Archos 50 Helium 4G is another one of Archos’s Android offerings, in the low to midrange price, giving you a clean Android interface, with a quad core CPU, SD card expansion, a 5″ screen and best of all, 4G speeds.

Quick look at the specs:

  • 5″ screen, IPS LCD, 720 x 1280 pixels, 294ppi
  • QuadCore 1.2GHz Cortex A7
  • microSD up to 32GB
  • 8GB Internal memory, 1GB RAM
  • 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera
  • LTE/4G enabled
  • Android Jellybean 4.3 (no skins)
  • 2000mAh battery

Look and feel

It is hard to make an Android phone stand out these days. You either go all metallic, or stick to what most people do, a soft, rubberised, black phone. Archos have stuck to that with this one, though it isn’t quite easy to mix up with all of them.

The front shows the Archos logo, the screen and the front camera, while the back shows off the rear camera. Power button on the right, volume on the left, 3.5mm on top and micro USB on the bottom. Take the back off, and you can see the camera, and slots for microSD and your SIM. Unlike other Archos phones that we have seen, this one only holds one SIM in.

Overall, the feel is quite good. At 160g, it feels good and solid in hand, while the finish on the back means this isn’t too slippery. All in all, a good job.

The experience

This phone has been a bit frustrating for me. Why? It has been good, but it always leave a little bit to be desired. For example, a clean Android experience makes the usage simple, but the slow processor and RAM mean that the performance is just not smooth enough. While there is no major lag in your day to day usage, it can be slow in a very noticeable way at times, which is not fun. Close, but no cigar with this one. However, this is what you get with what comes packed with this, so can’t complain much.

A similar story with the camera as well. It works, works well, but don’t expect many wow moments with the results you get.

More information

While the link to the 50 Helium 4G doesn’t seem to be working any more, it is here anyway, as a cached page from Google:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jvf9JIZE5VkJ:www.archos.com/gb/products/smartphones/helium/archos_50helium/index.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

The replacement, the 50b, with dual SIM ability and Kitkat, can be found at this link:

http://www.archos.com/gb/products/smartphones/helium/archos_50bhelium/index.html

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