Archos to kickstart cheap tablet revolution at IFA with £129 model
Cesium is the name
Archos will unveil a new Windows 8.1 tablet at IFA called the 80 Cesium and will be launched alongside the company's first Windows Phone, the 40 Cesium.
The 80 Cesium will cost £129 (about $200, AU$ 220) making it the cheapest Windows tablet ever launched (although we don't expect that to last for long). Perhaps even more significant is that it is the cheapest Windows computer on the market and it even comes with a display.
Simply plug in a keyboard and mouse and you have a fully functional computer. Not only does it come with Windows 8.1 (with Bing) but it will also almost certainly come with a 1-year license for Microsoft Office 365.
Deja Vu
Not much is known about the specs. Archos only confirmed that it will be running a quad-core Intel processor (probably the popular Baytrail-based Atom Z3735D) with an 8-inch 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution.
The rest of the specification, I believe, will be made up of a front and a rear camera, a microSD card slot, 2GB of RAM, 32GB onboard storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a micro-HDMI and a micro-USB port.
In other words, the same components that power many other - more expensive - Windows tablets on market.
Expect many similar-priced tablets sharing almost the same configuration to hit the market pretty soon. A number of little-known Chinese brands are already selling Windows 8.1 tablets for around £100 (about $160, AU$ 180).
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Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.