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The Archos 80 Titanium's touchscreen features a slight lag. By that we mean there's a drag of about half a centimetre before the screen catches up, though it doesn't make much difference to usability.
In fact, during our test we were able to launch several apps, have them running simultaneously, and still operate the browser and other functions.
Occasionally we had a freeze-up or an overly long delay, but these were few. As a simple web browsing device, the Archos 80 Titanium has just about enough processing power.
A standard Android 4.1 Jelly Bean experience rules on the Archos 80 Titanium, and though it may not be the very, very latest 4.2 specification, there's little difference in practice.
Here, Google Now is fully integrated - complete with microphone icon in the top-left of the screen - and other Google-made apps such as Gmail, YouTube and Maps are all part of the jigsaw.
Although it doesn't negatively affect usability at this small size, it could be argued that the low resolution of the screen is an issue.
Photos, videos, web pages and books look absolutely fine, though it is possible to see the grid-like pixel structure - and you don't have to look all that closely.
Like some Archos tablets before it, there are restrictions on how long the Archos 80 Titanium can stay awake. As a default it sleeps after barely a minute of inactivity, automatically pausing all downloads and other processes.
It's possible - even recommended - to alter this to 30 minutes, the maximum Archos permits, though it does all point towards the Archos 80 Titanium being built with one serious problem: poor battery longevity.
Battery life and benchmarks
In fact, if there is major worry about this otherwise good value tablet, it's battery life - or its lack of. By running the Nyan cat video from YouTube at full-screen, full brightness for one hour, we took the Archos 80 Titanium from a fully charged battery down to 64%.
We managed to use it on-and-off for almost a complete day on a single charge, though don't count on watching more than a few hours of video in one go.
On our oft-used benchmarks, the Archos 80 Titanium achieved an average of 1,794 on JavaScript benchmark tool SunSpider, while tests on Peacekeeper produced results of 332 for the Chrome browser and 540 for the native browser.
The Archos 80 Titanium earned an average of 11,505 on AnTuTu, which is slightly less than the 12-13,000 that most mid- sized tablets achieve.
Internet
When looking to play on the internet, the choice between the vanilla web browser and Chrome - which is already present on the Archos 80 Titanium as a default - must be made, which is a bit of a drag.
Surely they're from the same design house at Google? It's time the native Android web browser was put to bed, since its presence is unnecessary and potentially fragments and complicates matters.
Web browsing in our tests with both browsers was fast enough, with up to about six tabs dealt with speedily before things started to slow down.
The 4:3 aspect ratio works well for browsing and, in fact, so does the wider-than-the iPad mini bezel. Having something on each side of the Archos 80 Titanium to hold onto without disturbing the touchscreen is, we think, the way to go. Apple might have over-done the slim thing.
