Archos has pulled back the curtain to reveal what's claimed to be the first touchscreen Android netbook, the ArcBook. Designed for students and mobile workers, the wallet-friendly portable workhorse features a 10-inch screen, a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex processor and a battery that promises to keep going long after the school day or shift is over.
The cheap and cheerful ArcBook comes with a 10.1-inch touchscreen display at 1024 x 600 resolution, but can handle Full HD playback at 30 fps, a full-sized QWERTY keyboard and trackpad, and runs Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). It's Google-certified, which means full access to the Play store, and comes preinstalled with Office Suite Pro 6, allowing users to create and edit MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint files as well as view documents in the PDF format.
Powering the portable productivity is a 1.2 GHz RK3168 dual-core processor, backed up by 1 GB of RAM and just 8 GB of built-in solid state storage, but users get a microSD slot and 15 GB of free Google Drive cloud storage to sweeten the deal. According to Archos, users can look forward to 10 hours of continuous use from its 8000 mAh Li-Pol battery between charges.
There's a full-sized USB 2.0 port, two micro-USB ports and Wi-Fi connectivity is mentioned, but no Bluetooth. Being from Archos, audio format support is good and includes MP3, WAV, AAC, OGG Vorbis and FLAC.
OK, so they're not the most jaw-dropping of specs, but what do you expect for a US$169.99 price tag? The ArcBook is set to hit the stores in June.
Product page: ArcBook
Archos has pulled back the curtain to reveal what's claimed to be the first touchscreen Android netbook, the ArcBook. Designed for students and mobile workers, the wallet-friendly portable workhorse features a 10-inch screen, a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex processor and a battery that promises to keep going long after the school day or shift is over.
The cheap and cheerful ArcBook comes with a 10.1-inch touchscreen display at 1024 x 600 resolution, but can handle Full HD playback at 30 fps, a full-sized QWERTY keyboard and trackpad, and runs Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). It's Google-certified, which means full access to the Play store, and comes preinstalled with Office Suite Pro 6, allowing users to create and edit MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint files as well as view documents in the PDF format.
Powering the portable productivity is a 1.2 GHz RK3168 dual-core processor, backed up by 1 GB of RAM and just 8 GB of built-in solid state storage, but users get a microSD slot and 15 GB of free Google Drive cloud storage to sweeten the deal. According to Archos, users can look forward to 10 hours of continuous use from its 8000 mAh Li-Pol battery between charges.
There's a full-sized USB 2.0 port, two micro-USB ports and Wi-Fi connectivity is mentioned, but no Bluetooth. Being from Archos, audio format support is good and includes MP3, WAV, AAC, OGG Vorbis and FLAC.
OK, so they're not the most jaw-dropping of specs, but what do you expect for a US$169.99 price tag? The ArcBook is set to hit the stores in June.
Product page: ArcBook
On the other hand, there is no "Full HD" playback because there is no "Full HD" screen and no HDMI out. I imagine it will do well playing back video at "600p" though.
Lack of KitKat is a bad, bad sign, though, and would probably make this a non-starter if I were in the market for such a device.