Archos Announces Availability of 8- and 10-inch G9 Tablets: Fastest Android Tablets Yet

Archos, one of the more venerable players in the tablet market, today announced its latest two creations, the Archos 80 G9 and the Archos 101 G9, two Android Honeycomb tablets which use a 1.5-GHz ARM Cortex dual-core A9 processor and either a 16GB SSD or a 250GB Seagate hard drive. According to Archos, the A9 processor, a dual-core OMAP 4 processor from Texas Instruments, is 50 percent faster at loading web pages than 1-GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processors. Both tablets will also feature HDMI ports for outputting 1080p content to a larger display. 

Both tablets will run Android 3.2, will have access to the Android Market, and support Adobe Flash. Archos also boasts that the G9 tablets will be the only such devices that will be able to decode 1080p H.264 video. The mechanical Seagate Momentus Thin hard drive will be paired with a dedicated 4GB flash caching system, which will help keep the hard drive idle for longer. 

The Archos 80 G9 has an 8-inch display with a resolution of 1024 x 768, and will cost $329 with a 16GB SSD, and $369 with the 250GB hard drive. An Archos 80 G9 with a 1-GHz ARM Cortex dual-core A9 processor and an 8GB SSD will cost $299. The Archos 101, which has a 10.1-inch display (1280 x 800), starts at $399 with the 16GB SSD, and $469 with the 250GB hard drive. Both will be available on September 20. 

Complementing the G9 tablets is the Archos G9 3G Stick, a $49 option which slides into the tablets via USB and provides 3G connectivity with a pay-as-you-go plan, which means no subscription is required.