Are you interested in 250GB Android Tablet?

The Archos G9's hybrid hard drive offers a compromise between storage performance and capacity.

If there's one advantage Netbooks have over tablets, it's that the minilaptops have more storage--160GB is typical compared with 64GB on a tablet. With Archos' upcoming G9 tablets, which come in both 8.9-inch and 10.1-inch form factors and feature a 250GB hard drive, even this has been taken away. 


By using a 2.5-inch Seagate Momentus Thin hard drive instead of flash storage, Archos is able to keep costs down while offering storage capacity beyond anything seen in tablets so far. Hard drives perform significantly worse than solid-state drives, but the Seagate Momentus is a hybrid hard drive with 4GB of flash storage. This flash storage acts as a cache for frequently accessed data, so users can get a more responsive experience compared with a standard hard drive.

There's also the issue of battery life on the Archos G9, which should suffer slightly from having a 7,200rpm hard drive, though Archos rates the G9's uptime at up to 10 hours when browsing the Internet. The 755g weight for the G9 is also on the high side--Archos offers a flash-based version of the G9 that is around 100 grams lighter.

However, this tablet will at least have a capable dual-core processor from Texas Instruments running at 1.5GHz. This processor has been given the Google stamp of approval for use in upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich devices. The 8-inch 250GB Archos G9 is expected to debut in September for a price of US$369.99 while the 10.1-inch version will cost US$469.99. 

Categories: Android, Archos, Flash Storage, Storage