ARCHOS 101 Saphir Rugged Tablet Comes With A Keyboard

The word "Saphir" calls to mind "sapphire", which, in the context of mobile devices, is usually associated with toughness and durability. That is probably the thought that ARCHOS is trying to evoke with the ARCHOS 101 Saphir, the first tablet in its rugged Saphir line. While it might not exactly be the toughest nor the most powerful, it may have one thing over other tablets in this niche market. This rugged Android tablet is really a 2-in-1 in disguise and comes with a keyboard to help boost productivity whenever and wherever.

ARCHOS is thankfully consistent with its naming conventions, so when you see an ARCHOS 101 Saphir, you can safely presume it's a 10.1-inch device. Ignoring the marketing-speak, the device is pretty much a low-end Android tablet, powered by a 1.3 GHz 64-bit quad-core MediaTek MT8163 with only 1 GB of RAM. Unsurprisingly, there's only 16 GB of storage, expandable up to 128 GB with a microSD card. As for the display, it at least goes 1280x800 pixels, so you at least get HD resolutions.

The main selling point of the ARCHOS 101 Saphir is its ruggedness, though even there it might disappoint. It does have a rubber case and bumpers, typical of most rugged devices, protecting it from falls from heights of 1 meter. As for dust and water proofing, however, it scores a measly IP54, which is rather low for a tablet that claims to be accident-proof.

That said, most rugged devices, despite having mediocre specs, usually cost as much as higher end models. ARCHOS hasn't yet disclosed availability details, which it will do at MWC 2017 next week, but its devices usually lie on the mid-range price tier. And for what might possibly be an affordable price tag, you do get some modern features, like USB Type-C, micro HDMI video out, and, quite uncharacteristic of this kind of device, a keyboard.

SOURCE: ARCHOS (PDF)