I'll look forward to the comparison tests
in which battery life and performance after being dropped on the floor are compared to a flash-based tablet
The Archos tablet has gone for a spin, being the world's first tablet computer to use a disk drive instead of flash memory. Seagate's single platter Momentus Thin is the lucky spinner. Archos OMAP 4 processor with an ARM Cortex dual-core A9 running at 1.5 GHz, using Android 3.1 "Honeycomb", and a 250GB version of Seagate's 2.5 …
"The Archos tablet has gone for a spin, being the world's first tablet computer to use a disk drive instead of flash memory. Seagate's single platter Momentus Thin is the lucky spinner."
I disagree.
My Kalador tablet (386 DX) from about 1994 has a 20meg hard drive.
My Fujitsu Stylus 1000 has a 340 meg hard drive (http://gigaom.com/mobile/the_first_8_inc/)
My Compaq concerto has a 40meg hard drive (I think...)
I have had occasion several times over the last year to perform ad-hoc drop tests on my iPad, and despite it flying out of my hands and landing in the most awkward ways several times, it has yet to suffer any permanent damage (although my nerves have suffered more than once). It does have a cheap third-party leather case, which helps of course. I'm not sure putting an HD into a tablet is a wise move though.
Such a HDD isn't much difference to same storage of SSD in power consumption. Nor is dropping it an issue if designed properly (screen more at risk).
Archos been doing disk & non-disk versions of same tablet for years. A605 is SD version and also 160Gbyte 2.5" HDD version with no SD slot.
That level of storage might just be the thing that sees me buy a tablet, can generate an awfuly large amount of data with three cameras on a wildlife photo shoot.
As for dropping it, why would I do that? Though it wouldn't hurt to put a neck/wrist strap mount on these things for the more clumsy types out there.