Archos Unveils Five Android Tablets, Some Of Them Look Sort Of Awesome [One Of The First Android Tablet Makers Ups The Ante With New And Improved Tablets, Coming This Fall]

Tweet

French manufacturer Archos made their name selling PMP MP3 players. You may recall that for a while, they had iPod-quality MP3 players without the Apple prices. However, Archos doesn’t make phones and they’ve sort of become irrelvant as MP3 players (and digital cameras, for that matter) became merged into mobile phones. Archos, however, has been trying to reinvent themselves with tablets, and they’ve just taken the cover off five new ones.

Archos was one of the first companies to make Android tablets. But, the general consensus from critical and customer reviews is that they are too expensive, too under featured and too slow (along with some weird DRM schemes, like Archos making users pay for codecs to play MKV files). Still, they were the only way to get Android tablets. Facing new competition from the Dell Streak and Samsung Galaxy Tab (and surely countless others), Archos has unveiled five new tablets. How will they stack up?

Archos 28 ($100)

We’ve seen the Archos 28, before, as it was leaked by the FCC some time ago. Our own Steve Andersen calls it a “Minidroid” and it’s more like a MP3 player than a proper tablet (though Archos is calling a tablet). Here at the TFTS offices, we’ve basically surmised that it’s a “Android iPod Touch” in that it’s a pint-sized and cheap way to get in on the Android platform. I don’t know how many of them they’ll sell, though. It has a 2.8-inch screen, 4GB of memory, a 800MHz processor and WiFi. It’ll be out in September.

Archos 32 ($150)

This is very similar to the Archos 28, except it offers a 3.2-inch screen and improved storage, now coming in at 8GB. This puts it close to the “middle-range” smartphone sizes and this one is probably more desirable of the two pint-sized Archos ‘tablets’. In addition, it also can record in 720p. It’s also coming this month.

Archos 43 ($200)

This one is really interesting too. It’s 4.3-inches (as you may have guessed), which puts it in the Dell Streak, HTC EVO 4G and Motorola Droid X’s neck of the woods. However, unlike those devices, it can’t make phone calls and has compelling pricing (unlike the Dell Streak, which is priced like a smartphone). It’s got a 1GHz processor, camera and 8GB of storage. It’s coming this month too.

Archos 70 ($275)

Probably the first tablet you’d actually want to use. This thing will go up against the Samsung Galxay Tablet and probably attract iPad buyers because of it’s low price. It has a front-facing camera, 8GB of storage, and can play a ton of video formats (hopefully, without having to buy codecs for $15 from Archos). It also has HDMI out and a beefy 1GHz processor. This is probably our favorite one at this point.

Archos 101 ($300)

As CrunchGear writes, they should of just called this one “Our iPad”. It’s offering the same internal specs (1GHz processor) as the 70, but with the bigger screen. In fact, it’s very similar to the 70 with the exception of the bigger 10.1-inch screen. And to be honest, an extra $25 for an extra 3-inches really isn’t bad, though the portability of the 7-incher is hard to beat.

Some of us here at the TFTS offices are really excited by these new Archos tablets, but we’re concerned about the poor reviews of their earlier tablet attempts. They are all running Android 2.2 – which is quite the feat considering most Android phones aren’t doing that. What do you think? Tell us about it in the comments section.