The Archos 97b Titanium is a cheap and not so cheerful Android 9in tablet. Here's our Archos 97b Titanium video review. (See also: Archos 97b Titanium review - Android tablet looks like an iPad, works... not so much.)
The Archos 97b Titanium looks like an iPad and contains a fairly recent and full version of Google Android - and it's cheap. Unfortunately that's where the good news ends. This tablet performs poorly, and the build quality doesn't stand up to close inspection.
Although performance isn't silky smooth, the screen on the 97b Titanium is decent. Opening apps often takes a few seconds and even typing is laggy which leads to frustration and mistakes, despite the fact the Archos 97b Titanium is powered by a 1.6GHz Cortex-A9 dual-core processor, 1GB RAM and a quad-core Mali 400 GPU. Storage is limited to 8GB but there is a microSDXC card slot which will accept up to 64GB memory cards.
At a significantly lower price point than the iPad 4, the 97b Titanium feels almost entirely made of plastic. Build quality is good enough that the device doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart like a lot of cheap tablets. The weight of 650g is not light for a tablet of this size. It's bulky and feels much weightier than most rival cheap tablets – and even some that cost more. See also: best cheap tablet.
The 97b Titanium runs on version 4.1.1 Jelly Bean so isn't quite up to date but isn't far off either. Both the front and rear cameras are 2Mp and are are placed quite awkwardly on the device. They each take bad photos and video footage, in our view. Another poor area for the Archos 97b Titanium is battery life. The tablet lasts well on standby but when in use the juice drains away quickly. Visit The top 10 best tablets: What's the best tablet you can buy in 2013?
