Official details on the Archos 9 tablet PC

And rounding the final turn it's the Archos 9 tablet by a nose...

The Archos 9 PC Tablet will come out on October 22nd and will retail for $500. It will feature an Intel Atom processor with 120GB hard drive, will run Windows 7 and have WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The 9″ resistive touchscreen device also has 1 GB RAM, a removable lithium-ion battery, weighs 28 ounces and comes preloaded with web browser, Microsoft Office, Skype and more.

It also looks like it will be the first official slab tablet PC to come out in this new generation beating the Toshiba JournE Touch and Microsoft Courier. Who knows though — there’s still a month to go before the Archos 9 PC Tablet goes on sale. That’s plenty of time for another dark horse to swoop in with another tablet announcement.

Read the full story from Wired after the jump.

Tablet PCs might be headed for a revival. Archos introduced a 9-inch notepad-like tablet with a touchscreen, making it the latest manufacturer to get an early jump on the emerging tablet trend.

The $500 Archos 9 tablet features an Intel Atom processor, up to 120 GB disk drive, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and will run Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7.

“It will blend the computing horsepower of a laptop with a rich multimedia experience,” says Ron Ferguson, senior vice president at Archos North America.

Until earlier this year, most analysts and industry watchers saw tablets as a category that wouldn’t catch on with consumers. Tablets are not as compact as smartphones and don’t have a physical keyboard that could make them a real alternative to netbooks. But with rumors of Apple working on a tablet, the category seems to have caught the interest of other device manufacturers. Dell is also reportedly working on a tablet.

Archos’ announcement comes at the same time as Microsoft’s prototype tablet, called Courier. On Tuesday, Microsoft showed the Courier, a dual-screen device that is still under development. The Courier folds like a book and has 7-inch multi-touch screens. It can detect finger gestures as well as a stylus for writing, flicking and drawing.

Archos’ tablet offers less functionality. At 0.68 inches thick, it is fairly thin, but it’s far from small enough to fit into the back pocket of your Levis. And the resistive touchscreen can become a deal killer quickly: Not as sensitive as the capacitive touchscreens on the iPhone or Palm Pre, the Archos 9 tablet requires pecking away on the display with a stylus.

The device has 1 GB RAM and a removable lithium-ion battery. On the left panel are buttons for the speaker, webcam, and the virtual keyboard. The tablet comes loaded with a browser, Microsoft Office and Skype among other software.

The Archos 9 tablet, which weighs about 28 ounces, is expected to start shipping October 22.