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Archos 50 Cesium and Archos 50e Helium give you the choice of Windows or Android for a low price

Will you choose the colourful interface of Windows 10, or the established app catalogue of Android?

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Expertise Films, TV, Movies, Television, Technology
Richard Trenholm
2 min read

archos-helium-cesium.jpg

This is the Archos 50e Helium, running Android

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

If you can't decide between a Windows phone or an Android phone, then take a look at the new Archos 50 Cesium and Archos 50e Helium. They're basically the same 4G LTE smartphone with a choice of either Windows or Android software, for just £99 or 130 euros.

That's the price for Europe, where the phone will be on sale in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and the Netherlands in November. International release details are yet to be confirmed, but if it does go on sale elsewhere that UK price converts to around $155 or AU$215.

The Archos 50 Cesium runs the colourful squares of Windows 10, while the 50e Helium runs the app-tastic Android 5.1 Lollipop. Choose the Windows-powered Cesium, and you'll get a phone with an easy to use interface and apps that work across all your Windows computers and other devices. Choose the Android-powered Helium, and you'll have access to the well established catalogue of Android apps.

The Windows-powered Archos 50 Cesium

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

The software may be different, but the hardware is the same. Both phones are 8.5mm thick with 5-inch screens. Their respective screens show your movies and games in 720p high-definition screens, packing in 294 pixels per inch.

Each is powered by a quad-core 1.1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor, supported by a meagre 1GB of RAM. They come with 8GB of storage for the software and your photos, movies and music. You can also add a microSD for up to 32GB of additional space. The battery is a 2,100mAh power pack.

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On the back is an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash, and on the front is a 2-megapixel camera for video chat. It has the usual 3.5mm headphone jack and microUSB charger socket so you can charge it using any non-Apple phone charger.

The pair of 50 phones debut alongside the higher-specced Archos Diamond S . All the new phones will be on show at next week's annual technology trade show IFA, where we'll give them a poke and a prod and update you with our first impressions.