The Archos 5 Internet Tablet was one of the first Google Android powered tablets (read: not a phone) to hit the market. While I was impressed with the low price and excellent multimedia capabilities in my recent review, I was a bit underwhelmed by the overall stability. Hopefully Archos has worked out some of the kinks, because the company has just announced that it’s bringing two new Android-powered tablets to market.
The Archos 7 Home Tablet looks like a larger version of the Archos 5. It features the same media playback capabilities and a similar design. But it has a 7 inch display instead of a 5 inch screen, which should make it a bit more of an iPad competitor than the almost-pocketable Archos 5 Internet tablet.
The Archos 8 is basically a photo frame that runs Google Android, meaning you can set it up to display photos but also tap the screen to bring up a web browser, weather forecast, recipes, or other information depending on your needs.
The Archos 7 is less than 0.5 inches thick and weighs just about 0.77 pounds. Archos says it will get about 7 hours of battery life while playing videos, and 44 hours during music playback. It will be available in Europe in April. A 2GB model will run 149 Euros ($203 US) while an 8GB model will cost 179 Euros ($244 US), making the Archos 7 slightly cheaper than the Archos 5.
The Archos 8 is also less than 0.5 inches thick, and weighs in at about 0.88 pounds. It will hit the streets in May for about 149 Euros with 4GB of storage.
On the down side, both tablets will have 600MHz ARM 9 processors, which means they’ll likely be a bit slower than the already-available Archos 5 Internet Tablet.
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Archos 9 PC Tablet getting 1.2GHz CPU update; capacitive screen & 3G in the works?
In addition to launching new 7 and 8 inch internet tablets, the folks at Archos have also announced plans to give their 9 inch Windows 7 tablet a faster processor. Jkkmobile reports that the new Archos 9 tablet will features a 1.2GHz processor instead of the 1.1GHz Atom Z510 CPU used in current models.
The rest of the specs appear to be staying the same, so it looks like you’re still going to get 1GB of RAM, a 1.8″ 60GB hard drive, 8.9 inch 1024 x 600 pixel resistive touchscreen display, and Windows 7 Starter.
Future upgrades could include a move to a capacitive multitouch display and an optional 3G module.
