[section_title title=”Usability”]Usability
To test the usability of the Archos 40 Titanium, I used it for a day in place of my Samsung Galaxy S4 for every day duties including Skype, making/receiving calls and general web browsing. Now obviously I won’t be comparing it a £500 smartphone because that would simply be unfair but for those looking for a bang for buck option, this phone certain has the specs of a phone that outweighs its price range.
Starting with one of the main aspects of usability on a smartphone with a touchscreen. I wasn’t blown away but it does work quite well. It is pretty responsive but I did have issues with the accuracy when using the on screen keyboard when typing messages/websites etc. I do have rather large fingers so it could be that, but everything else seemed ok.
Touching more on the accuracy of the 40 Titanium, I decided to try Angry Birds out which is obviously a legendary game, but it does require accuracy to play properly. I do have to report that it was actually really good and I had no problems with accuracy and there wasn’t any screen lag to note. Obviously it will run a little faster on a more powerful phone and tablet but for a £130 smartphone, there is nothing untoward here.
One of the issues I did have was a bit of lag when the smartphone was pushed to its limit; that wasn’t much given its dual core 1.3GHz processor but I have to mention that this phone was never going to break any records in terms of performance as is what I would class as an affordable option for those wanting to own a latest smartphone without a £400-500 price tag.
Moving onto the camera, as previously mentioned it is a rather standard phone camera and is equal in my opinion to the Nokia Lumia 820 which is also around the same price point. The quality was average to say the least and if you are looking for a good phone with a nifty camera, you might have to look elsewhere but for those taking quick random snaps shouldn’t be disappointed.
One improvement over the 50 Platinum we tested was the ability to be able to reboot the phone as opposed to switching it on and off again. Might sound small but it is quite handy, especially if you have an application which refuses to close or locks up your interface.
Bundled with the Archos 40 Titanium is Androids operating system 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) which isn’t the latest but works very well given the phones spec. The 800×480 resolution works well and isn’t high spec by any means but as the format is wide RGB, the screen is pretty wide. This was good for my fingers but again, the on-board equipped keyboard was horrible for me to use and wasn’t accurate at all. This is probably attributed to my large fingers and if you have large hands, you would probably be better off with a phone with a slightly larger screen. Or you could of course download a custom keyboard for the phone yourself.
Now it’s time to run some benchmarks and see how the Archos 40 Titanium fares against other mobile/tablets we have tested…
