Archos joins ChromeOS army with 11-inch Chromebook

Archos' new tablets focus on the education market.
Archos' new tablets focus on the education market.

Google's Chrome OS has added yet another vendor to its portfolio as French company Archos said it would release a laptop based on the platform.

The product is set to be one of four models unveiled as part of a massive project initiated by the French government called "Grand Digital for Schools Project".

The endeavour will see more than a million tablets and computers per year distributed to middle and high school students by Archos, a contract worth hundreds of millions of Euros. They all share the same processor, a quad-core Intel processor clocked at 1.8GHz (likely to be the popular Z3735F).

Two tablets (9-inch and 10.1-inch) come with either Windows 8.1 Pro or Android, 2GB of RAM and 64GB onboard storage. There's also a rear camera and a front-facing snapper plus a detachable keyboard.

Heaven eleven

The Chromebook model has an 11.6-inch display, a VGA front camera, 2GB RAM and 64GB onboard storage while the last model, a 14-inch traditional laptop runs on Windows 8.1 with 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.

All the devices come with at least four hours battery life and a two-year warranty. Prices for new Archos products range from 200 Euros (about £150, $225, AU$290) to 300 Euros (about £220, $340, AU$435) excluding taxes.

Archos hasn't confirmed whether these products will be available outside France.

Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

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.