Price is coming down in the US on the 32GB Archos 5:

http://dealnews.com/Archos-5-32-GB-5...ng/377378.html

Can anyone link to anything from the company saying they're going to take this tablet to Android 2.0, 2.1, or 2.2?

I'm excited by Android, but at the same time I won't spend 300 bucks on a machine that is instantly outdated. I mean it has a nice wiki at http://wiki.archosfans.com/index.php?title=Main_Page but I need to feel this thing will have some legs.

I don't particularly mind the device's dual identity as a custom-firmware media player with its own codecs -- these things aren't free on any platform -- as long as the Android OS can keep up.

The Open Development part of the forum for the device doesn't really apply either because while they can build a custom boot of 2.0 or whatever, they can't build the software support for the media playback.

And to go on the record, I'd pay a nominal fee for a full point release of Android for it if it gave me access to subsequent point releases. E.g. $20 for 2.0 that would get me all 2.x releases, another $20 for 3.0. I know development isn't free.