Archos GamePad 2 Confirmed for $200, £170 in the UK

Archos this week confirmed its GamePad 2 tablet, which is set for launch later this month. This will be the second Archos GamePad released this year, as the first iteration, the Archos GamePad, was only launched in March of this year. Still, the arrival of the GamePad 2 isn't exactly a surprise, given the specs were actually leaked online in late September.

Archos says the new GamePad 2 will feature a 7-inch 1280 x 800 IPS display, a quad-core Cortex A9 CPU clocked to 1.6 GHz graphics paired with quad-core Mali 400 MP4 graphics, 2 GB of RAM, two analog thumbsticks, a D-pad, six additional front-facing buttons, four shoulder buttons, stereo speakers, built-in mic, HDMI out, WiFi, and 8 GB or 16 GB of storage (plus additional via microSD). These specs match up perfectly with the rumors we heard a couple of weeks ago.

The original GamePad used a dual-core Archos Cortex A9 CPU (also clocked to 1.6 GHz), had a 7-inch 1024 x 600 capacitive display, had 1 GB of RAM and Android Jelly Bean. Archos says the new model has improved battery life but did not dish the deets on battery size on the new model.

The GamePad 2 is launching in Q4 and will cost $200, or £179.99 in the UK. According to Pocket-Lint, the device is scheduled for European availability at the end of October. We'll keep you posted on that one.

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18 Comments Comment from the forums

el33t

Seriously, why do they even bother with these things?
Reply
infernocy

11703748 said:
Seriously, why do they even bother with these things?

because they sell ?

Reply
ragenalien

Not in high volume, but they sell enough. From what I've heard they got bought up by a lot of day care centers and pre-schools.
Reply
Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer

"Seriously, why do they even bother with these things?"

I considered buying the first one, but it was pretty much universally panned (for the implementation, not the concept). If they've learned from their mistakes--and it appears that they've at least tried to--I'm sure I'm not the only person who will be giving it a look.

Just from looking at the article picture: the D-pad is now one piece, instead of four separate buttons; the analog sticks are different, with a more rounded shape; and there seem to be two shoulder buttons per side (instead of one shoulder button and one button that should be on the shoulder but is awkwardly placed on the face). 1280x800 is a perfectly fine resolution for a 7" gaming device and allows for unscaled 720p video content (seriously, who even thought up 1024x600 originally, anyway?).

If the reviews are generally positive, I might just get one.
Reply
wemakeourfuture

Horrible display, won't sell, another flop
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Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer

"Horrible display, won't sell, another flop"

Yes, "horrible" is definitely the word I would have chosen for an IPS display with higher resolution and pixel density than the iPad mini, which as we all know is languishing on store shelves.

It may well be "another flop", for whatever reason, but it won't be because it couldn't push a bunch of useless extra pixels that will have basically no positive impact on the gaming experience.
Reply
wemakeourfuture

@Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer

next iPad mini's display is going to be updated massively, so this just came out and is +1 year behind the times.

And YES PPI makes a huge difference, hence why every selling smartphone/tablet MUST have a high PPI, its people's basic expectation with mobile devices
Reply
hardrock40

On a whole people are like sheep & in this case they all followed Apple when they started the whole PPI craze. Before that everyone was happy with whatever resolution a device came with now we got crazy high resolution's on our devices. look at Apples first iDevices they all had crappy resolutions & fairly crappy screens & everyone bought them up because Apple said hey these are the future they are the best they will change your life & like sheep everyone flocked to these devices. Then Apple said oh low res screens suck now the only good screens to get are retina displays with at least 326 PPI because anything other than that is crap. Again people flocked to the new idevice because Apple said the old ones sucked. iSheep or Android sheep or WIn phone sheep we are all the same we flock to whatever they say we should myself included I guess.
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wemakeourfuture

@hardrock40: it's called progress.
Things improve and become standard.

Would you buy a computer if it struggled to have a few programs opened?
Should cell phone carriers stop at 3G Data because that's good enough? Are people sheep for wanting 4G or better displays? I want a 4K tv, so I'm a sheep, no industry is finally giving what people want for the cost. That's why people are "flocking" to these devices, not because someone is telling them to like it, but companies are producing what people WANT.

PPI has changed the game, we've been so used to the PC industry giving us crappy PPI and just increasing real-estate with higher and higher resolution without addressing pixel density.

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Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer

"next iPad mini's display is going to be updated massively"

So what? The bottom line is, right now, a tablet with a 1024x768 display is selling like hotcakes.

Look, this device absolutely does not need a higher resolution. Let's assume for a minute that I'm familiar with the whole high-PPI discussion and have a pretty good idea what the pros and cons are there (because I am). I get it. More is better. Except when more isn't better, and on a $200 gaming tablet doohickey, it's not.

Suppose you jumped up to 1920x1200. Now you're pushing 2.25 times as many pixels, pixels that most people aren't going to be able to see at the distance you're going to be holding this at. So you need at least twice the graphics power. You need a stronger backlight, because high-PPI displays block more light. Now you need a bigger battery, to power the backlight and GPU. You sure as heck aren't gonna be paying $200 for that.

And really, why are people buying it? To play emulated console games. That's right, games that were designed to run at 240p or 480i. And what's it competing with? The 3DS/2DS (one screen at 400/800x240 and one at 320x240) and the Vita (one screen at 960x544). 1280x800 is more than good enough for what this is.

If you wanna buy a device that displays impossibly crisp, sharp text for reading books and webpages, why are you gonna buy this device anyway? Wait for the iPad mini 2 with it's hypothetical Retina display and be happy with your purchase. If you want a cheap game system with a huge catalog of games to play (if you don't care about issues of legality), this is the place to start looking. The reason people won't buy this will be if the controls suck (like they apparently did on the last one). It won't be because the resolution is "only" 1280x800.
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