LG’s 31-inch OLED TV may not be the biggest set at IFA 2010 this week, but it certainly stands a chance of being the brightest and most color-rich. It’s just 2.9mm thick, and uses an OLED panel capable of Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution with a contrast ratio LG reckon is infinite.
Video after the cut
Of course, part of the way LG manage to make the set so thin is that they strip out the tuner, connectivity and everything else and dump it into the box at the bottom. That has a couple of HDMI ports and a USB port, along with the regular digital TV tuner.
LG 31-inch OLED TV:
LG actually had two versions of the 31-inch OLED HDTV on show, differing only in their stand arrangement and controls. Both had incredible image quality, too bright at times, but we’re guessing you could easily notch that down should you be able to afford the HDTV when it goes on sale in the first half of next year.
Though Archos’ larger internet tablets grabbed our attention first, we spent some time playing with the French company’s three smaller models too: the Archos 28, 32 and 43. Ranging in size from 2.8-inches QVGA, through 3.2-inches WQVGA, to 4.3-inches FWVGA, the three palm-sized tablets are Archos’ attempt at hybrid PMP/MIDs, hitting price points from $99.99 to $149.99 to $199.
All three support a broad range of video codecs (AVI, MP4, MOV, 3GP, MPG, PS, TS, VOB, MKV, FLV, RM, RMVB, ASF, WMV) and will run Android 2.2 Froyo when they launch in the next couple of months (Archos’ demo units were loaded with a 2.1 test build). The Archos 28 and 32 both use an 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and the 43 gets a 1GHz version; all have WiFi b/g/n plus USB Host and Bluetooth 2.1. None have Android Market access, instead using Archos’ own AppsLib download store.
The baby of the bunch, the Archos 28, has 4GB or 8GB of flash storage, and feels a lot like a cheap Android smartphone. The display is pixelated and, despite the long list of codecs, the PMP lends itself more to audio playback. Responsiveness is fair, and Archos’ new media app looks good, but we can’t see buyers picking this over a comparably priced iPod.
As for the Archos 32, that’s got 8GB of storage as standard and comes with a 720p-capable camera. The bigger display is low-resolution for its size, however, which undermines browsing and video playback, and makes for a tricky typing experience with the onscreen keyboard.
Archos 43 hands-on:
Of the three, the Archos 43 is the most successful, though the company’s choice of a resistive rather than capacitive touchscreen may lose them sales in comparison to the iPod touch. Still, you get a bigger display than the iPod, larger than most smartphones in fact, and the functionality is packed in too: 720p video recording and playback (with a camera on the back), an HDMI output, up to 16GB of storage (with a microSD slot) and the same processor as in the bigger Archos 70 and 101. That keeps things moving swiftly, and it’s actually a decent browsing experience (and will be improved with Froyo and its Flash Player 10.1 support).
Archos weren’t short of new internet tablets for IFA 2010, though it’s their Archos 70 and Archos 101 which stood out when we stopped by their booth earlier today. Measuring in at 7- and 10-inches respectively, the two Android slates (running 2.1 right now, but set to launch with 2.2 Froyo) are certainly thin and reasonable feature-packed, each toting a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 3D OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics accelerator and WiFi b/g/n.
Video demo after the cut
Both use capacitive touchscreens – 800 x 480 resolution on the Archos 70, 1024 x 600 on the Archos 101 – with multitouch (that proved more than a little glitchy in the photo viewer app) and have HDMI outputs for squirting 720p video out to your HDTV. As you’d expect from Archos, there’s plenty of codec support too, including AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, MPG, PS, TS, VOB, FLV, RM, RMVB, ASF and 3GP.
Archos 101 and 7 Internet Tablets hands-on:
The Archos 101 is an interesting beast; at 12mm thick, it’s very flat and, at 480 grams, surprising light, though the French company’s choice of plastics mean it doesn’t feel cheap. It also doesn’t flex as you hold it, and there’s a two-position kickstand on the back: first, it props it up for video viewing; second, it lowers the angle for more comfortable on-screen typing. Archos demonstrated a number of games on the slate, and the CPU could certainly keep up, using the accelerometer to navigate in racing titles.
As for the Archos 70, that’s a more pocketable model, measuring in at 201 x 114 x 10/14 mm (the 250GB hard-drive unit is thicker than the 8GB flash version); that makes it longer but narrower than the Galaxy Tab, with the Samsung slate slotting in-between in terms of thickness. The touchscreen felt more responsive than that of the Archos 101, though things like webpage rendering and pinch-zooming weren’t as slick as on the Samsung. The Archos 70 lacks the two-stage kickstand, too, only having a single arm for video viewing. Unfortunately, there’s no rear camera on either model, only the VGA webcam.
Unfortunately, Archos has decided to abandon the multimedia docks of previous models, and there’s no DVR dock option for either. That, on early internet tablets, allowed for direct audio and video recording straight to the slate’s internal storage, but from now on you’ll have to sideload content.
Given the pre-production hardware and non-Froyo software, we won’t draw too many conclusions about the Archos 101 or the Archos 70, but we have to say the price tags for each slate are encouraging. The French company expects the Archos 101 to retail for $299.99 when it lands midway through next month, while the Archos 70 will be $274.99. That certainly keeps them competitive against the other Android tablets we’ve seen at IFA 2010 this week.
