What must have features do you look for while shopping for an Android tablet? For me the tablet has to have access to the full Google Play market instead of some lame 3rd party version of the market that doesn’t have all the same apps. It also has to have a good price and be backed by a company that I know is going to stick around for awhile… ARCHOS ticks all those boxes for me with the announcement of their new line of ELEMENTS tablets. The 97 Carbon Android tablet will be the first one available. The 21.8 oz, 0.45 inch thick Carbon features an aluminum finish, a 9.7 inch IPS multi-touch screen, microSD slot, USB host port, 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and runs AndroidTM 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”. It’s due out this month and has an MSRP of $229.99 – $249.99. If this is their price for the 9.7 inch tablet, I’m very curious what their price will be for the 7 inch. If it has all the same features (Google Play, microSD, USB), it will be decent competitor to the Google Nexus 7.
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Of all the tablets I’ve had…iPad, TouchPad, Asus Transformer, Amazon Kindle Fire, and a couple of others I don’t recall the Archos G9 80 Turbo has been the best. Build quality is so-so, but it has all the features and was reasonably priced. I also find that the 8″ screen is just the right size while maintaining portability that the bigger models don’t afford.
I’ve got the same tablet as Ken S, and I’d echo his comments, and also mention that archos are really excellent at providing firmware updates. My g9 was upgraded to android 4 very quickly after release.