After a month of patienceless anticipation, the tablet got delivered! Kudos to Aalto Start-up center for sponsorship! Must confess – had low expectations, but Archos 70 is more than satisfactory. Thin, light, bright, close to brilliant. Although it is the same old Android 2.1 device, it no longer has associations with the phone and it comes with a promise of something new. As soon as one starts often interacting with it,  excitement about multiple application of device outside of office start to show up.

However, more about the device. As mentioned, Archos 70 is thin – only 1.4 cm height and weights around 300 grams. Good fit for a bigger coat pocket. Touch screen is not as good comparing to Nexus One, but it is responsive and you quickly learn its odds. Having in mind 7″ screen diagonal, resolution isn’t impressive – WVGA 800/480, so graphics seems a bit squared. However, screen is bright, viewing angle is tolerable and as soon as you start watching a movie, you soon don’t notice it at all.

Notably, standard applications are nice. Bundled book reading app Aldiko, has most of the features you would want into book reading software and it is much more pleasant to read books without eInk refresh blackout. Video and music player are also attractive. Although in gray shades, widget and main app are build with beautiful transparent elements, which is rare even in Froyo. This and the presence of entertaining prebuild videos, shows that Archos started to invest in aesthetics.

Maybe it is time to think about some applications with aesthetics twist? Simultaneously with our hackathon (this Saturday in Garage) in Athens people will gather for a weekend long hacking to build Valentine Day applications. It would be great to challenge them.