Archos Platinum Android tablets go quad-core from £170

Archos' new Platinum range are three skinny white quad-core Android tablets on a budget. There's the cheapo 8-inch 80b Platinum, the low-res 10.1-inch 101 Platinum and the deluxe 9.7-inch 97b Platinum.

The 80b is £170, the 101 £200 and the 97b is £230, Archos has announced. All three silver-backed slates will be available to buy later this month direct from the French company's website.

All three tablets are packing the same quad-core Cortex A9 chip running at 1.6GHz, they all run the fairly recent Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and they all have a meagre 8GB of storage. You can expand that with microSD slots, but don't expect to be able install many apps.

The key difference is the screens, as the names hint. The 97b (pictured top) has a very high-res 2,048x1,536-pixel display, giving 264 dots per inch stretched over 9.7 inches. That's exactly the same as the glorious 'retina' iPad, meaning you won't see each individual pixel at the usual distance.

The 101 Platinum (pictured above) is a different story. With 1,280x800 pixels, it's not capable of showing Full HD, and its 149dpi is going to look pretty ropey, especially for text. Similarly, the 80b's 1,024x768 pixels 160dpi just scrapes over the line to show 720p video.

The 80b Platinum (pictured below) cuts a significant corner with just 1GB of RAM too, whereas the other two have a more capacious 2GB on board. All three can output video via a mini-HDMI port.

2-megapixel cameras on the back are pretty stingey, and don't expect to look your best on video calls from the 0.3-megapixel front facers on the two cheaper models. The 97b, at least, has a 2-megapixel effort on the front as well.

If you're after a dirt-cheap Android tablet, you can certainly get more storage for less money. The sturdy Tesco Hudl is designed for families and only costs £119 (and your Clubcard vouchers count double towards it), while the Asus Memo Pad HD 7 is thinner, has a better screen and is just £10 more.

Which budget Android tablet has caught your fancy? Let me know your favourite money-saving slate in the comments below, or on our penny-pinching Facebook page.