Archos G9 101 tablet goes on sale

FRENCH TABLET MAKER Archos has put its G9 101 tablet up for sale on its web site for £299.

The firm launched the smaller G9 80 last month with downgraded specifications. The story is the same with the 10in Archos 101 which also has a 1GHz dual-core processor instead of the intended 1.5GHz.

At the launch of the its model 80 Archos said, "We've being following the Texas Instruments roadmap for their amazing OMAP4 processor. Unfortunately there have been some delays, in pushing it to its max."

This means there are now two versions of the tablet, one 'Standard' and one 'Turbo'. Both come with Android 3.2 Honeycomb and a 10.1in capacitive touchscreen but the Standard model has only 8GB of memory.

The Turbo model is expected to tip up at the end of this month and it will have a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and either 16GB of internal flash memory or a 250GB internal hard drive made by Seagate.

This model will then be upgraded to the original intended 1.5GHz clock speed in December for the same price. This means there's almost no point in getting the 1.2GHz model. All of the tablets come with 512MB of RAM and an optional 3G dongle that fits discretely into the back of the device. µ