Archos 3 Cam Vision Player with Built-in Video Camera and FM Transmitter (Black)

I have had several Archos tablets. In fact, I believe my first tablet was an Archos, circa 15 years ago. They were among the first to produce tablets and I loved their products, and attitude. I am very sorry that they stopped making them. I had been looking for a small tablet i could use as a PDA and wanted one which was not connected. I am a psychologist and have serious issues with privacy, so I can not use my phone or any of the current tablets for that purpose. I stumbled across this in my search, hoping it had an address book and date book. It doesn't BUT I was so impressed with what it does, for a tablet in this price range that I immediately returned and bought another as a back up. I also messaged a few friends to tell them to pick one up quick, because it is a low stock item.If you are not familiar with Archos, it is a French company which has been making tablets longer than Apple has. Their first tablets connected only to the Archos store, where you could download programs which had been checked for viruses, malware and compatability, and were also free. On onre of my tablets I had Archos media center, which got me free worldwide TV, and had a 500G drive. I miss that one quite a lot. (My husband fried it). his tablet was probably made close to 10 years ago. Archos was always ahead of their time.It is a music and video player. It comes with a lot of codecs on board so is can read most lossless formats, and several video formats as well. It has a camera (still and video) and microphone, so it can also be used to record lectures e.g. It is not wifi or lte. You can add photos or music by dragging and dropping, or save pictures and videos the same way. I do not know what version of android it is running, or whether there are any other compatible programs available. I have yet to check whether or not the Archos store still exists. I am happy enough to have a credit card lossless music (and video) player, and recorder for $15. The only reliable mp3 player in this price range that I am aware of is the sandisk. It does not have a camera (still or video) nor does it have a screen. There may be more this little tablet is capable of doing, but I haven''t really explored that yet. It is a very good digital music player. The volume levels are excellent. It is almost as good as my FIIO X1! It comes with an early pixar video as a demo, which alone is worth $15 as far as I am concerned ;)There are some cons. It is older, several generations back, and while the resolution is excellent, it has a capacitative screen which is not very responsive. It does not have wifi or lte (I personally see that as a plus ;) It has a small screen (both a positive and a negative)... that is, it fits in your pocket quite easily, but is less than ideal for watching video.This would make a great gift for a child. It is simple to use, does not cost much and is very solidly built. I dropped it from 4 feet not long after I got it, and it has not affected performance at all. At the current price buying a back up is not a ridiculous proposition. I actually have decided to give my back up to one of my friends kids because I do have a phone and tablety (or 2 or 3). I still enjoy this for what it is but probably do not really need 2. I just thought.... you just do ot find deals like this every day, in my book, a deal too good to pass up.If you found this, congratulations. Even without a black friday or cyber monday sale price, you get quite a lot for what it costs. I seriously doubt that there is another DAP, camera, video player at this price, a terrific little media player and recorder which you can take tyo the beach, hiking, etc without having to worry about it. Now that I have decided to give my second to a friend's daughter, I may need to pick up a third before they sell out. (There are fewer than 10 remaining).

While outdated by today's standards, the Archos 3 Cam Vision Player was a good product for the price at the time while competing against big names. I opted for the Archos due to its price and great reviews. I was looking for a music player mainly and touchscreen media players were all the rage at the time. I loved the thought of owning a media player but could not justify spending that kind of money when a standard music player would do. That's when I came across the Archos. Excited to use all its features, the novelty wore quick and it became a dedicated music player only. And to that end it was great. My only real gripe is that touchscreen is slow to respond which can get annoying after a while. Still a great product but a simple MP3 player would have satisfied my needs.

Where to begin? The first issue is the touch screen which is very slow to respond and if you go to fast it locks up and has to be "reset" add this to the poor response of the screen ( try flicking the music tab twenty or thirty times) and now you've got a huge headache and don't want to listen to your music. I have had this unit for over a year and used it maybe a dozen times and recharged it about 7 times. The rest of the time it sat in it's case in my drawer. I went to use it recently and it is now not working at all, the screen is frozen. I went to their website and tried all the "troubleshooting" remedies (most of which don't apply to my simple MP3 player) which didn't work. As suggested by Archos, I email technical support to get an RGA to return it ( warranty is 2 years on MP3 and MP4 players and can be viewed on their webpage). I get an automated response 2 days later advising me that it will take 2 days for them to respond. Being a patient sort of person, I wait six days and no response. I go back to the website and send them another message which is also ignored. I call the Customer Service line. After listening to a half hour of scripted talk the CSR tells me the warranty is no longer any good. When I point out that I am in within the warranty period he challenges me to produce it, which I do as it is right there on his website! When he finally acknowledges the warranty, he challenges the receipt and I have to email it to them so they can investigate (what is this a crime scene?). He tells me it will be a "few more days". I send my receipt to the email provided and it comes back as "no such address exists", Gee what a coincidence! I call customer service again and speak to the same CSR as on the first call (Omar) and he claims there is no record of my call. When I remind him he spoke to me before, he claims there is "more than one Omar and he's not the right Omar)....Is this ridiculous or not??? After having to agrgue the warranty again he tells me he will email me a form. It has been 5 days and no email or form. It becomes very obvious that they will do anything to keep from having to support their products. I read through the manual and find out that they can "offer me a discounted price" on a new unit rather than fix mine and they will retain my unit as their property (probably to fix and resell it). Bottom line: Lousy product not backed up by manufacturer. Don't waste your time or money on anything from Archos.