Archos 9 PC Tablet

Pint-sized keyboards may make netbooks more useful device for note-taking, essay-writing, IM-addicted travelers, but if all you’re looking to do is surf and watch episodes of Arrested Development, that keyboard starts to a look like extra weight. Archos has hacked it off for its own take on the netbook, dubbed the 9pctablet, which takes small and slim to new extremes.

The device weighs only 1.7 pounds and measures only 0.63 inches thick, yet has room for a full slate of PC hardware, including an Intel Atom Z515 processor running at 1.2GHz, an 80GB hard drive, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and even a DVB-T tuner and antennas for (mostly European) countries that broadcast television in that standard.

But is that Windows Vista we see running on this rather lean hardware, dooming the Archos to the type of dismal performance we saw from Sony’s similarly-equipped Vaio P? Not at all: The 9pctablet will run Windows 7, a faster OS which should allow it to stretch the light hardware load significantly further.

Users will control the 9pctablet either directly on the resistive touch screen, which will of course have a virtual keyboard for entering Web addresses and other text, or the optical trackpoint device to the side, which will ease scrolling and navigation.

Archos plans to launch the 9pctablet in fall of this year with a price tag of $625. More information can be found at Archos.