Archos phone tablet: Android tease

Let's not beat around the proverbial -- we'll just get straight on with this news: Archos is going to release an Android-based mobile phone, but the French company is teasing us with the merest hints of what its new device is capable of.

Details are vague, as we only glimpsed the device during an Archos presentation last night. We do know it's an HSDPA phone running Google's mobile OS, powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex CPU.

It's got a 109mm (4.3-inch) touchscreen running at a drool-worthy 854x480-pixel resolution, inside a 10mm-thick chassis. We saw a camera with an LED flash on the back, though we don't know what resolution it shoots at. There's a front-facing camera visible in our photo as well.

Sadly, that's all we know for now. It's an interesting move by Archos, and one we're keen to hear more about. The company's higher-end media players have always been excellent, and with a 1GHz processor and that massive screen, there's serious potential here. We'll let you know more as soon as we get word.