The Archos 9 PC Tablet is Archos’ latest touch screen tablet. It’s being advertised as the thinnest tablet on the market, while still being able to boast the high performance of a high-end netbook without risk of over heating. This will be the second tablet we’ll be taking a peak at that uses some form of Windows 7. Let’s see if the Archos can hold a candle to everything else we have looked at this week. The Archos 9 has a  8.9 inche(1024X600 pixels) resistive touch screen, 600 GB hard drive, and 1 GB on board memory. It comes with Wifi, Bluetooth, and from what it looks like an ethernet port as well. It supports USB 2.0, has 5 hours of battery life, and is 800 greams, measuring at 256 X 134 X 17 mm. It comes with(already installed) Windows 7, Lotus Symphony, and Windows Live. Of all of the tablet’s mentioned as well, you can currently get the Archos 9 at B&H.
This is the second tablet we’ve seen to support Windows 7 (full or mobile not specified), the first being the HP Slate. The only time I have seen Archos devices was in the hands of a friend of mine. He uses his Archos for mainly MP3 and Video playback. I haven’t seen many of the other applications in action, but from what I did see it looks nice. For a photographer’s use though I don’t think the Archos will be able to keep up with our needs.
The Archos does still stand a chance in someways, but in some ways it does not. For instance, the Archos is running Windows 7. This means that it can run anything that can run on a Windows computer, just like the Slate. However, the downside to this is that since the Archos is only capable of so much that it actually limits what the Archos can handle. This is why the Archos would be useless as a tool to use in editing photos. We can edit photos seamlessly on a regular computer running Windows or Mac OS, but on something like the Archos it would be anywhere from tedious to impossible, not to mention impractical due to its small screen. The Archos then suffers the same fate unfortunately the Dell Mini does: to us photographers which is useless as far as photo editing goes.
However, if all your looking for is a tool to do some word processing, surf the web, watch a video or two, or show off your portfolio then the Archos will do just fine. Otherwise you might want to look into some of the other tablets we’ve looked at so far like the JooJoo or the Slate.
Tomorrow, we take a look at the tablet that’s causing the most commotion in the world of tablets: The Apple iPad. Then on Monday I will tally up all the stats of The Slate, JooJoo, Dell Mini 5, Archos 9, and the iPad and see which one would be the best tablet for photographers.
