Android accounts for one-quarter of mobile web traffic
Android is mopping up Apple and RIM's declining mobile mindshare in the US, you'll find nothing but corroboration from Quantcast. The analytics firm reckons a full one-quarter of mobile web traffic stateside comes from devices running Google's OS
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Archos released a 7 inch screened device about a year ago that had the same resolution and still got excellent reviews. I agree a higher resolution is always better (and my cell, the Nokia N80 has a higher pixel density than any other cell i know of), but for INEXPENSIVE devices, lower resolutions are a must to keep costs down, like cheap cell phones and mp3 players (like the iPod, which is trash)
Actually, the AV700 was released almost two years ago (5/23/3005) and the screen was generally always considered a negative. Here is a review of the AV700 at Cnet (The related AV500 with a 5" screen and the same resolution received much better reviews).
http://reviews.cnet.com/Archos_AV700_Mobile_DVR_100GB/4505-6499_7-31392977.html
Where they state, "The bad: Expensive; screen looks grainy and washed out". A grainy screen is exactly what you would expect for 7" with this resolution.
By contract, Archos current product the 704 WiFi (the AV700 was discontinued over a year ago, not released as you stated) has a 7" screen resolution of 800x480.
http://www.archos.com/products/video/archos_704wifi/tech_specs.html?country=us&lang=en
Most current MP3 players (iPod, Zune, etc) have QVGA (320x240) in 2.5" to 3" screens. If we were to scale these to 7" size they would be ~640x480, which is not widescreen like the unit in the article but would still be higher resolution nonetheless.
If we are talking GPS, the Garmin Nuvi 670 packs a 4.3" screen with 480x272 resolution. This is roughly same as the Finedrive with in a 1.5" smaller screen, thus having a finer pixel pitch and probably having a sharper look to it.
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=8578&locale=en_US
I understand your comment about keeping costs down, but anyway you cut it this screen will look like crap.