My Thought Process
So I wanted a device to throw in my backpack while I'm traveling which I could backup my photos to that was on the smaller side. I looked at the standalone devices by Wolverine, Digital Foci, Sanho, Nexto, Epson, etc. but they were either pretty expensive, low on capacity or unreliable as per product reviews.
This got me thinking about what other kind of devices would do the same function. Ideally I just wanted an SD reader/device that could copy files directly to an external hard drive but it looks like the ones that did exist are either no longer sold or would possibly be incompatible with current drives.
I know that a netbook would be the next suggestion but I would be hiking with this and I wanted the absolute smallest and lightest device that I could find. Especially something without a large power brick and battery.
I even thought about tablets, Android and iOS with SD card slots but flash memory is more expensive and most of them (iOS don't have any slots I believe) only read micro SD which in most cases is slower or more expensive than regular SD memory.
I started searching for Android devices with hard drives and the only devices that came up were Archos tablets with 80, 160, 250 and 500GB drives. They were from around 2010 and usually with Android 2.2 (Froyo). Thankfully they featured USB host mode so that you could hook the tablet up to card readers, cameras and keyboards but the compatibility (there are lists on the ArchosFans Forum
) was sporadic so I was hesitant.
I took a gamble and bought the Archos 70 250GB from ebay, new, sealed, in box for ~$150. This seemed like a much better price than the dedicated devices that were selling for hundreds of dollars. In my case this is more for piece of mind since I'm not currently shooting for clients so price was a huge factor in my decision.
The Archos 70 250GB Internet Tablet
250GB internal drive
Supports USB host mode (cable required C&E CNE16187 Micro USB OTG to USB 2.0 Adapter)
Mini HDMI out (cable required niceEshop(TM) Mini HDMI(Type C) Male To HDMI(Type A) Female Adapter Connector Cable -1.5FT/0.5M)
Android 2.2 (Froyo)
7" 800x480 resolution
As far as using it as a standalone tablet, I would go a different direction. There are a lot of apps still supported in 2.2 but this Archos is not the most responsive device. It doesn't come with access to the Google Play Store by default but you can download Arctools from the Archos AppsLib which will allow you to install the Play Store and opens the tablet up to all froyo supported apps. Also in order to utilize the full advertised speed of the processor you need to go to Settings | About device | Power management | Power management mode | Overdrive
This screen was a relief to see as I had read a post that said the tablet could see the camera's storage but not the files
