The Core

Looks nice.  I recently bought a 10" android "irobot" from ebay. 

It was rubbish.

 Sent it back. 


My HTC phone is way faster....

But I am looking forward to a quick starting tablet for the breakfast table. My phone is too small for 46 year old eyes.

Shame they only deliver to the US   Still I am sure someone will be shipping soon.

>too small for 46 year old eyes

This Archos certainly isn't going to burn your retinas, it's weak in the size/resolution area.  But for throw-aways, it looks promising overall.  Personally, I'm waiting until after Christmas and will probably pick up an iPad or maybe an iPhone with a swapped sim.  But don't tell NFFC.

I played with the Samsung Tablet the other day - miles better than the iPad for just about all my requirements - but still way too expensive for what it is.

.. or to put it another way, with the 'tablet' concept still evolving so fast, it doesn't make sense to me to splash out £499 when there will be FAR better options available in 3 or 4 months.

Something at $145 does seem more sensible - as long as it performs, and the reviews of the Archos do seem to suggest that is far better than those cheap chinese clones punted out through eBay.

After all, it will satisfy the most common tablet usage requirements, surfing from the sofa and surfing whilst taking a dump (not me, I don't have one, I just did a survey of tablet users)

I have netbooks lying about and they mostly go unused. The original idea was to have so many that if I stretched while I yawned then I'd be in danger of knocking a netbook off a cabinet.  That went pretty well for a while but I ended up just using the one next to my place at the table or going to drag out my favorite.

I have friends and nffc (hhh) in the biz who keep me CONSTANTLY and nauseatingly updated on the abilities of the ipad. And where it seems to take the far lead in the convenience factor is #1 boot-to-web time and #2 battery life.

I'm living in tech-land, and I'm surprised by the lack of tablets from any of the big Japanese makers in the stores. There may be some stuff in the pipeline, but we're lacking a lot of these units in the stores today. The mobile and WiFi packages are probably being held up by the carriers.

The Japanese are great at hardware, but woefully poor at software in general. Most of the Android phones on the street today in Japan still run on v1.2!