Archos 32 (8GB)

Pros: Comes with Android, Hackable to include whole Android Market, bluetooth is great, feels unbreakable, perfect size, uses standard micro-usb connector

Cons: Touch screen responsive issues, battery could be better (!!!), Camera in a whacky spot., no multi-touch

Summary: The reason I bought this device was because my previous MP3 died on me recently. I needed to find something that had bluetooth on it. This was literally the cheapest mp3 player I could find at the time that supported bluetooth. Little did I know this would come with far more then expected. All I wanted was an MP3 player but this offers far more then expected.

It seems to be very sturdy. It's got a plastic shell on it but I've dropped it a few things and it comes back unscaved. I wouldn't throw at a wall like my buddies like to do with there mp3 players but I think it will last a while. It has a volume up and down and a power button on it. It also has 6 buttons at the bottom, 2 of which are also volume buttons. It's good to have more buttons then less then what i need I guess.

It comes with a 3.5mm earphone jack which I never use. I bought this so that it would sync up with bluetooth earphones. Initially I was unsure how bluetooth would work with this device but it works quite well. Sync's up when it needs too and supports A2DP which is nice so I can control it through my headphones. I've also been more then 20 feet away from the player with my earphones and it works perfecly. My previous headphones would not work after 5 feet. Doesn't really matter but it was noticable and worth mentioning. All the music on it is no less 192kbps and it sounds great through bluetooth.

Transfer rate is extremely quick when transfering files or mp3 songs through USB but no faster then my previous Samung MP3 player. Because of all the space I don't need to interchange my music library nearly as often as my previous 2gb drive.

I haven't had the device run slow or not run a program that I have installed from the store. This includes all apps and games. I have run out of internal space. I'm not sure how that happens with so much space available but clearly it only has so much space available for installing apps. I don't really know how that works.

I have to recharge at least daily but I use it a lot for a lot of different things. I have my bluetooth earphones, and gps connected to it quite often. Not to mention I listen to music for a good 4 hours a day at least. It's understandable why I have to reach it daily.

Touchscreen is a bit finicky. I find myself pushing the screen twice when I could be pushing it once. If your purpose is just to use it as an Mp3 player the problem can easily be ignored but if you want to really play with it then it is a bit annoying to use sometimes.

I can't stress this enough. Having an operating system of any kind like android on an MP3 player is amazing. Don't like the way one plays then install a different one. Unlimited software is available because it's on a real OS. My old mp3 player had samsung widgets. It had 5 widgets I could install all of which were garbage. The Mp3 player never remember my past songs so when I tried to rewind to previous song I got another song. If the same was experienced with this device I would install a different mp3 player.

Wifi works great. I have installed apps to use as an XBMC remote through xbox/appletv, X10 system, and streaming music radio without any hassle. The wifi made me nervous because of all the bad reviews but I haven't come across any issues. The stock browser works well and it's great that it supports flash because of froyo 2.2 being installed.

The one major drawback after buying it is that I wanted so much more afterwards. It would be great if it had a speaker and gps built in. Those are things you don't need with an MP3 player though, but I can dream.

For all the geeks out there I haven't even tried to root the device. You can go to the archos forums to learn how to do it but the procedure is very long. I haven't seen a need to root it except that I have read that you can do a full backup of the system. It would be nice down the line incase something happens to the device to have a full backup. It also doesn't have multi-touch. It may not be major but some apps like pdf viewers require multi-touch to zoom in and because they think you have Froyo installed they don't bother assuming it doesn't have multi-touch.

I have only had the device for 3 weeks but I think it is a huge step up from my previous MP3 player. If you were to use it as a full scale tablet you may not think it's worth it. It's not polished enough for me to use as a full tablet. It's price is nicely priced even for an MP3 player with bluetooth.