The rumors of the much-anticipated, yet-to-be-confirmed Apple (AAPL) tablet continued to pile up.

The latest version comes from that old rumormonger, Trip Chowdhry, proprietor of the boutique research firm Global Equities Research. Once a month or so, Chowdhry publishes Silicon Scorp, a roundup of chatter he’s hearing around the Valley. And one of things he’s been hearing lately is that Apple by the end of the year will announced an $899 “SmartBook,” with 8-10 inch OLED screens from LG Electroinics, and an ARM Holding (ARMH) dual core Corex9 chipset. He writes that his contacts are “almost positive” that such a device is coming, that Apple wants to launch this year, but that widespread availability isn’t likely until Q1 2010.

I’d note that there have been rumors about Apple sourcing OLED screens from LG for some months now; rumors that a tablet will be based on a Cortex chip have been around since late last year. And there have even been some stories asserting that the new Apple whatever-it-is will be priced at $899.

Chowdhry writes that the new device is being benchmarked against the Archos Windows 7-powered NetBook, a device called the Archos 9PCtablet, and could look similar. Here’s a picture of that device, taken from the Archos Web site:

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