I wouldn’t be shocked to hear that you had perhaps forgotten about the Archos G9 tablets. They haven’t seen much coverage of late, though we did get our hands on one back in October. In our review we found them to be fun but ugly, with various ports and a somewhat untrustworthy build quality, though solid enough for casual use.
But the 8- and 10-inch G9 slates may be due for a refresh, which is exactly what they’ll get come the new year. Archos has confirmed that Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich will be available on the G9 series in Q1 2012. To prove it, they sent us over a video of ICS running on an OMAP 4-powered G9.
I must admit Ice Cream Sandwich definitely paints the slate in a more delicious light, though Archos has reminded us there’s more work to be done. They still have to complete a few more tweaks including hardware acceleration for video support and Archos’ 3G dongle/port support.