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Archos 8 Home Tablet gets unboxed and examined
We've already gotten our hands on the Archos 7 Home Tablet, but the Archos 8 has been considerably harder to come by, and hasn't made much of a public showing since a brief appearance courtesy of the FCC back in May. The folks at Archos Lounge have now gotten their hands on the bezel tablet, however, and given us our first real look at the device. As you can probably tell from the form factor, this one is primarily designed to be used propped up on a table or a desk, but you can fold away the kickstand and do a bit of bezel-enhanced web browsing if you like. Head on past the break for Archos Lounge's video of both tablets -- en français, of course -- and look for the Archos 8 around the 11:20 mark.
Archos 8 Home Tablet just a 7-inch display according to FCC docs
Get a load of that bezel. With chunk like that we can only be looking at the Archos 8 Home tablet, a device that just lumbered its way through the FCC in a rather unflattering (even for the FCC) photo spread. Archos calls its Model 7800 an Android MID throughout the government docs, but given the bezel-to-display ratio we're guessing it'll pull primary duty as a $199 picture frame with the ability to track down the occasional recipe over WiFi. Other details include the same plodding Rockchip RK2808 SoC found in the Archos 7 Home Tablet and a HSD070IDW1 resistive touchscreen display from Hannstar with 800x480 pixel resolution, 25ms response, 500:1 contrast, 200/300 nits brightness, and poor 140-degree left-right and 110-degree up-down viewing angles -- easy to see where Archos cut out the cost, eh? Oh, and get this, Hannstar says that its display is 7-inches, not 8-inches as Archos claims. Either Archos made a mistake in its FCC submission or the company is hoping to mask reality with that giant plastic border.
Archos announces new line of internet tablets for summer 2010
You thought that the Archos gang were goin' wild with the svelte 7 Home Tablet (and its self-conscious digiframe-esque sibling), but believe us -- the Android funfest is far from over. According to the company, this summer will see the range expand significantly, with new models featuring ARM Cortex processors (up to 1GHz) and "a richer set of features with screen sizes from 3- to 10-inches." One thing that we probably won't be seeing "any time soon," at least according to the kind man we cornered at the Archos booth at CeBIT? An Archos phone. But that's OK -- we don't even know how we'd find time to talk on the phone with all those tomatoes we have to slice. [Thanks, Michael]
Archos 7 and 8 Home Tablets are cheap, but you get what you pay for
Archos has just announced its brand new 7- and 8-inch Home Tablets, which both run Android and cost €149 ($203). For that layout, you'll get a 600MHz ARM 9 processor, which won't be breaking any (positive) records, but the Archos 7 you see above is a very svelte 12mm thin and weighs only 350g, making it an ideal web reading device if not a particularly potent multimedia consumer. You also get WiFi, 2GB of integrated memory on the cheaper versions and a battery that will last for seven hours of video or 44 hours of audio playback. The Archos 8 (pictured after the break) comes with a huge old bezel, hinting at its ability to double up as a picture frame, while sharing the 7's other features, including price and thickness. The smaller device will be coming out in Europe this April, to be followed by its larger sibling in May.
