Archos debuts two 'internet media tablets'
Two high-res, Wi-Fi toting, high-capacity handhelds from Archos will be hitting shelves in October. Just don't call them media players.
In 2005, Nokia began releasing devices known as Internet Tablets. In the three years since, the world has yet to understand just what the heck these things are meant for.
Essentially, the products — which include 2008's N810 — are portable media players. With Wi-Fi and a browser thrown in. Oh, and email. Plus widgets and games and TV recording and stuff. And even though they're made by the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, they're not phones. Got it?
While you'd think that such a confuzzled pedigree would cause other vendors to avoid the "internet tablet" moniker when launching their similarly spec'd devices, Archos has gone on the offence and called its new handhelds "internet media tablets".
Launching down under in October are the Archos 5 and Archos 7, two pocket-sized multimedia players featuring high-res displays.
The Archos 5 will be available in 60, 120 and 250GB capacities. It sports an 800x480-pixel, 4.8-inch (12.2-centimetre) display, 128MB of RAM and a 600MHz ARM Cortex processor. Throw in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, line-in recording and a built-in speaker, and you've got yourself a bona fide internet media thingy. And unlike the iPhone and iPod Touch, it's equipped with support for Flash video.
The Archos 7 is essentially the 5 with bigger bits. The specs are the same apart from the display size (7 inches or 17.8 centimetres) and storage sizes (160 and 320GB).
We'll be getting these players — sorry, internet media tablets — in for review in the coming weeks, so keep an eye on the site for the full lowdown.