ARCHOS has confirmed release dates and pricing for its new breed of G9 Android Tablets, which hold the promise of satisfying mobile storage junkies thanks to spacious HDD options being available. The only change to the specs announced in June is that the new ARCHOS tablets will launch with Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) instead of 3.1.
ARCHOS says that pre-sale of the 8-inch, 1024 x 768 pixel resolution, 1 GHz ARM dual-core CORTEX A9 OMAP 4 processor version of its third generation ARCHOS 80 tablet with 8GB flash storage will start online from September 20. This will be followed with worldwide availability through outlets (including HH Gregg, Amazon, Newegg, Tiger Direct, Brandsmart and Electronic Express) from September 30. This flavor is priced at a suggested retail of US$299.
Come October, the 1.5GHz Turbo edition with 16GB flash storage will be made available for US$329, as will the version featuring a 250GB Seagate Momentus Thin HDD with an intelligent caching system that makes use of 4GB of dedicated flash memory to help speed up data access. The latter will cost US$369.
The larger ARCHOS 101 - with a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 pixel resolution display - will also be available from October in two versions. The 16GB flash storage/1.5 GHz processor model will cost US$399, while its 250GB HDD/1.5GHz processor sibling is priced at US$469.
Both media tablets offer AVI, MP4, MOV, 3GP, MPG, PS, TS, VOB, MKV, FLV, RM, RMVB, and ASF video format support, and can handle MP3, WAV (PCM/ADPCM), AAC3, AAC+ 5.13, OGG Vorbis and FLAC audio formats as well as the popular image formats. The Lithium Polymer battery is said to offer up to 36 hours of music playback, 7 hours of video or 10 hours of online enjoyment before needing some attention and the devices come preloaded with Google mobile applications like Google Talk with video chat, Gmail, Google Maps with Street View and Navigation (beta) and Google Calendar.
Even though the Android tablet market is becoming very crowded, I have to confess that I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the new G9's - particularly the capacious storage models.
