Hasta La Gadget!

Because good things come in pairs, yet another Archos tablet has popped up over at the FCC shrouded in mystère. Aside from the tab’s name, the A80S, and its de rigeur WiFi b / g / n capabilities, not much else can be glimpsed from the product’s filings. If the French company’s recently unveiled 80 G9 and 101 G9 offerings are any indication, we could be looking at a dual-core processor setup and some version of Android — potentially even Ice Cream Sandwich. We’ll keep an eye out for any further spec-related developments, but until then, you can satisfy your Archos sweet tooth with this Gingerbread duo.

Archos A80S shows up at the FCC, keeps its specs hidden originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It looks like Archos’ summer of the sequels is just heating up. Less than a week ago, we spied the outfit’s 8-incher at the FCC, and now our brethren at Engadget Chinese are offering up a hands-on with two more second-gen Arnovas: the Arnova 7 G2 and 10 G2. These made-over slates best their predecessors with Gingerbread and capacitive touchscreens. The original 7-inch tablet ran Froyo while its big brother came with Eclair; both sported resistive displays. The pair will also see a spec bump in the processor department, with the inclusion of a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 — likely the same processor found in their 8-inch sibling. While we do have Hong Kong pricing — HK$1,680 (or $215 US) and HK$1,980 (about $250 US) — we’ve yet to land a release date. So, for now, we’ll just stick with “coming soon to a retailer near you?” If the wait is too much to bear, hop on past the break for some hands-on love from our Chinese counterparts.

Archos’ Arnova 7 G2 and 10 G2 tablets launch in Hong Kong, taste like Gingerbread originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Aug 2011 04:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Arnova 8 is guaranteed to disappoint anyone who wants an iPad this Christmas

And so it begins. Possibly the only way for tablet makers to compete with Apple (until they actually make a viable alternative to the iPad) is to sell gullible consumers a tablet so cheap that they’ll buy it on impulse. Hey — it worked for MP3 players, right?

So, what will poor Johnny be getting for Christmas this year, instead of the iPad he asked Santa for? He’ll be getting the £99 ($159) Arnova 8-inch Android tablet from UK catalog-shopping store Asda.

This piece of landfill-ready consumer crap comes with just 4GB storage (plus a microSD card slot), runs Android 2.1 Éclair (remember that? Éclair first launched in 2009, with the 2010 version following in early 2010) on a mystery-meat 666MHz processor.

It gets worse. The screen features yet more tech from yesteryear — it’s resistive, not capacitive, so good luck with the multi-touch. Battery life is a poor 5.5 hours for video (likely to be much less in practice) and… and… And that’s it.

The sad thing is that Asda will probably sell out of these things, as uninformed people like Johnny’s parents snap them up. Even the PR pitch sent to me today shows that this is all about duping the high-street shopper: “just a quarter of the price of the more expensive versions on the High Street” it says [emphasis added].

Calling the iPad a “more expensive version” of this is like calling the Wacom Cintiq a “more expensive version” of the Etch-a-Sketch. A horribly designed, technologically out-of-date Etch-a-Sketch at that. An Etch-a-Sketch so ugly that even the product page for this real-life shipping product features no pictures other than a single CG mockup.

Should you actually want to spend your hard-earned cash on something that will likely disappoint anyone who uses it, and is cast almost immediately into the junk drawer, the Arnova 8 (from Archos, no less) is available now.

Arnova 8 Tablet [ASDA. Thanks, Tracey!]

See Also:

• How Bad Could It Be? The $100 Arnova 7 Tablet
• Craplets
• Tat

You’d think after unveiling a duo of Android 3.1 slates along with a bare-bones model Archos would have washed its hands of tablets for at least a couple months, right? Of course not — the French company that just won’t quit has sent yet another tab through the FCC, this one dubbed the A70S2. And that’s about all the outfit let slip on the subject — at least until August 19th when the confidentiality protection covering the tablet’s juiciest details expires. The company wouldn’t throw us a screen size, resolution, or even a confirmation that yes, this thing might well run Android like the bulk of Archos’ other tablets. So if this game of “what the heck is this?” doesn’t bear fruit, let’s take the opportunity to have a (one-sided) heart-to-heart with our favorite French tablet maker. Archos, isn’t it about time you added an easy-to-hold, 7-incher with Android 3.1, 250GB of storage, and HDMI-out to the mix? We think it’d fit in perfectly.

Archos sends the A70S2 tablet through the FCC, tells us nothing in the process originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They’re hardly as exciting as the company’s two new Android 3.1 tablets, but if you’re looking for Android in even more places, look no further. Also being unveiled today is the 35 Home Connect, a self-proclaimed Android web radio that should do wonders by your bedside, or kickin’ it on the beach. You heard right — there’s a built-in battery here, as well as WiFi access to over 50,000 web radio stations. You’ll also find a touch panel, pre-loaded TuneIn application and an alarm clock function that brings together traffic, weather and whatever’s happening in your neck of the woods. Finally, a video chatting app is tossed in for good measure, but it’s only useful when your front-facing camera isn’t handling baby monitoring duties (yeah, seriously!).

Moving right along, there’s the Archos 35 Smart Home Phone, an Android-based landline phone that brings users contact sharing with their Android smartphone, MP3 ringtones, caller photo display as well as access to your current stable of Android apps. In other words, this is likely the only home phone you’ll find that can also video call, check your email, look up a topic on Wikipedia and satisfy gramps. The above-mentioned 35 Home Connect should ship this September for $149, while the 35 Smart Home Phone does likewise for $10 more.

Continue reading Archos trots out Android-based DECT home phone, 35 Home Connect radio

Archos trots out Android-based DECT home phone, 35 Home Connect radio originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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