Motorola is reportedly preparing a ruggedized, seven-inch Android tablet, while an Archos division in China has tipped the Archos 7c Home Tablet and an updated capacitive version of the Archos Arnova 10 — both running Android on the ARM Cortex-A8 Rockhip RK2918 processor. Meanwhile, Amazon is offering a 10-inch, $500 Viewsonic gTablet in a “deal of the day.”

The Honeycomb-based Xoom tablet appears to be off to a slow start, but it looks like Motorola has some more tablet tricks up its sleeve. Engadget received a preliminary feature list for a rugged Android tablet designed for the enterprise market.

Slide showing rugged, seven-inch Motorola tablet
Source: Engadget
(Click to enlarge)

Like the Motorola Defy Android phone, the new tablet will apparently be aimed at vertical markets such as field service, and will enter beta testing this October, says the story. As shown in the slide above, the device runs on a Texas Instruments dual-core, 1GHz OMAP4 processor.

The tablet supplies both a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and an eight-megapixel rear-facing camera said to offer "illumination and aiming" for barcode scanning. There's no mention of support for 3D imaging, which is supported by the OMAP4 chips but would not likely be offered on such a business-like device.

The seven-inch capacitive touchscreen offers 1024 x 600 resolution, says the Engadget slide. Other listed specs include 1GB RAM, 8GB NAND flash, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and USB connectivity.

The battery is said to support five and a half hours of streaming video. Ruggedization features include the ability to withstand a four foot drop, as well as to handle extreme temperatures, dust, and water, says Engadget.

Two Archos tablets tipped in China

Archos, which helped pioneer the Linux and Android media tablet markets, offers so many different Android tablet models, it's hard to keep track of them all. Yet at least two more are on the way, this time tipped in preview videos taken at an Archos division in Shenzen, China by low-cost tablet hound "Charbax."

Archos 7c Home Tablet
Source: ARMdevices.net

In the first video (below), Archos OEM sales director Sandy Chen shows off an Archos 7c Home Tablet she says will ship in June in the U.S. and Europe. The Android 2.3-based tablet offers a seven-inch capacitive, multitouch screen, and is built around the ARM Cortex-A8-based Rockchip RK2918 processor clocked at 1.2GHz.

A number of low-cost Android, Linux, and Windows CE tablets have used the earlier ARM9-based, 600MHz Rockchip RK2808 from China-based Rockchip, including MP4nation's Android 1.5-based Rocktab.

Archos' upcoming seven-inch Android tablet on YouTube
Source: ARMdevices.net
Click to play)

Meanwhile, Charbax and ARMdevices.net also uncovered an updated version of the Archos Arnova 10, a tablet that we bypassed earlier, probably because it used resistive touch technology.

Updated version of Archos Arnova 10 tablet
Source: ARMdevices.net

The 10.1-inch tablet, shown off by Charbax in the video farther below, now has a capacitive display, as well as the aforementioned Rockchip RK2918 processor. When it ships in May, the updated Arnova 10 will sell for $229, says the story.

Archos' capacitive version of 10-inch Arnova 10 tablet on YouTube
Source: ARMdevices.net
(Click to play)

Finally, if it's still April 14, you may have time to head over to Amazon.com and check out the "Deal of the Day" — a typically $400-$500 ViewSonic gTablet (pictured). At least for now, Amazon is selling the 10.1-inch Android 2.2 tablet for $280. The device features a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, but can be overclocked to 1.6GHz with a third party ROM, according to AndroidCommunity.

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