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Archos 101 8GB Android tablet

Lightweight, 10.1in Froyo fondle slab, anyone?

Camera obscura

On the wireless front you get 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and although there is no cellular connectivity, you can tether the 101 to your cell phone using Bluetooth or USB. Another useful addition is the forward facing VGA web cam. Here, Archos has given with one hand and taken with the other because there is no rear facing camera. Accompanying the web cam you will also find a built-in microphone and a couple of half-decent speakers.

Archos 101

Android Market on show

The one vital difference between the 101 and the 43 is the use of a capacitive rather than resistive screen, a feature shared with the smaller but otherwise similar 7in Archos 701. This makes the device far easier to use when typing, browsing the web or gaming, and brings multi-touch to the UI.

The 101's screen is not oleophobic, so fingerprints can be an issue. At 120 pixels-per-inch (ppi) it can't quite match the iPad's 132ppi dot density, let alone the Galaxy Tab's 169ppi. Those factors aside, the tablet’s glossy, netbook-norm 1024 x 600 screen is still pleasingly crisp and colourful, and should satisfy most needs. The effective viewing angle is pretty robust too.

Archos 101

Slim, but not exactly pocket-sized

Running the whole show is a 1GHz ARM Cortez A8 CPU and Android 2.2 'Froyo', a combination that keeps both the UI and operating system chugging along at a reasonable, if not quite an iPad-pace, rate. You can have your 101 with either 8 or 16GB of built-in storage, but either way you only have 256MB free for the system and application storage.

Archos 101
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