They have released the Archos 80 G9, an 8-inch tablet that costs just $300, which makes it almost too good to be true and will make many prospective buyers cautious. While it is hardly as fast, good-looking and powerful as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 or the iPad 2, this is a reliable slate that will only exceed expectations. The dual core 1GHz OMAP 4 processor gets the job done and the fact that it only comes with 8GB of storage is not going to make it any less attractive. If you want extra, it will not cost you more than $20 to get the 16GB version and $70 for the 250GB, so it is up to you to make that choice.
Archos is fair enough not to feed you with features that you don’t necessarily need, just to extract the most from you, and an excellent example is the absence of a rear-facing camera. There are so many tablets out there, which feature one that is downright useless, that we are almost relieved by the fact that Archos 80 G9 doesn’t have one. You get the 720 p front facing camera for video conferences and the smartphone camera for capturing videos and taking pictures instead of using an underpowered tablet mounted camera.
The operating system is Android 3.2, which is excellent news since most people expected Archos 80 G9 to run on the previous version. There are not many tweaks made by the manufacturers, so if you appreciate vanilla Android, you will have few reasons to complain. An 8-inch display featuring a 1024 x 768 resolution delivers excellent viewing angles and thanks to the addition of the kickstand, you can watch a movie without holding the tablet. Archos 80 G9 deserves a chance, because for $300 it is hard to find a better tablet, even if you lower your standards a lot.