Most of you will have heard about the Archos 70, part of the new range of tablet devices being launched over the next few months. Archos have stripped away their recording software and docking station, bumped up the processor, improved the operating system and hit a very competitive pricing point. Add features like HDMI, USB host, capacitive multitouch, multiple video format support and you’ve almost got a full Android Tablet specification list. It’s not complete though. While 800×480 might be acceptable as a resolution, the lack of Google applications isn’t. No Gmail. No free Google Navigation, No Contacts sync and of course, no Google Market. We’ve experienced it on the Archos 5 and it really is noticeable.

Having said that, if you consider the Archos 70 as a sofa tablet, car tablet, holiday tablet and bedside tablet, you’ve got a video and audio player that returns a great browsing experience and offers a stylish way to view photos and ebooks. If you’ve got a way to ‘sideload’ some Android applications you’ll also benefit from some really great applications for entertainment and communications.

Pricing is $275 and it’s coming in Sept or Oct. Note that it might ship with 2.1 but 2.2 will, apparently, follow-up very quickly.

We’ve had some hands-on at IFA and this is how it went…

It was already known that Archos would bet the farm on a new range of Android Tablets this summer and so we’ve been anxiously awaiting the first leaks. And here they are.

Archos Lounge (translation) are reporting (source: ITNews) that the Archos 8 Family will be available by the end of summer. The range will run from 3” to 10”, will be Cortex A8-based (Ti OMAP as with the current Archos 5 Internet Tablet) and will……oh I so want to just copy the whole article from Archos Lounge but the wouldn’t be fair on them. Hop over there, check it out and let us know what you think here.

Did someone say Multitouch=Capacitive? The big outstanding question for me has to be – Do they have Android 2.x with Google Apps?