A known fact is that high-end tablets such as the Apple iPad or the Motorola Xoom are by far the most popular technology headline figures nowadays, but keep in mind there are also some lower cost devices that still make it out into this overcrowded sphere, and frankly speaking, they’re getting better and better every day. Such new arrivals, like the Archos Arnova 8 and Arnova 10 are enjoying the benefit of a market that is growing stable and somewhat predictable, in terms of who’s dominant and who’s the average player. That being said, you can still get affordable and quality in the same sentence, and that’s exactly what these companies (like Archos) are aiming for, aren’t they? In general, the two cheap Archos slates, which had already received approval from FCC to operate within the States, boast a 600MHz Rockchip RK2818 processor, paired with a USB 2.0 hub, MicroSD slot expansion, WiFi, inbuilt accelerometer, integrated speakers, resistive touchscreen displays, sized 8-inch and 10-inch respectively, and last but not least, a preloaded Android 2.1 platform, also known as Eclair. Storage capacities are at 4GB and 8GB only, but that’s what you basically get for paying 150 and 199 US dollars, or just under $350 for the pair. In addition to the above, the French corp is planning to release a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 Rockchip RK 2918 version with a more convenient capacitive touchscreen, sometime this April, for roughly the same amount of dough. And till then you can definitely dig in the two hands-on videos after the break.
[ARMdevices via Engadget]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_KIah7_SUU[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wm9G4JMs3c[/youtube]
