Archos Docking Station 101 XS

A keen price and plenty of power, but the poor integrated keyboard and plasticky build taint the experience.

• ✓Keyboard dock makes typing long emails easy
• ✓Decent performance
• ✓Stock Android is easy to use

For all the details, performance results and our definitive verdict on the Archos 101 XS, have a read of our full review which will be coming soon. But at first blush, Archos seems to have created a decent budget tablet if you’re after something that lets you type ‘properly’.

We know how important desirability is to consumers. Although the Archos 101 XS is smart, is it going to be desirable enough to for the £299 asking price? For a 10-inch tablet, the price is pretty good, but it’s only £30 cheaper than an iPad 2 and those sell like hot cakes. It's also £100 more expensive than the Google Nexus 7, the darling of Android tablets, the flagship device for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. That’s a fair difference in price. ...