Weston Reviews

This is my full review of the Archos 52 Platinum Smartphone. But before I start I would like to thank Harvard PR UK and Archos for making this review happen.

Unboxing

The 52 Platinum has a very simple and quite understated box, especially in comparison to the rather bold 50 Diamond offering.

On the front you get a white background and two tone grey accent strip on the side. This features a modernist shape design, it’s not over the top or anything but it adds an extra dimension to the aesthetic.

In the grey band you'll also notice there is a short list of the phones specs. Top left of the box is the Archos logo finished in a dark grey which is a nice contrast to the white. The middle of the box displays the phone and at the bottom you get some more information about the phone.

Front

The left side features the same spec list as the front, the right shows a side profile picture of the phone and round the back has some more images of the phone and another list of technical specifications. All in all, it’s a nice and understated box.

Side

Back

In the box you get your phone, an array of manuals, a USB cable and some included earphones. Inside the box it’s quite nicely presented with all the accessories in their own little section of the box. Yes it might not be exciting but it’s one of the nicer presented boxes I've seen for a phone at this price.

Accessories

Design and In-hand

The design of the Platinum is pretty nice, its nothing really revolutionary but its not an unattractive phone by any means. The front of the phone sports a front facing camera, earpiece, LED notification light and sensors at the top.
Also to note, there is a small gap in-between the glass and the top of the phone, its not massive but its just big enough to get stuff in it, but its a pain to get out.

The middle is taken up by a very large 5.25" display and at the bottom you have a set of capacitive keys, but more on those later. The screen is a real finger print magnet and I know most screens are, but this one is particularly bad and takes often cleaning to keep it looking fresh. You could probably get a screen protector for it, but as this is a review unit I haven't been able to do that.
Also on the front there is a small hole which I can strongly say is the primary mic for voice calls, as there isn't one anywhere else. Its a slightly odd placement but I haven't noticed any issues with it.
The bezels around the screen are about average for a phone at this price, they certainly aren't the thinnest but they aren't overly thick either. The portions of the top and bottom of the phone are decent too, there aren't overly massive or too small and the provide easily enough room to hold the phone in landscape with no issues.
Round the edge of the phone is a curved surround, it looks like a metal band but its actually plastic. At first glance you'd think it was metal and I think it adds a certain premium feel to the phone.

Front panel

Front top

The left side of the phone is completely clear, the right side features the nicely placed power on/off and volume controls. They are the wrong way round from my regular daily phone but this was easy to adapt too after after a few days. Like I said the buttons are nicely located and are very easy to press during one handed use. They have a glossy like appearance to them and they are finished in a different material to the rest of the phone.

Volume and Power buttons

On the top all you'll find is the solitary 3.5mm audio jack which in my opinion is the best place to locate this port. And its here that you'll also see the difference between the matte black back cover and the metallic looking band. At the bottom is a off centre micro USB port, which is a little odd to me, but to be honest it made no difference to my use whatsoever. Also on the bottom is a small cut out so you can easily remove the back cover. A nice touch when so many other phones with removable covers are a pain, this is very easy.

3.5mm jack

Round the back we have the camera which just so ever so slightly protrudes from the back. Next to the camera is a single circular LED flash. In the top middle we have a Archos logo finished off in a slightly silver greyish finish. Its not full silver or grey but a sort of mix of the two.
The bottom portion of the phone has a rather unusual ridged pattern in it. It actually looks really nice and adds a fair amount of grip to the phone.
The back panel is removable and is finished off in a soft touch matte black. This looks very nice but it attracts so much dirt and it just makes the phone look dirty all the time. Its fairly easy to clean, but if your hands or greasy or sweaty its much harder to get rid off.
So if your like me and you want your phone to look clean all the time, it'll either need a case or constant cleaning. Its a shame because it feels so nice in the hand.
Finally on the back, in the left corner you'll see a small cut out for the main mono speaker.

Rear panel

Rear pattern and speaker

The Platinum measures in at 150mm tall, 76.8mm wide and 8.8mm thick. Its actually not too much bigger than the Archos 50 Diamond or 2014 Moto G. In the hand it feels pretty nice, it is a little (only a touch) too big for me as the Moto G is about the perfect size. But after a while it started to feel pretty good, you do notice the extra width at first, but like I said after a few days use it felt normal. Its still highly possible to use the phone one handed. I did however notice I had to shuffle my hand a bit more than I did with the Moto, to use the full extent of the phone.
The phone is pretty comfortable to use, this is thanks to the slightly curved edges which just make it that bit nicer to use. To be honest when I got the phone and saw it had a 5.25" screen I was a bit skeptical as 5" is about the perfect size. But after two and a bit weeks use, I have to be honest and says it feels pretty great.
Its no Moto G though in terms of comfort to use, but for its size its easy to handle and comfortable.

In hand

The back cover only adds to the experience as the soft touch finish feels great and makes the phone much more pleasurable to use. The only thing to bare in mind that is if you have smaller than average hands it might be a bit trickier to use than a smaller phone. If you want to get a feel for the phone first try a LG G4 in store as that is pretty much identical in terms of size. Yes I know its not the same, but just see if you can comfortably hold the G4 and if you can you will more than likely be okay with this one.

Overall in terms of design and feel in the hand I am impressed with Platinum and its one of the nicer budget orientated phones that I have have dealt with.

Build

The build is actually pretty good apart from one minor issue. The front panel is primarily glass apart from the cutout for the earpiece. The panel feels quite nice, not sure if it is gorilla glass as I can't find any information to say if it is or isn't. But if feels good regardless.

Front panel

The sides of the phone are plastic and like I mentioned look a little like faux metal. The buttons are smooth and are again plastic. This doesn't really detract from the overall quality and also as another bonus they feel pretty great to press too. They aren't mushy and have a nice tactile feel when pressed.

Side

The back panel is reassuringly solid and has no visible flex in it. The panel is plastic and finished off in a soft touch plastic coating. Though its a magnet for dirt, it feels really great. The fit and finish around the camera module and flash are impressive too. As is the cutout for the 3.5mm jack.

Back panel

Now to the issue, the area around the USB and the back removal portion isn't the nicest of things. There is a slight gap around the USB port and the back cover on the right side doesn't seem to close properly. Maybe it was damaged or a slight fault but its something that needed reporting as it may not be a one off.

USB

But as a whole the phone is well made and it feels great in use. I can't see it breaking any time soon and taking everything into account, even with the small issue, its still a solidly built phone for the money.

Screen

The 5.25" screen is actually pretty nice, I was expecting the 720p IPS panel to be pretty bad as it only has a PPI of 280. But that was not the case at all.
The panel is actually very nice, colours are well colourful and don't look dull, yet they don't quite pop like an AMOLED screen. Colour production is nice and I haven't noticed any yellow or blue hues.This means whites look white and blacks look black, whereas some phones have a yellow or blue tinge making whites look yellowish and blacks less inky. One thing I have noticed is Archos seems to really make red stand out, I first noticed it on the 50 Diamond and its the same here too. In some cases it looks great, but other times it can make pinks look more red than they are.
Another slight omission is the absence of the screen colour profile, which means you're stuck with how its set. In my opinion that isn't a bad thing, but it would have been a nice addition.

720p screen

Text looks sharp and even fully zoomed in you'll not notice rough edges unless you are looking for them, or the source isn't high quality. This means that web browsing is a breeze as text can easily be zoomed in on with no issues.

UI close up

Web text

Visibility outdoors is good, it actually fairs better than the 50 Diamond in this respect. The screen is very easy to read, apart from when hit by direct sunlight. The screen is slightly reflective, but not as bad as some other phones I have used.
As a bonus the screen goes pretty bright too, which is a bonus when outdoors. On the downside the screen doesn't dim too much which means night reading isn't that great but nor is it bad. I mean its not so bright that its startling, its just a little too bright.

Outdoor visibility

Viewing media is pretty great, the only way it would be better is if it was 1080p. The screens size make general tasks like viewing photos, watching videos, gaming and web browsing easy. Like previously mentioned the colours are pretty accurate too, so your going to see the same image (nearly) as when it was captured.

Archos Platinum web page

Max zoom on text

Flower macro

All the photos were taken by the Archos and I have to say viewing them back was a good experience.

You can just see how vibrant and how much the pink pops from the screen. But you'll also notice its slightly more red than it was in reality.
To note I did zoom the image to show you more of the flower.

White flower

Honda bike

The white flower looks really nice, the camera didn't pick up much detail as the flow was bright. The grass though looks really nice and again portrayed pretty accurately.

Flower garden

The Honda bike again pops, with the red finish of the paint becoming the main focal point. But on closer inspection you can see the silver detailing looks pretty impressive on the screen too.
The colours in the background are nicely portrayed too and shown to be almost like they were on the day the photo was taken.

The flower garden is again pretty good, the picture does have a little too much saturation but the screen hasn't increased or reduced this.
But in my opinion it looks good.

You may not be a fan of overblown saturation, but that's only shown because that's how the pictures turned out.The screen is actually displaying the images really well.

Viewing angles are pretty average and I did notice a slight colour hue when turned. This is a slight yellowish tinge to the display.
This like I said isn't visible when viewed straight on but when at an angle it becomes visible. Its not really noticeable during everyday use, but if you are sharing the phone with someone else it may be more pronounced.

The image below is a sample of the viewing angle and the slight discoloration I mentioned. Bare in mind the image doesn't do the phone justice and it has made it look worse than it is. In reality the screen is much clearer, and the colours are much better than the picture displays.

Viewing angle

One thing I has noticed is the screen isn't as responsive as others I've used, I've noticed sometimes when you touch to open an app or select something it occasionally doesn't activate. I also noticed it in games such as Smove, where you need a really responsive screen to move quickly. Its not lag, it just seems to have a slight delay sometimes. Its not a deal breaker but it was worth noting.

The off screen keys are finished off in white are even visible in bright light, as a bonus they illuminate when pressed too. This makes them even easier to see, especially using them in a darker environment.

Off screen keys

User Interface

Well not much can be said here, the Platinum is running pretty much stock Android KitKat version 4.4.2. So if you've experienced stock KitKat it will be a very similar experience. There are a few included manufacturer apps like Archos remote, Archos video, FM radio and Media server. Some of which I didn't use, but not exactly what you'd call bloatware. And thats why I like Archos, they only add what they think you'll find useful and don't throw loads of unnecessary apps at you. Especially when space is a not that high to begin with.

The only addition that I have noticed that is different is the audio profiles settings. Its nothing bad and its actually in a convenient place. Its located in the pull down menu and makes switching between audio profiles so much easier than having to root through all the settings.

Settings

Another thing I noticed, that I have never seen on any other is the notification on the lock screen. Usually you get a snippet of what the notification is and which app its from. Here you get an Icon to let you know which app it is and the number of notifications from that app. Unusually though I've only had notifications from texts or missed calls and never apps like Twitter or Google+.
Another thing I like is the ability to set specific audio profiles and then customise them to suit your needs, its not an uncommon thing but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Notifications, audio profiles and the KitKat logo

The UI as a whole though is just as smooth as stock KitKat and I have no complaints about it all. Everything just works and works well, just as a Nexus or Motorola device would.

Hardware and Specs

The Platinum has a dual sim slot, one for Nano sims and one for Micro sims. So if you are a business user or need a sim card for abroad then this has you covered.
Under the back there is also a SD card slot for cards up to 64GB, well as long as the card is formatted to the fat32 standard.
This addition is a must as you only get approximately 5GB to use from the 8GB onboard, which as you may know fills up pretty quickly with apps, photos, videos and music.

Sim slot and SD card slot

The 52 Platinum also has a user replaceable 1750mAh battery. This is a real bonus as we all know how much batteries suffer at the hands of increasing power and screen resolutions.

Removable battery

The Platinums specs are as follows

MediaTek MT6582 Quad core CPU (4 cores at 1.3GHz)

Mali 400MP2 GPU

1GB ram

8GB on board (5.5GB usable)

SD card exapansion up to 64GB (if fortmatted to fat32 standard)

5.25 inch 720p IPS display

280PPI

8mp rear camera (Autofocus and LED flash)

2mp front camera

Video capture 1080p

1750mAh removable battery

Android 4.4 KitKat

Dual sim (1 Micro and 1 Nano)

SD card slot

WIFI

Bluetooth

SIM 1 (3G/2G)

SIM 2 (2G only)

Dimensions 150mm x 76.8mm x 8.8mm

Weight 161g

To see the full list check here http://www.archos.com/platinum/archos_52platinum/specs

Performance

So how do those specs effect performance, well to be honest its decent. The general UI flows pretty smoothly with no noticeable lag, the Platinum also isn't too bad at multitasking. It switches through loaded apps pretty quickly and smoothly. This probably due to the lack of a heavy skin weighing it down.
The only issue is that loading an app from the start takes a little bit longer than I'm used to with the similarly specced Moto G. This isn't really an major issue and for the average person who will buy this phone, the slight extra loading time won't be an issue. I mean its not so slow that's its unbearable, it's just when you are used to faster phones, you do tend to notice the difference in loading times.
Gaming on the phone is another slight let down too. I mean it will play less demanding titles like Smove, Spider Square and Snake King. With more demanding games like Asphalt 8 it struggled, delivering a choppy experience, with quite a bit of lag and frame drops. It seems odd as the Moto G with similar specs copes fine with more demanding games.

Lets take a look at some benchmarks and see what they can tell us about the phone.
Starting off with Geekbench 3 you can see the Platinums Single core score is about on a par with the Moto G and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus from 2011. Its fairs a little better in the Multi core being more comparable to the Nexus 7 and Moto G gen.
Compare this to the Moto G 2014s score of 341 Single core and 1147 Multi core and it oddly scores slightly but in use it doesn't quite compare to the speed of the Moto. This maybe the effect of the more efficient Android Lollipop in comparison to KitKat, thus giving the Moto the edge, but if both phones had Lollipop then things maybe different.

Geekbench

Up next is Antutu. So from the image you can see it didn't score too bad, is overall puts it under the Xiaomi MI 2, which is okay. Yes fair enough its not a huger score but it isn't the worst score I've seen either. The Moto G 2014 scored 18494, which is significantly higher and probably why its better at gaming. Well that and a more efficient UI.

Antutu

I think the addition of 2GB ram would have been much better and made the experience much nicer but 1GB is just about usuable on a day to day basis, unless you are a power user. And if it gets upgraded to Lollipop the experience will probably be much smoother.

Battery

With a 1750mAh battery the Platinum doesn't have the largest capacity and to be honest it shows. I was getting a days use, well most of the time. The most I managed to eek out of the battery was just over 1 full day with a screen on time of just over 3hrs 25mins. That was achieved with a very light use day, with only calls, social media, emails and a bit of YouTube. For some reason though none of the apps showed up. Usually at least Twitter or YouTube do but during my time with the phone they never appeared.
This day isn't bad, but I only ever achieved this once during my review time. I think the 720p screen helps, but the phone idling state and Cell standby really don't.

Better than avg

Now if a more typical day of use, with a bit of web browsing, light gaming, YouTube, social media, calls and email. A normal day really. Here it managed just over 18hrs with a screen on time of almost 2hrs 29mins. This is about the average I got during my time with the phone and is very achievable.

About avg

Both shots were taken as soon as the phone reached 15%, which is when the phone indicates you need to charge. Also to note the screen was set at 50% brightness during battery tests. I used 50% as it was easy to indoors and outdoors too. If you crank the brightness up the battery will drain faster and also your phone will differ to mine. So you maybe able to get better results than I did.

Connectivity

The Platinum doesn't have NFC or 4G like its sibling but it does have the usual 3G, Bluetooth and WIFI which I use most often, so that wasn't an issue for me, but if you are looking for NFC and 4G, then this doesn't offer that.

So 3G on EE was fine and I don't have any complaints about dropped calls or poor signal. The Bluetooth works smoothly and without fault too. My only issue is the WIFI, its not slow to connect but once you are connected its pretty terrible. I noticed when I was trying to load a YouTube video it took ages to buffer and then continued to buffer every two or so minutes. Now I thought it was just my home network but I then tried loading the same video on the Moto and it was fine.
This didn't just happen once either it was a pretty common occurrence. It was only YouTube that suffered, apps like Twitter, Instagram and Google+ took ages to load as well. Whereas the Moto G just breezed. This wasn't a performance issue, but it seems the wireless chip is very inefficient. But maybe that is just me being unlucky and having this as I haven't read any other reports of this happening. So maybe its just a one off?
I did think it was worth mentioning though as it was part of the experience when using the phone.

Call quality isn't that impressive, the earpiece is so quiet its almost inaudible, I did notice a similar problem with 50 Diamond but not to this extent. I did try this with different phones, these were a Moto G, Motorola Razr i, Samsung Galaxy S5 and my house phone too. Just to try to diagnose why it was like this. It wasn't a signal issue as its pretty solid and stable where I live. That's why I thought it could possibly be other phones, but it wasn't. This lead me to the conclusion that is possibly a hardware or software related issue.
All this meant that to use the phone for calls I had to resort to the inbuilt mic and loudspeaker or my headphones. Luckily the loudspeaker and mic are adequate but that isn't really ideal as you wouldn't want to use the loudspeaker in a public place.

Call quality

Camera

The camera app is pretty stripped back and minimal, it does have few nice features like beauty mode, Panorama and time lapse. Other than that it has a normal shooting mode, a live view mode or video.

The screens below show you what the app looks like. You can see that you do have a fir amount of options to tweak the settings and style of your photos. Unfortunately I haven't seen HDR in the settings which is a bit of shame, but yet not majorly necessary to get good photos.

Camera app

The left image below shows you the video settings, yes there aren't many but being able to shoot timelapases is a big bonus in my opinion. The only issue I've found is the quality settings, instead of the resolution you get either Fine, High, Medium or Low. A little bit odd in my opinion as I am used to being able to see what resolution I am shooting in.
The image on the right shows the rest of the interface. The top bar allows you to change between the different shooting modes, the settings are bottom left and in the right corner near the bottom you can operate the flash settings or switch to the front 2mp camera.

Video settings and modes

The 8mp camera is actually not that bad. Its more than capable of getting good shots for social media and the web, but with 8mp you don't really get much room to crop the image before losing detail. Shots come in at a resolution of 3840 x 2160, which is a good size but like I said if you crop or zoom the images quickly loose detail and become fuzzy.
On the plus size image size is pretty low too, with an average of under 2mb you can easily share photos via email, or upload them to social media pretty quickly.

Indoor shots are not that impressive. In poor light they suffer really badly. The rear of both images if full of noise and isn't that sharp, on the plus side the colours are fairly nice and have remained pretty close to what it actually looks like. You'll also notice how soft the images appear as the camera appears to have reduced the sharpness.
The top image is utilizing the flash, but its only really worked in one area and not provided much coverage. The ISO was 170 for this shot. The purple on Jokers jacket is almost spot on, his green hair is a bit brighter and the red is almost there too. Batman looks pretty decent too, with only a bit of flash glare on the logo.
The bottom shot has no flash and is even more full of noise, with it even more prominent in the background and the foreground. Its pretty clear the flash has not done too bad at making the image look better. The ISO was 323 for this one.

Flash on

Flash off

If you have better light then the images look much better. The below image was taken in an area with more natural light and you can see the vast improvement. The colours look much more vivid and the background noise has gone. ISO was automatically set to 100 for this shot.

More natural light

The camera focuses pretty quickly via touch to focus and there is minimal shutter delay or time taken between taking a shot and it saving.
The auto-focus isn't brilliant and most of the time I relied on touch to focus. This works well and is very simple to use. The macro capabilities are not too bad either. I know it isn't as good a a proper camera, but the minimum focusing distance is much closer than my camera can achieve.

Flower macro

The images are very colourful. Speaking of colour, the reproduction is fairly accurate and natural too, shots look fairly vivid but never too overblown with contrast or saturation. It doesn't seem to suffer as much as the Diamond 50 with exposure either. It does and can sometimes overexpose, but never to the extent of the Diamond.

Butterfly

Statue

Vivid pink flowers

Padlock

Bench

Honda C72 Dream Touring

Overall I am very impressed with the camera, oddly it seems more capable than the Diamond 50 which is £50 more. Its capable of producing good shots both indoors and outdoors as long as you have a decent light source. Also bare in mind these shots were taken in auto mode, so play with the settings and you may even be able to squeeze even more from the camera.

Sound

The quality of the audio via the 3.5mm jack is fairly good, its easily on a par with the more expensive 50 Diamond and just lagging behind the Moto G.
The volume is actually a fair bit louder than the 50 Diamond too. The quality is pretty impressive, it produces fairly deep and clean bass, a clear mid range, decent vocals and average highs. This was tested on the same headphones as the Moto and the 50 Diamond to keep things fair.
The only issue with the sound is the volume, its very odd. The first 3/4 of the volume it barely increases at all, but the first step after 3/4 and it jumps to very loud. Its very odd as I have never experienced this as phones usally have a fairly linear increase in volume. This means that its either quietish or loud, with no sort of happy medium.

Archos and Philips Fidelio M1

The rear speaker is fairly loud, its not the highest of quality but its pretty decent for just general media consumption, YouTube and occasionally music if you have no other speaker or headphones to hand. If you want a demo of the rear speaker watch my video review on YouTube.

Speaker

Summary

For a phone costing £129.99 I am impressed, yes it has its minor issues but its not at all. I like the scree, the camera is fairly impressive, the stock UI is great and its nicely designed and built. Yes I know it has small build quality issue, the battery life isn't the greatest and the performance left a lot to be desired. But as an overall package its not bad at all.

Is it the best budget smartphone?.... no but then it was never trying to be. What it is, is a well priced phone that has its quirks and is just a good phone for the money. My suggestion for it would be for someone who values a good media experience for not a lot of money.

Get one here http://www.archos.com/gb/store/index.
Check out the YouTube review http://youtu.be/_GUWNyV3ab0

Again thanks to Archos and Harvard PR for sending this out. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Weston Reviews

Thursday 15 June 2017

Moved site

Monday 12 October 2015

PicoWAN collaborative network

Sunday 26 July 2015

Archos 52 Platinum detailed review

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