The price of the Galaxy Tab is gradually coming down but it’s clear that it will never reach the 250 Euro price of the Archos 70. It looks the same, comes with 8GB of storage, a similar processor, similar operating system and plays back video just like the Tab. So what’s the difference?
Balazs of Ndevil unboxes the Archos 70 in the video below and Charbax has a text/video review up. You’ll hear them talk about some of the very important differences between this and the Galaxy Tab but lets list them all here so you can compare.
There may be others differences and in terms of software, some of the issues on the Archos 70 can be fixed through hacks but the summary is that on the Galaxy Tab, you’re paying 450 Euros for voice,3G, hi-res screen, auto-focus cam, 8GB storage, GPS and the Samsung Google software. That’s a lot of money for features that you probably don’t need when you’re lazing around at home and if the Archos 70 is as good as people are saying (I’m getting good feedback from owners so far) and if Archos push that V2.2 firmware out ASAP then the Archos 70 is definitely a better value product for sofa-surfing. When it comes to mobility though, the Tab has the edge although with the Viewpad 7 coming in at 399 Euros in the next few weeks, there’s quite a head-to-head building up on this 7 inch space. (Actually there’s at least 16 devices in our database, more to come soon!)
Pre-orders are not yet available but you can sign up for availability notifications from Dynamism on their Purchase page. We’ll hopefully see these tablets start to become available in mid-October, but Archos hasn’t said anything official just yet.
It’s just so depressing to see this. 2nd generation Android tablets coming out from Archos that still don’t have Google apps included. No contacts sync. No Gmail. No Buzz. No Maps. No Latitude. No Market. Again – No Google Market!
I hate to start on such a low note but really, haven’t we all learned that an Android device without Google apps is only half an Android product?
[and relax…]
Moving on to the details then. We have two sub 4 inch devices that we’re not covering here, a 4.3 inch device (Archos 43) with a resistive (cough) screen that will ‘eventually’ replace the Archos 5 (according to Engadget this will also upset the patient Archos 5 owners that are wanting 2.x upgrades) , a 7 inch tablet (Archos 70) with a capacitive screen…wait for it… at 800×480 resolution and a 10 inch device (Archos 101) with a 420 gram, 1024×600 capacitive screen.
It’s the 10 inch device that appears to have the right ingredients. At 420gm that’s ebook-light and if Archos are including their video playback skills (we assume they are due to the HDMI-out) then you’ve got yourself a flexible friend there assuming you can handle a bit of sideloading.
There’s a ton of specs on the Archos UK site and they include Android 2.2, a 1Ghz CPU and multitouch on the capacitive screens. Unfortunately, I don’t see any mention of 3G.
The price of the Galaxy Tab is gradually coming down but it’s clear that it will never reach the 250 Euro price of the Archos 70. It looks the same, comes with 8GB of storage, a similar processor, similar operating system and plays back video just like the Tab. So what’s the difference?
Dynamism
