Archos officially announced on thursday their upcoming Android tablet, the Archos 7 HT. Running a custom version of Android 1.6 on a 7-inch display, the new device is slated for launch this May 17 at a low $200 price point.

This tablet wasn’t built to replace a standard laptop computer, this is why Archos is betting on selling it at a price level that many mp3 and mp4 portable media players are priced at.

Apart from its 16:9 widescreen 7-inch display, the tablet will be loaded with 8GB of flash storage that will have a battery able to last users for about 7 hours when playing back video and 44 hours for music. Additional features include 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microSDHC support, email, photos, eBuddy instant messenger, Aldiko ebook reader, and DailyPaper newspaper reader.

It will lack full Android Market accessibility, Archos is bundling their own AppsLib store for downloading additional apps.

Seems there’s a new Chinese Android tablet hitting the market every day. In the latest news, the folks at Shanzai.com spotted a bunch of sub-10 inch tablets running the Google Android OS. None of these are quite ready to take on the Apple iPad yet, but that’s mostly because of 2 features they are lacking:

1. They’re only available in China right now
2. Google does not allow non-smartphone Android users to access the Android Market, limiting the number of third party apps you can run on these tablets

When will they offer these tablets outside of China and will they eventually be able to connect to the Android market and download applications and games, only time will tell but I am sure it’s going to be in a near future.

With the launch of Apple’s iPad last month, the competition has stepped up to a new height. In order to compete with the iPad, companies like HP (Hewlett-Packard), Google Inc, MSI and everyone else trying to enter the tablet world will have to give their best shot to emerge victorious in the tablet computers market.

The portability, usability and responsiveness of the Apple OS makes the iPad just so easy to handle and is therefore popular with the new generation. To beat it is difficult but not impossible.

All these upcoming tablets need characteristics which can make them stand in front of the iPad recently launched, is the Android OS up for the task to take down the popularity that the iPad has gained in such a short amount of time ? Only time will tell.

Dell has been rumored to be coming out with a Mini 5, which was first shown publicly at this years CES, which will feature integration with a host of Amazon services, according to leaked internal document.

The leaked information originally posted on Engadget, details that the Android-powered tablet may be available in a range of colors and designs. Continue Reading