Should you buy the 43 vision? Here's my opinion...

[surreydude]

I've been an archos owner for some time now. I started with the Jukebox, had a 405 and now own a 43 vision.

In short, I have to say, I think my time as an archos owner is coming to an end. Although tempted by the new tablet range - mainly because they run android o/s and I'm an HTC android owner too - I have to say that purchasing the 43 vision has left me annoyed.

I've had it for more than six months now and have a 32gb micro sd card in it. It promises to be the ideal compact mp3/4 player for my daily commute but here are the main detractors for me:

- The touch screen. It's so random, I wonder how the product team came to the conclusion that this was acceptable to a user. As we all become very familiar with touchscreen interfaces, this is woefully bad. My pet hate is adjusting the volume down only to be blasted with full volume...

- No firmware updates. At all. Ever.

- Ordering files on the SD card. A question for you, Archos: when has ordering files by their modified time *ever* been the way you want to look for files on your 32gb memory card...?!?!

- Limited EQ control. I use a pair of B&O earphones to get better low volume sound quality and better EQ control would be great.

Having said that, I do like the playback. Nice rendering and sound quality is OK if a bit limited. But overall, I just want a usable MP3/4 player that isn't wifi enabled. This doesn't pass muster.

Sorry, but I give this a thumbs down. Look elsewhere for better low cost tech.