[Gen8 General] cutterjohn:
I was just going to post my preliminary impressions this morning. (I see that stock gTab got a nice update... now if they'd only go for honeycomb...)

Anyways, back to Archos:

I used the A43IT primarily as an ereader(FBReaderJ) on Wednesday afternoon along with trying the camera(haven't gotten around to xferring the files to nb yet to check), added a bunch of apps from appslib and sideload(mostly DolphinHD & AndFTP for sftp). Otherwise I've got everything still bog OOB 2.1.08 stock fw.

OK, Wed. set it to "powersave" in Power management(under About device) as my battery level by meter seemed to be dropping pretty quickly. I didn't see where this made much of a difference though, presumably it limits the max CPU clock to something less than 800MHz(probably 600MHz) which was fine for me since I was reading which isn't exactly CPU intensive. Also had the brightness set to min in Settings->Display->Brightness, WiFi & bluetooth OFF, and killed most running apps with "System Monitor". (FBReader looked good, or as good as it ever does while I was never able to set it to my liking on the A32IT.)

I had about 70% battery left Thursday morning(probably ran 2.5-3.5h Wed mostly with WiFi, etc. off reading.) Used it in the morning browsing the web for about 2h, same low backlight setting, and was at c. 50% charge -> recharged via USB to computer cable attached to nb, took about 2.5h(!). (Optimal power setting.) I had a single hard freeze in DolphinHD, as in it wasn't responding to screen presses, power button, etc. Long pressed power button to shut it down, and restarted it. (It has been fine since.) I set the font size setting from "normal" to "large" as some non-mobile sites the font still was a little small to me, if there was a bold setting I probably could have gone with normal + bold, but... Browsing is MUCH nicer on the A43IT v. A32IT but NOT as nice as gTab.

Used it again as a reader later that afternoon/evening, but left the power setting at Optimal, and started using Aldiko(render italicized text, etc. while FBReader doesn't plus the font looks better).

Compared Aldiko on A32IT v. A43IT, and I can actually get Aldiko to display decently on the A32IT, but it's still a bit small to hold(to me). I also noticed that the touch screen is MUCH better on the A32IT v. A43IT.

A43IT touchscreen so far to me is a bit better than either the Augen GT48 or Pandigital Novel(white), but obviously not as nice to use with fingers as a capacitive screen device, e.g. gTab. Working best for me by using fingernail or stylus(especially scrolling web pages). In reader apps finger presses are fine. There might be a bit of residue from the shipped screen protector as immediately after removing it, the screen felt rough to the finger/nail in some spots and still does after a few cleanings. (The A32IT initially did as well, but now after more than a week feels smooth.)

Build quality: A43IT just doesn't "feel" (or look) as sturdy to me as the A32IT. There is a small but obvious gap where the two halves of the case meet, especially on the side with the uSD & mini-HDMI port. Volume keys are loose, but they are on the A32IT as well, which doesn't really bother me. The power button is a bit small ovoid shape and IS more difficult to operate than the more exposed rectangular buttons on the A32IT & gTab, but not a big problem IMO.

Screen: hmmm... probably a bit better than the gTab as far as viewing angles go, but not as "bright". It looks a bit washed out to me v. gTab or A32IT. I still haven't played video on it yet(or even games) so I'll have to check on that later. (None are as nice as the IPS screen on the Nook Color.)

uSD slot: PITA period. Exposed finger side is UP as you look at the screen and it's a PITA to pop a card out. They left no finger depression, so unless you've got some nails you're going to need something to push the card in and then hope that it pops out enough to grab...

uUSB: I wish that they'd've got miniUSB as these uUSB ports do NOT feel very robust on the A43IT, A32IT, or Nook Color.

Sunny/bright LCD display: A32IT washes out, but it's been overcast here since I received the A43IT and I haven't been anywhere with it that's been extraordinarily bright... ?

hw Buttons: Just power & vol rocker. Home, Menu, Back, and Search are displayed as part of the screen and I'm guessing that they've modified the OS such that they ALWAYs appear at bottom portrait orientation, or right landscape which would explain the odd resolution of 480x854 v. 480x800. The 54 pixels are probably permanently reserved for those button rather than having touch screen(non-display part)/hw buttons like on the gTab or A32IT. These buttons work OK, just a matter of calibrating which I recommend using a stylus to do. (learned this from the A32 as finger calibrating led to Vol +/- hits sometimes v. home, menu, etc. (A32 has physical vol keys PLUS resitive touch +/- vol keys.)).

Games: as mentioned, dunno yet. I haven't tried any and the ones that I'd like to (emulators) would really work better with a bluetooth controller(e.g. wiimote) which I don't have. (I haven't really played any on the gTab either though...)

Physical Overall Size: Still a bit smaller than I'd like, and I'd've preferred a 4:3 screen for it, as it does look really narrow when held in portrait mode, i.e. when used as a reader. It's quite a bit thicker than the A32, and a little thinner than the gTab. (Probably and inch shorter than a paperback and maybe .75" less wide at a guess...)

Weight: MUCH lighter than the gTab, and noticeably heavier than the A32. Probably about the same weight as 2-3 paperback books.

TV Out: dunno. I haven't gottent around to buying/ordering any HDMI cables yet as I really haven't had a need for them... and/or a desire to hook anything up to the TV until now. (Emulators would probably be more fun played on the TV...) I haven't tried the A32 TV out either as I don't have the composite cable and haven't ordered one for it either, and also don't have the dock for the gTab so along with no cables, no HDMI out for it.

Android: pretty well stock Android. As to v. TapnTap dunno, but since I'll be wanting to go to TnT lite 5.0.0 soon, I'll probably be loading TapnTap 3991 today and might try using it for a bit as it's apparently a MAJOR update(2400 quadrant, 40+ fps Nenamark) so the A43IT isn't likely to get much use today unless I decide to try video later tonight.

USB hostmode: No cable for the A32 or A43 and just never bothered on the gTab since it has uSD slot. I'll eventually want a host cable though at least for the A32 since that's the ONLY means of expanding storage via host cable to flahs or other kind of drive... again probably not likely to ever update this here soon as this is yet another cable I haven't ordered/don't have.

bluetooth: actually haven't tested this on any of my tablets yet. I'll try to connect them to my nb over the next few days, but it should just work and beyond that will be do the various tablets have the necessary drivers to support whatever devices...

WiFi: range seems to be a fraction worse than either the A32, Nook Color, or gTab, but better than the Pandigital Novel(white). I'm able to get a 1-2 bar connection outside at what I guess to be about 50' from the router(DLink DIR-615 rev B2, G mode, WEP (have legacy devices that only do B and WEP that I use)) plus misc. (7-8) other neighboring routers that I can see go up and down at various times.

builtin speakers: They're there. They work. They're not as nice as the ones on the gTab or they don't sound as good to me, but thats fine since you can always use headphones(3.5mm jack or bluetooth) if you'd like better. I'd wish that they'd've squeezed in at least one speaker for the A32... (of course I'd've like uSD as well...)

Market: I haven't done that yet, not sure if I will since sleep works rather well right now on both my A32IT & A43IT w/o Google apps installed, which tends to break sleep on some of the other tablets that I have, e.g. I ALWAYS shutdown my gTab v. sleeping it, and do the same with the Pandigital Novel(white)... I have sideloaded some apps that I've downloaded on the gTab from the market to it and it worked, so mostly everything not requiring GPS/phone service should work. That said I have no idea how much of the market they can see as you know every market fix that I've seen so far, some apps show up on one, but not on others AND even then there are apps that just never show up... (tied to various carriers or something I think... not really sure how the market identifies which apps to display for which device...) The market install is supposed to be easy, so I might get around to trying it eventually, but I was really think of leaving it stock and just pulling apps from elsewhere, i.e. gTab -> Titanium backup -> dropbox(or nb, etc.) -> A32/A43

So that's where I'm at. It's decent. Not as snappy as the gTab, but I already knew that this was going to be the case though. The touchscreen is not nearly as nice as the A32IT's, but better than some others. I'm still not sure about the touchscreen and will have to use it some more before deciding on that.

My verdict at this point is not bad. Trifle small yet, and touch screen is not a responsive as I had hoped yet not completely awful. It's the only thing in the just about the right size category for tablets, so not much choice...

[EDIT]

Couple of adds:

offtopic: I see now that the gtab stock 3991 fw isn't OTAing everywhere, roebeet just discovered by checking their ftp site...

benchmarking: no quadrant on the A43IT yet, but my a32IT was getting around 1350(read others get 1300-1600 about 1400 or so average) or so, so I'd expect the A43IT with the overdrive power management option to be a bit higher, but certainly not the 2400+ that we get on the gtab. (I believe that the overdrive option keeps the CPU @ 1GHz, so it should make up for having to push more pixels around on the A43IT's larger display...)

[/EDIT]