This, the beginning of 2010, has already heralded a few announcements of new eBook Readers at CES.  Alex was touted about, the Nook is still back-ordered, Sony has the Daily Edition and more.

I recently picked up the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, so I could use it as an ebook reader.  Well I’ve had it a little under 24 hours and have been very frustrated with it so far.  What this thing can do is LIMITLESS, with android and the Internet..  I thought this could be a contender for any ebook reader.  It’s small, it has an awesome screen.  It has an eBook reader.  It has Multimedia capabilities and WiFi.

My hopes were violently trashed as I tried to setup this device.  First, I could connect to WiFi on my home network, but I couldn’t actually get anywhere.  Due to this fact, I had to download the newest firmware manually and side load it into the device.  The update was easy and no problem have happened there.  With new firmware in hand, I try WiFi again.. Still no network connection, regardless that it has a local IP.

I took this device to work and was FINALLY able to connect to the WiFi network.  Now, mind you, I have another WiFi device sitting right next to it (my iPhone).  Both had a network connection, however the Archos would continually DROP the wifi connection, forcing me to manually reconnect every time.  I was able to get to the Internet, update Appslib (Archos’ Android Marketplace) and download the eBook Reader (Aldiko).  However, 70% of the time (with an active WiFi Connection) I was getting a “Network Error”

Archos 5 Reading a Book

Once I finally got my eBooks on this device, they look wonderful.  I did however have issues of the device just shutting itself off, and having to reboot, clear cache and restart what I was doing.

All the issues I am having with this device is thinking, I should just return this and wait for the Alex, or maybe get the  Nook. The reason I got this device, was that it was the same price as the nook, I thought it would do it all.. but more and more I’m just getting frustrated!

I figure, by the end of this year, I’ll have tried EVERY popular eBook reader, in my futile attempt at the perfect reader.

More to come…