Archos 80 Helium 4G announced: 4G tablets just got a whole lot cheaper

Archos has announced the 80 Helium 4G tablet ahead of Mobile World Congress next week, giving us an idea what to expect from the french manufacturer when the show floor opens – one of the cheapest 4G-ready tablets ever made.

There are currently very few 4G-ready Android tablets; the LTE version of Sony’s 10in Xperia Tablet Z costs a whopping £500 SIM-free and even Google’s own Nexus 7 costs £300, but the Archos 80 Helium 4G is set to go on sale for just £230.

Expanding the Helium tablet range, the new device has an 8in, 1,024×768 resolution IPS display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core system-on-chip (SoC) running at 1.2GHz. Paired with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, which can be expanded using the microSD card slot, the 80 Helium 4G should have no trouble running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean smoothly. Unfortunately there was no mention of Android 4.4 KitKat in Archos’ press release, but at least the company isn’t in the habit of skinning its devices, so the 80 Helium 4G should arrive with the default Android UI.

A 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash sits on the rear of the tablet, while a front-facing 2-megapixel webcam is available for video chat. The camera is capable of 1080p video recording as well as 5-megapixel stills. Other headline features include Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11n Wi-Fi, a 3,500mAh battery and an Adreno 305 GPU for playing 3D games.

Archos may have announced a price, but it has yet to reveal a launch date for the new tablet. We’ll most likely have to wait until Mobile World Congress begins next week to find out, but if you’re in the market for a 4G tablet and don’t want to break the bank, it may be worth holding off until the show floor opens on Monday.