I am just about convinced that this is the tablet for me. While I was initially attracted to the Samsung Galaxy Tab, it looks like a WIFI only tablet is not in sight. the Archos 70 would seem to satisfy my mobility needs. It has a screen large enough to read ebooks, do wordprocessing, watch movies, and cruise the Web comfortably. I don’t need 3G or 4G for phone calls. With Bluetooth, it allows me to hook up a foldable keyboard for worprocessing. In addition, it doesn’t have the heftiness and bulk of a 10″ tablet, which has dissuaded me from getting an iPad (although a 7″ iPad Jr might be a lure). Finally, the large storage option should provide enough space to store my music files and best 20 or so film files with lots of room to spare. Since the Marketplace issue has been already solved, I expect this will fit nicely into my mobile repertoire and needs. Need I say it? The price is right!

so what is the build quality of Archos products such as the 7.0 and 10.1 Android tablets? I have never seen an Archos product so how does the build compare to the benchmark iPad?

Shouldn’t be a problem, even if you have to load up .apks on an sd card and install them that way….plus the fact that it works on the older archos tabs means there’s a good chance the market will be on the new ones pretty quick, there is a really active archos community out there working on just that sort of thing….

Well the iPad is 9+ inches and the Archos 10.1 inch tablet is 20% smaller, 30% lighter, thinner, had a kick stand and a much nicer form factor for one handed use. I’ve owned several Archos products. The build quality is not only excellent, the over molded extrusion process they are patenting makes the iPad look like a pathetic joke for ergonomics in my opinion… but then making an over sized phone instead of a real tablet will tend to make you look silly next to a company that has been producing larger touch screen devices for years and knows what works and what people really want.