Archos 28 Internet Tablet review

The Archos 28 Internet Tablet is one of the smallest tablets on the market. Easy to write off, we were unexpectedly impressed by it and those without a smartphone looking for a portable way of consuming media, as well as surfing the web in Wi-Fi hotspots, might find this an attractive option.

The overall matt finish to the chassis will do a good job of hiding – as far as possible – scratches and scuffs from keys or loose change in your pocket. Having said that, the screen will need protecting, so a cover of some description is certainly worth considering.

Portability is mixed, however, and while the 60g the tablet weighs means you'll hardly notice it in a jacket pocket, the four hours of battery life is unfortunate and means you'll need to carry the USB cable with you during intensive use for charging purposes.

The 2.8-inch screen is tiny and those looking for a great multimedia experience will no doubt be disappointed. But that would be unfair on the Archos 28, which is designed for convenience rather than comfort.

Nonetheless, colour vibrancy is good enough for showing off your holiday photos and viewing films on the go, even if the 320 x 240-pixel resolution provides disappointingly blurry images.

Surprisingly, considering its size, this device's screen proved very responsive to gesture inputs, making it quick and convenient to navigate through. Even the on-screen keyboard wasn't too much of a nightmare, although you will want to limit your usage to short Google searches, for example.

An 800MHz processor powers the Android 2.2 operating system with real fluidity, and this makes opening applications downloaded from the third-party AppsLib store quick and easy. Google's official Android Market app store unfortunately isn't supported.

Web browsing

The performance also makes browsing the web a pleasure and, while resource-heavy websites do cause the Archos 28 to struggle, purpose-designed mobile sites, such as BBC Mobile, run smoothly.

The 4GB of storage space will be limiting for those with large media libraries, and no Micro SD card slot means you can't expand it further. There's also no external speaker, meaning you can't play music through the device without a set of headphones.

The Archos 28 Internet Tablet is a strange device that, on first consideration, is hard to see people using at all. Having tried it ourselves, however, we were rather impressed and those looking for an ultra small and highly portable internet and multimedia device may find this to be their perfect mobile tablet.

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