Hi Tablet Gurus,

I looking to get my wife a tablet for Xmas and have decided on one from Archos as they seemt o be the best in my budget area (around £200) but I'm stumped as to which to actually go for. The 8" or 10.1", the G9 or earlier? Are the latest G9 models worth the exta money and is a larger screen worth it? How much memeory is really needed if they have micro-SD? I doubt I can extend to the top 101 G9 with 250Gb so it might come down to a 8" G9 with 16Gb or a 101 G9 with 8Gb, or even the earlier model with the 250Gb if that's worth it?

It's all so confussing - please help!

Buy the 8" for its GPS and portability and the 10" for comfort,

The hard drive options are personal taste but quality 32GB micro SDHC are now cheap(£25 or even less). 64GB cards possibly work too so an 8GB model is no doubt fine for most.

At near £200 do ensure it is dual core.

what are you looking at using it for. for £200 you could easily get advent vega which would any of the archos units at that price range.

I take it at £200 anything I get will have the WiFi I need to connect to my mobile wifi hotspot?

I'll have a look at the Advent Vega and see how it stacks up.

As I'm looking for something that will provide a good browsing experience and multi-media use I think the 10" would be better.

Virtually all tablets come with wifi, even the most basic ones.

I would think most people find 10" is better for browsing experience, not only because the text is bigger but because you get 1024x600 instead of 800x600 for 8", so you get to see more of the web page without scrolling.

If you are worried about browsing experience I would definitely get a dual core CPU tablet, good news, in the £150 to £200 a lot of them are dual core.

The Archos 80 G9 is 1024 X 768, same as the iPad.

Both units accept 3G dongles though am sure tethering is fine for most.

I've got a Archos 80 G9 and I like the size of it, it's perfectly portable and the screen is just right for browsing, personally I found the 10" tablets too big and I'd rather use a laptop.

Regarding memory, it has plenty of internal memory for Apps and I tend to have my movies and music on SD cards.

I really like the tablet and for the £170 I spent on it it's well worth the money.

Ive been waiting for the 250g version

I take it you have the 8g?where did you get it? and how does it perform with HD video playback?

Went and had a quick look around the local tech shops and had a play on the 80 G9. Liked how smooth and quick it was but did feel it was a bit small next to the 10" tablets. No-one had a 101 G9, only much older 101s so couldn't do a fair comparison.

I think if I can get an 80 G9 for well under £200 I will go for that as my wife always says size isn't everything

so if I get this straight, the archos is a 4:3 ratio screen and I know the vega is widescreen. So depending on which format most of your on media is you are going to end up with black bars and wasted screen area on one of them.

As mentioned I have the vega and virtually the media I have is widescreen so no black bars and no wasted screen space.

Yes 8gb version, got it online from Dixons 170 quid delivered, not sure if it's still that price though. I haven't extensively tested video playback but its worked fine with You tube HD, wmv and avi files that i've tried.

On-line I can't find an 80 9G for less than £199. Sod's Law says they'll be back down to £170 or less after Xmas. I think I'll wait a couple more weeks and see if the prices shift in the run up to the big day.

Sorry but got another generic tablet question. Can you attach peripherals via the USB port i.e. a keyboard?

I'm pretty certain its part of the O/S as every android tablet I have come across supports USB keyboard.

There are quite a few cases with mini-USB keyboards as part of the case for around £15 to £20.

the 80 G9 was only £170 for a couple of days.

The launch price of £200 initially impressed me so much I guessed wrongly that it would only be available direct via Archos.

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