In a world full of expensive technological devices, it’s hard for hardware manufacturers to really stand out among the crowd when tech shows like CES start, specifically when budget devices fail to gain the attention of headlines and media reports.
For these reasons, those with less technologically powerful devices are promoting these particular devices much earlier than other high end devices – and in Archos‘ case, despite the restraint they held before debuting their newest models – the Archos 50 Diamond Smartphone and three Archos Helium 4G tablets.
Archos 50 Diamond Smartphone
Like most of Archos’ other hardware devices, their products are designed to fit anyone’s budget; with specifications that drop prices without sacrificing too much power and functionality. In fact, the 50 Diamond series is as typical as any other phone, with a vibrant yellow case and 5-inch 1080p display that runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 with 2 GB of RAM, meaning it should be able to run pretty much any Android activity without suffering a lack of performance, even without running the more modern 800 series Snapdragon processors. Archos casts a wide net with their technology, giving them decent specs and awesome extra features like a microSD card expansion and 16GB of storage, and great quality 16MP rear and 8 MP front-facing cameras, even dual SIM card slots to allow users to take full advantage of all Category 4 LTE signals. While the battery is underwhelming at 2700mAh, it helps keep the phone slim and operates well, despite not having the capacity that other models have.
Archos Helium 4G Tablets
Archos’ featured trio of tablets are very reminiscent of other models of tablets promoted by Samsung and LG in seven, eight, and ten-inch screens, with distinguishing dual-SIM LTE wireless that’s unseen in budget or base model tablets. The 70 Helium 4G, 80b Helium 4g, and 101 Helium 4G need all the edge they can get, as their core specs are more focused on budgeting instead of pure power, running off of a MediaTek MT8732 1.5GHz processor and a depressing 1GB of RAM, and a relatively small amount of storage with 8GB and removable microSD card capability. Also, the tablet’s cameras are especially disappointing with only 2MP cameras (with flash) and 5MP on the largest models, and they all have a 0.3MP shooter camera on the front. This is coupled with tiny batteries – the seven inch model has a 2,500mAh battery, the eight inch model has a slightly improved 3,600mAh, and the ten inch has slightly more power than that, with a 6,500mAh battery capacity.
To further disappoint potential buyers, the Archos models initially run on Android 4.4 KitKat, but Archos promises that it doesn’t come with any skins or overlays that “pollute the user experience.” While this seems about right for a budget tablet, the 50 Diamond seems to use typical navigation buttons in a non-standard order to streamline the process, and all Archos products have media apps from Archos, so they’re considerable more flexible and powerful than Google media apps or other manufacturer models.
While no price or release date has been officially released, expect the 50 Diamond and the three Helium tablet models to surface next week at the annual CES event. This would mean that they would probably be released in Europe (Archos’ home territory) sometime within the first half of this year.