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250GB Android tablet coming--interested?

Archos will bring out a tablet packing a 250GB hard disk drive, breaking from the conventional practice of using flash drives only.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

Here's something you can't get with an iPad: 250GB of internal storage. Archos' upcoming Android "Honeycomb" 3.2 tablet will pack a 250GB hard disk drive that's been tweaked to perform more like a flash drive.

Archos G9 combines a 250GB hard disk drive with a 4GB flash drive.
Archos G9 combines a 250GB hard disk drive with a 4GB flash drive. Archos

The Archos G9 will sport a 250GB Seagate Momentus Thin 2.5-inch hard drive--a mere 7 millimeters thick. Though not as compact as a 1.8-inch HDD (like Apple once used in its MacBook Air and iPod), it's not as expensive either.

And Archos has tweaked the Seagate drive a bit to allow it to perform more like the flash drives found in practically all tablets today. 4GB of flash storage sits on top of the HDD, according to Craig TerBlanche, director of marketing for Archos in North America. Often-used data is stored in the flash component, allowing faster access than a standard 2.5-inch HDD, TerBlanche said.

All of this results in bigger bang for the buck. "You get 250GB for the same cost as a 32GB flash drive," he said.

Another marquee feature is the 1.5GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 dual-core processor. This is the same processor that Google has approved for upcoming Android Ice Cream Sandwich devices. That means consumers can expect to see a new wave of tablets and smartphones built around the TI 4460. But Archos will likely be one of the first, as those devices aren't expected until late in the year.

The 8-inch 250GB Archos G9 will be $369.99 and the 10-inch 250GB model, $469.99. Both are due in September.