Archos 101 G9

Archos 101 G9With the 101 G9 tablet, Archos continues its tradition by offering mobile devices with solid multimedia capabilities. Clad in gray plastic, the Archos 101 G9 may not impress anyone with its design. It is thankfully not too bulky or heavy compared to other 10” tablets. It weighs 1.4 pounds, which is slightly heavier than the iPad 2, Sony Tablet S and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It has two different storage options 8GB SSD and 250GB hard drive, which is slightly thicker and heavier.

Around the tablet, there are the usual controls and ports; a power button, a headphone jack, a microSD port and a microUSB port on the left and a volume rocker to the right. A flip-out kickstand can prop the tablet up in landscape position and a single speaker is located on the back.

Fans of big screen tablets will appreciate its spacious 10.1” display, with 1280×800 pixels resolution. The display looks adequately bright and colors may look muted and washed out for some users. Watching HD clips on YouTube is an engaging experience, tones looks more lifelike and warmer on Samsung’s tablets.

It runs stock Honeycomb (Android 2.3), which offers enough room for customization. The tablet still relies on the Android keyboard, which doesn’t offer much in a way of advanced features, although its keys are comfortably big.

Powered by a decent 1GHz TI Cortex-A9 dual core chip and supported by 512MB RAM, the tablet handles itself well on various benchmark tests, it beats Fusion Garage Grid10, but still can’t keep up with the likes of Motorola Xoom, Asus Eee Pad Transformer and Samsung Galaxy 10.1. Unfortunately, battery life isn’t its biggest strength; Archos 101 G9 lasts less than 6 hours when tested with LAPTOP Battery Test app, which is one hour shorter than most Android tablets. At less than $370, the Archos 101 G9 is an appealing 10.1” tablet, despite the high operating temperature, short battery life and poor build quality.

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