An IPS display on a 9.7″ budget tablet is significant progress I would say.

I do wonder how much Archos saves by leaving out Bluetooth on the Arnova line…

I think Archos will try to get it working on Gen8, but of course it depends how hard making it work might be. My guess is that it’s probably not too hard. And there are other OMAP3 based Android devices that are probably getting upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich, thus joining forces with others doing the portage, even if it’s cyanogenmod hackers, could make it easier for them to get it working as soon as possible. Another theory is that Google has already dedicated a team of 100 engineers to work on making sure Ice Cream Sandwich works perfectly on every ARM processor, even the single core ones, and that maybe that work is already mostly done now, so we might see massive ICS upgrades everywhere and quickly. And ICS may be built in a way all ICS devices automatically get system updates through the Google Marketplace, thus fixing the whole Android fragmentation complaint.

“fixing the whole Android fragmentation complaint.” Really?  Somebody needs to send out a press release and cover this breaking news.  Apparently, Google has acquired distribution licenses to all closed and proprietary libraries and drivers, which is absolutely astonishing.  They’ve just obsolesced the modding/hacking community.

More seriously, the fragmentation “complaint” (as if the real issue is that people don’t like it rather than the fact that it is a legitimate and serious problem) is less about updates and more about upgrades.  Certainly, the ability to update from version X.Y to X.Z has been an important and serious problem that has contributed to this fragmentation (or to some “complaints”), but the more serious issue is the inability to jump major versions from a X.Y up to A.B (where A>X), which seems to be unresolved.

I admire your enthusiasm and think that you’re unfairly criticized for being a shill, but you enjoy a high level of trust from people who don’t actually know or care about important things.  When you hand people a cup and say “drink this, it’s fine”, they do.  I don’t think that you’re serving a potable beverage here, and, even though it’s companies that you need to have a positive relationship in order to do what you need to do, it would be awesome if you could be more careful with people’s trust when you make claims, state assertions, and chose language.

Even $2 or $4 is a lot. That translates in something like a $10 higher price to the consumer. They want to try to make it reach the $149 for 7″, $199 for 9.7″ and 10.1″, that is why they may save a bit here and there. People mostly use WiFi for tethering anyway and I think they all can do USB host on the micro USB port for keyboards and mice with the right micro to normal USB host adapter cable.

There’s a difference from jumping a version and jumping a “major” version.  Besides, the issue being pointed out is the fragmentation that plagues android and the ARM market in general.  Attributing to such issues as the high orphan rate for android devices, among many other problems. 

Google is finally starting to seriously address those issues, at least on their side of things, but it’s impossible for them to deal with all of them.