14 DAY TRIAL // We wish we could say that there will soon be a new Archos Android tablet up for order, but that isn't exactly true. The Archos 101 XS, despite having just been formally unleashed, won't be shipping until November 2012.
When it does finally go up for sale though, the item will bear a price of $399.99, or 318.99 Euro in Europe, assuming exchange rates have any bearing. Since they normally don't, we are betting on 370-399 Euro instead.
That's $100 / 100 Euro below the iPad and most of its rivals, especially Tegra 3-powered slates.
On the flip side, it is a lot more than the $199 / 199 Euro that Microsoft is expected to want in exchange for its Windows RT (Windows 8 on ARM) Surface slate, bound for October, a full month earlier than Archos' device.
Archos might have set up the launch date in November on purpose, to see if there was anything major it should change about its creation, or if it needs to seriously reduce the price.
That said, the hardware of the product, centered around a Texas Instruments SoC, is nothing to scoff at.
The CPU is a Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 with two 1.9 GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores and integrated PowerVR SGX544 GPU (3D OpenGL ES 2.0).
1 GB of RAM backs it up, along with 16 GB of built-in flash storage, plus up to 128 GB with a microSD in the memory card slot.
Everything else is what tablets usually possess nowadays: wired and wireless connectivity and I/O, the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system (4.1 Jelly Bean update set for Q4 2012), audio, an LCD (1,280 x 800 pixels) etc.
There is one perk that Archos has prepared though: the keyboard dock with a magnetic fastening design. It combines the benefits of a keyboard, kickstand, docking station and protective cover.
