Archos' latest tablet is designed to reside at home - hence its name. Archos probably pictures you picking it up, having a quick browse over Wi-Fi then watching some video, possibly because it's heard of this thing called the iPad. However, with no 3G, GPS or Bluetooth, it's really more of a classic Archos video PMP, at a low enough price to make it alluring.

Like its predecessor, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet. the 7 Home runs Android - specifically, Android 1.5. This seems at first glance like a missed opportunity with several phones now running 2.1 and up, but the newer features of those incarnations of Android wouldn't be much use here anyway.

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Unlike its nearest rival the Dell Streak, the Archos 7 Home Tablet can't access the Android Market. instead lumbering you with AppsLib, which has just 1.500 apps and an interface designed by a seven-year-old.

The 600MHz processor isn't as powerful as the Dell Streak and it really shows: n.com loads in around 22 seconds - and that's without any of the videos as, like the Streak and iPad, there's no Flash support.

With an hour of browsing before switching Wi-Fi off to watch video, we got around 4.5 hours from the Archos 7 Home Tablet's battery. That's not very special. Push email is simple to set up but some emails - particularly image-heavy ones*won't download. There's support for MSN. Yahoo and GMail but not Exchange.