Archos Android-based Internet Media Tablet MID coming

[Chris Davies]

Archos have announced plans to develop an InternetÂ*Media Tablet that will use the Android platform for wireless connectivity, voice and applications.Â* Based on Texas Instrument... Read more

[Mason_S]

Very cool! This would become easily my media platform of choice.

Couple of thoughts:

Any idea about carriers? Could this be carrier agnostic? Naturally, you would have to run the HSUPA off of someone's 3G network. What about WiFi?

What level of functionality will Android be given? All that is mentioned is the telephony stack and access to the Market. Will Android be used to operate the device? Maybe someone familiar with Archos products could help by letting us in on other OS's used and their ratio of functionality/transparency. I personally imagine the familiar Android home page with an icon to launch the Archos media suite the way you would any application on your Android phone.

What about hardware? Capacitive touch? Accelerometer? The obligatory Android buttons?

Price?

[johnkzin]

Too bad it wont have a physical keyboard. Otherwise, I'd love it.

That, with a 7" screen, and a physical keyboard, would be dreamy.

[queensnewbie]

wow this would be a big break from their past, all their prior systems were hard to crack and offered almost no modding ability at all

[lenard_hester]

I am a huge archos fan. They are the only mp3 players I have ever owned, however, I will say I am a little hestant about the idea of a hard drive based cell phone. I mean, I have had hard drives in my archos players go out just from normal use, I can't imagine what the failure rate would be like on a device that takes as much abuse as a cell phone would be. If they can put out a flash based version (similar to the 605 wifi flash version with the SD slot, my favorite Archos BTW), then I will be all in.

[cesarcardoso]

I am a huge archos fan. They are the only mp3 players I have ever owned, however, I will say I am a little hestant about the idea of a hard drive based cell phone.

Archos isn't making a cellphone, but a Internet Media Tablet with voice capabilities.

[lenard_hester]

Archos isn't making a cellphone, but a Internet Media Tablet with voice capabilities.

The new IMT will integrate voice capabilities to deliver robust, powerful mobile phone tablets addressing both entertainment and communications needs,

Certainly sound like it to me.

[starkleb]

i think it will to be presented on half June and coming for 2 months after ...
Omap3440 and Android OS (both) are the best choice in hardware and in software solution, it deliver amazing feature and rich media application in one compact device .
omap3440 have built-in Arm Cortex A8 cpu that run at amazing speed of 800mhz as well Iva 2+ (graphic accelerator) deliver rich and complex graphic up to 720p resolution to encode/decode video .
stay tuned!
PS: sorry for my bad english , i am italian user .

[waltinseattle]

tablet plus phone functions sounds way better to me than phone with tablet functions.

I returned the G-1 and one issue was the "real" keyboard being an also included feature, not up on top ...did not fit my text filling quirks. I Agree, this would be a real dream with a keyboard- beat going to a carry around eee which is what I feel is the only logical choice open to me, word based fiend that i am, and believer that the real gold standard is pen and paper convenience of carry and use. put a phone inside and a 7 in screen outside. Am I near heaven?