Archos 3 8GB

Falling into the seemingly ever-dwindling "not an iPod" category of flash media players, the Archos 3 dons new duds, puts on a brave face, and arrives to the party late but decently dressed. Nice to look at but less pleasant to live with, its much-touted tactile screen with "virtual wheel selector" is a disappointment backed up with a crude user interface.

2009 marks the unofficial eleventh anniversary of the flash memory based portable media player (PMP). In that time, we've seen capacities balloon 1000-fold from 32MB up to 32GB and beyond, with 100+GB promising to be commonplace in the not-too-distant future. The bottom-end of the market now boasts up to 3" diagonal screens, with full touch control and video display as well as music playback. Packing all of this into the sub-$100 category is the Archos 3 Vision positioned as a step above the postage stamp screen media players but also steering well clear of iPod touch territory. Continue reading full review @ Everything USB