Archos 3 Vision 8 GB Video MP3 Player (Red)

Comment: I bought the vision 3 because I generally like Archos products. The things I don't I can live with (like the lack of USB port on the Archos 5 and 7)

At any rate I had my Archos Vision for just under a week and the screen cracked apparently from nothing other than normal use. This renders it inoperable. Be advised this is one delicate piece of equipment. If your going to buy one invest in a protective case.

Probably not good if you have children who love your electronic stuff

Comment: This item looks cool. That's about the best thing about it. The sound quality is ok. The touch screen does not work great. I notice this especially when trying to turn the volume up and down, kinda important. I really have to set the volume to what I want and be ok w/ that for a while cause it's so hard to change. Plus the battery power is awful. My daughters both have no brand players and they have two or three times the battery life the Archos has. It seems to drain power even when it is not on. Another problem is my computer doesn't always recognize it, I went to the website to troubleshoot they had nothing in the FAQ's so I emailed them it was over a week ago w/ no response. Even though it said it would be 48 hours.

Comment: I was at first a little scared due to the reviews about this player, but after getting it I knew they were wrong. The touch screen at first was a little of but I found the calibration folder and got it working. The FM transmiter is a little scratchy but everythig else works. I even tried to scratch the bottom part of the screen, no dammage was done. Busy trying to find a software to copy all my movies.

Comment: I bought this Archos 3 Vision player online for around $70. I was lured in by the chocolate brown color, the wide range of file support, and the FM transmitter. Impressed by previous Archos offerings, I decided to try this new player out.

When I first saw the item, I was extremely surprised by how small it was. My old MP3 player (a Philips SA6145 MP3 Player (Black)) has a 3.5" screen and is quite large. I regretted buying this Archos 3 immediately after seeing its small size, which is (no joke) barely bigger than a credit card. The only reason I left my perfect Philips was for a touch screen interface that the Philips didn't have. I very much regret doing that now, as I realize that my Philips was really a great player.

And the touch screen, you may ask? It's truly horrible. It always requires at least two presses to respond correctly; pitiful for any touch screen player. And there's no way to scroll by dragging. No, you have to use a "scroll wheel" (a little circle that lights up when the touch the area of the lower, right-hand part of the screen) and turn it in a circular motion to move the page. I really missed real buttons then.

After loading some files onto the Archos, I was very happy with the 8 GB of storage space on this Archos compared to only 4 on my Philips. I loaded some AVI, FLV, and WMV files on the player and was extremely impressed with the quality of the Archos' screen. But after only 3 seconds of a high-quality AVI file, the player froze completely. The touch screen didn't respond at all, neither did pressing the home button (one of the only real buttons on the player located on the face of the player underneath the screen). I had to turn off the player and back on again, only to have it do the same thing. I converted this AVI file to WMV using my Philips' converter software, and the files played fine on my player, although the quality was, disappointingly, not as good. I then loaded several MP3 files onto the Archos and was saddened to see that, although the quality was good, half the album art and tagging info didn't show up on the player. This was never a problem with my Philips.

In addition, using the touch screen for music control was abysmal. The volume slide would not change, and several presses was what it took to change the volume to where I wanted it to go. Now, the truly main reason why I wanted a touch screen was to be able to press the seek bar and instantly go to any part of the movie I wanted, and the Archos did this fine. 1 good thing, finally.

The accessories included are the USB cord for charging and file transfer, the included earphones, and the user manual. The USB cord was fine, but the included headphones were the definition of terrible. Sound quality was extremely poor, and running was impossible, after about 15 seconds of running, an earbud would pop out of my ear. Terrible. The user manual was simply a fold out map in three languages of the stuff you can read on the Amazon webpage. However, there was an offer for 75 free songs from Archos, but it was really a scam to get my to sign up with my credit card on an obligation-based program.

My overall views on this product spell out one word: disappointment. I was extremely impressed with the Archos 5 and the Archos 604, but this player was a sore disappointment. Archos really lost out on a great opportunity of making a smaller player in their line. Instead of making a quality product, they threw together a player and polished it. Everything was abysmal about this player, and not even the color satisfied me. It turned out to be more of a purple than brown in natural light. But in more serious terms, the horrible touch screen, the freezing while playing back files, the poor earphones, and the uncertainty of album art and info transferring to the player makes me award this player with a 1 star. Stay far, far, away.

Comment: Purchase was a great buy for the price, many features were very easy to use and understand.