Archos had been intriguing me in the last year, especially with their innovative Gen10 XS series. However, the latest Neon series leaves a lot to be desired. And that’s saying a lot considering the yet-to-be-announced pricing is already expected to be quite low.
There are three tablets in all from the newly launched Neon series: the 90 Neon, 101 Neon, and 97 Neon. As you might have guessed, the naming scheme refers to their screen sizes, which are 9 inch, 10.1 inch, and 9.7 inch respectively. While there’s some good variety in the Neon series when it comes to screen size, the resolutions they come in are atrocious.
The 90 Neon has a WVGA (800 x 480) screen, the 101 Neon has WSVGA (1024 x 600) resolution, while the 97 Neon has an XGA (1024 x 768) screen. To put things in perspective, WVGA resolution looks sharp on 4 to 4.3 inch phones and starts looking obviously pixellated on 4.5″ screens. Yet that’s the same 800 x 480 resolution that they’ve stretched out on a 9 inch screen. The pixels will be so obvious, you’ll see them even at arm’s length!
The rest of the specs of the Neon series aren’t that bad. Each one comes with a 1.4GHz quad core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage and Android 4.2 out of the box. They each have a front-facing camera and the 97 Neon even comes with a 2mp rear camera.
Still, I wouldn’t bother wasting my time with this. I could probably get a tablet with similar specs in Divisoria and still save half what the Archos Neon series would sell for. You have been warned.
Best warning ever!