Archos has just released details about 3 new Platinum tablets from its Elements series. They all come with quad-core processors, dual-band Wi-Fi, 8 GB of storage, run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and include the Google Play Store. The tablets are called ARCHOS 97b Platinum HD, ARCHOS 101 Platinum and the ARCHOS 80b Platinum which have 9.7″, 10.1″ and 8″ displays respectively.
The chip inside the 3 tablets is a quad-core 1.6 Ghz Cortex A9 made at 28nm, which has a Mali-400 GPU, which sounds a lot like the Rockchip RK3188 announced earlier this year. As you can probably tell from the name, the ARCHOS 97b Platinum HD is the most high-end one of the three, and includes a 2048 x 1536 IPS display, 2GB of RAM, and 2MP cameras on both front and back. This one has a 9.7″ display and seems like it’s meant to look exactly like an iPad in terms of resolution and aspect ratio.
The ARCHOS 101 Platinum has a slightly bigger 10.1″ screen, but only a 1280×800 resolution, so it’s probably going to be a little cheaper. It also has 2 GB of RAM, 2MP back camera and 0.3 MP front camera. It does have GPS, which the other two tablets do not have, although it’s probably not that useful on a 10″ tablet.
The ARCHOS 80b Platinum is the smallest one, with an 8″ IPS display, and a 1024 x 768 resolution, just like the old iPads. It also has 2 GB of RAM, and the same 2 MP and 0.3 MP cameras as the ARCHOS 101 Platinum. All three Platinum tablets come with Bluetooth, a micro USB port, a microSD card slot, and a mini HDMI port.
There is no official pricing yet, but Adorama.com has the 3 tablets at $299 for the ARCHOS 97b Platinum HD, $269 for the ARCHOS 101 Platinum, and $199 for the ARCHOS 80b Platinum, which seem to be reasonable price points for the three tablets.
Archos has never been a very popular company in the tablet market, but as a French tablet company they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves, otherwise they would’ve stopped making tablets by now. They keep releasing decent tablets every year, and loyal customers or new customers keep buying them, so they stay in business and grow.