14 DAY TRIAL // The saga of tablets continues with the emergence of two newcomers on Archos's part, one of which measures 10 inches in diagonal but, like its 7-inch sibling, stick to an older version of Android but also sport a much smaller price that competitors.
One might say that there is a sort of standard on the tablet market, one that dictates the performance parameters a product should meet.
This extends to both the hardware and software, the latter being much easier to update than the former, though problems can arise either way.
In this particular instance, Archos is treating its customers with both types of refreshes, having introduced the Arnova 7 G2 and 10 G2.
Of these, the latter, as one may have already guessed from the name, is the larger model, with a screen diagonal of 10 inches.
In fact, the display has a native resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixels, plus capacitive touch capabilities, though this comes with the territory.
Straight off the bat, it can be easily said that the price of the newcomer is its greatest asset, or will be once availability ramps up, whenever that is.
Simply put, the tag is of HK$1,980 (Hong Kong currency), which is the rough equivalent of $250, a mark that the HP TouchPad, for instance, didn't get close to even after repeated price cuts.
For that much cash, customers will have a 1 GHz ARM Cortez-A8 central processing unit and the Android Gingerbread operating system.
Of course, just because this particular models happens to favor an older version of Android than the 'current' one doesn't mean Archos doesn't offer alternatives.
There exist, in fact, the 80 G9 and the 101 G9, with sizes of 8 inches and 10 inches respectively. They run dual-core chips and Android 3.1 and also stand out through the fact that they feature hard disk drives instead of SSDs, for 250 GB of storage.