Buying earphones is a right minefield. You start out your music-listening career with whatever came with your player of choice, then graduate to something a bit more noise-cancelly, then you start buying buds that cost around £30-£60. Then these inevitably break so you buy a similar pair and so on and so forth until, at some point, you ask yourself if, this time, it’d worth spending a serious amount of cash on their replacement.

Well, is it? I’ve been using the £199 Atomic Floyd SuperDarts + Remote to try and find out.

The above has been my exact journey. Having somehow destroyed several pairs of mid-range earphones (simply by using them), I’ve been questioning how wise it would be to go all out on the next pair. And the Floyds are just that: pricey, premium and red all over. How do they fare?

Looks

Once you’ve managed to break your way into the Floyd’s astronaut-grade packaging, you’ll notice one thing: these don’t look like the sort of earphones you get for the mid range price mark. And to be fair, when you’re paying £199, you don’t expect to see an abundance of black plastic. What you get instead is stainless steel. The buds are hewn of the stuff, and shaped like plane turbines.

Atomic Floyd TwistJax review

This emphasis on better materials extends to the cord, too. The SuperDarts bright red tail is covered in kevlar. It makes them feel a bit more rugged, but I’m not all that sure they live up to their ‘anti-tangle’ promise. Not that they would: making headphones that genuinely don’t tangle in your pocket is probably a job for the boys at CERN.

Long story short: they’re a unique-looking pair of lug-fillers. Maybe a little too different. The actual buds are slightly larger than your average ones due to their extra innards (more on that in a bit), which means that they do stick out of your head quite a bit.

If you don’t have long hair, this has the potential to look a bit like you’ve got two Frankenstein bolts coming out of your temples. In my experience, wearing the SuperDarts definitely turns heads, but whether you think that’s a good thing or not arguably depends on how much of a wallflower you are. They’re not insane looking, but they do stick out a bit.

Sound quality

I know what sounds good, but I’m not about to sit down with anyone and argue the merits of having an extra 7 Hz or 3 decibels. That said, in the same way that most able-eared humans can tell the difference between ‘tinny’ and ‘bassy’, I can hear that the Atomic Floyds are noticeably better than any pair of earphones I’ve tried to date.

That’ll be due to the dual drivers – giving the SuperDarts double the amount of speakers as standard buds. That’s why they’re slightly on the large side, but it’s also why I genuinely noticed parts of songs that I’d not heard before. The sound quality (and especially the noise cancellation) is good. I’d hesitate to say if that alone is £199′s worth of good, but then you’re paying for the whole package here.

Remote

That whole package includes an inline remote – a feature that presumably costs untold amounts and endless man-hours to include, as you never seem to get one with headphones that cost any less than £60. It’s a nice touch and does what you’d expect – skips and pauses tracks, as well as adjusting the volume. There’s also a microphone for making handsfree calls. So far so good, but there’s a problem…

Beats headphones go solo

The SuperDarts’ remote doesn’t seem to like Android all that much. The pausing and skipping functions work, but the volume function doesn’t. Or at least, it doesn’t when paired with a Samsung Galaxy S3. Something to consider if you’ve got a library of songs ripped at different volumes.

Jogging

Whilst we’re on the subject of downfalls, there is a drawback to using such premium materials: they’re not light. This isn’t a problem when you’re walking about, but it makes the SuperDarts uneasy jogging partners. I’ve not had them fall out of my ears, but the weight of the cord and the stainless steel inline remote means that bouncing up and down tugs on your ears in a slightly uncomfortable way. Enough to say that I wouldn’t wear them for any more than a 45 minute jog.

Having said that, I did a run with the SuperDarts in one of the worst storms since the Noah’s arc debacle, and they remained completely unaffected by the deluge. Kudos.

Verdict

If you’re anything like me, the biggest worry in spending a lot of money on earphones isn’t about sound quality – it’s that earphones always break. It’s a genuine concern that spending a lot of money on something that most people treat very badly, and that you know will be replaced at some point in the future, might not be all that wise.

Klipsch S4A Android headphones review

Having only tested the Atomic Floyd SuperDarts for a couple of weeks, I can’t really tell you how long they’re going to last. I can, however, attest to their sound prowess. And I can say that they feel more hardy and durable than any pair I’ve had before.

Will they eventually break? Everything does, but there’s something in my bones that says I’d have probably bought six pairs of £30 headphones before they do finally give up on me.

Link: Atomic Floyd

Now with the inclusion of Apple’s AirPlay music streaming technology, B&W hopes to raise the bar again. Can it? We put it to the test: read on and find out the results here in our B&W Zeppelin Air review.

The same but different

It looks familiar, but it's not just a Wi-Fi upgrade

The B&W Zeppelin Air apes the original Zeppelin’s torpedo design, but this is not just the original funky boom box with a Wi-Fi bolt on. The brand has gone back to the drawing board, uprating internal components and drivers.?
Connections are located on the Air’s lower back, between two dimpled bass ports. There’s an Ethernet LAN, auxiliary minijack input for analogue and digital audio sources, USB and a composite video output.

The connections are a hit and miss affair

The Ethernet jack itself sits too far inside the cabinet to allow hooded Ethernet cables to snap tight, meaning a goodly number of our cables just pulled loose. Luckily we did have a minimalist selection of flat Cat 6 cables that clipped securely in. The 30-pin iPod dock itself meanwhile orbits the centre of the Zeppelin. A tiny LED flits from red to purple to confirm it’s online.

Connection challenge

We’d like to say that getting the Zeppelin Air online and streaming from iTunes was fast and simple, but unfortunately it wasn’t.

Buy the B&W Zeppelin Air now

The initial set up routine actually requires that you connect the Zeppelin Air via Ethernet and call up its setup page in a browser. From here you can select your Wi-Fi network and input the requisite security key. Once online, the unit is duly discovered by iTunes. Unfortunately trying to connect and stream music from a test PC via a Netgear router was frustrated by a barrage of iTunes -15006 errors.

Instead, we quickly set up a secondary network using a BT Home Hub. This worked a charm and our Zeppelin Air was online and streaming in short order.

AirPlay in action

Once you've got it set up, AirPlay works like a charm

AirPlay itself is wonderfully elegant. Once registered onto the same network as your iTunes server, the Zeppelin Air turns up bottom right as a supported device. From this point you can stream albums and playlists directly from your PC to the Zeppelin. AirPlay supports multiple speaker delivery, so if you have other compatible devices dotted around you can create multi-room audio remarkably quickly.

The system really comes into its own when streaming from a partnered handheld iOS device. The iPad provides a glorious interface to browse your music and stream, but it works as efficiently with an iPod Touch or iPhone. Of course, if you want to dock your device you can. A glossy pebble-shaped remote offers simple volume and playback functionality.

Digital Diva

You can get a lot of sound out of the Air - if anything, too much for your poor compressed MP3s

The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air can certainly play loud. It has enough muscle to drive the average MP3 rip to quite intolerable levels. For the best audio quality, the Air shouldn’t be played too loud. Kept within sensible listening limits, the beefy bass output blends well with the crisp mid-range. The result is an altogether polished sonic performance. There is no significant penalty between listening over Wi-Fi and having your iPod docked.

Read our Denon CEOL RCD-N7 AirPlay review now

There are a couple of disappointments, though. The video output allows you to plop JPEGs from your iPhone or iPod touch onto a TV, or to stream videos, but the quality of the output is poor. The provision of a low-def composite video output seems ill-judged in this age of HDMI. Quite why the Air is hamstrung in this fashion is a mystery. Equally confounding, while you can slideshow images to music when docked, you can’t view album art.

Verdict

Overall, the Zeppelin Air is a worthy upgrade on an already lauded design. The inclusion of AirPlay seems a natural evolution, and performance is suitably premium. If you’re looking for a high-end sound system for your iTunes collections you’ll not be disappointed.

The £499 ticket is a high price to pay, putting this particular hardware squarely in the “if you have to ask then you can’t afford it” category of kit – but if you fell for the first Zeppelin, doubtless you’ve been saving up for this moment.

We’ve been mildly impressed by all of Archos’ recent wave of 3G-free Android devices we’ve tested recently. Each has had a certain charm about them: the Archos 101 is sturdy and slim, the Archos 43 is impressively powerful for its size, and the Archos 28 is the cheapest way yet to listen to Spotify on the go.

Sadly, the Archos 32 Android tablet doesn’t do a lot different. As you’d expect for a device that’s just 0.4 inches bigger than the £79 Archos 28, it struggles to stand out in Archos’ line up.

Archos Android tablet review: Group test

Design and build

It's a pleasant enough desing, but rather prone to smudges, as you can see.

This should come as no surprise by now. The Archos 32 Android tablet looks exactly like the Archos 28, and the Archos 3 Vision media player before it, from the capacitive buttons below the screen to the 3.5mm audio slot on the bottom and the power button on the right hand side. It’s smooth and solid, but sucks in fingerprints like dust to a Dyson.

On the other hand, it is at least thin, and Archos has finally seen fit to address our biggest problem with its designs of late, and actually returned a volume rocker to the side of the device. With the 28, you had to turn on the screen every time, but the Archos 32 Android tablet will let you adjust volume while it plays in your pocket – as it should. As such, we’re a little surprised to see volume buttons on the front of it too – you will never, ever use them.

There’s also one other addition: the Archos 32 Android tablet supports TV-out, though this is through the 3.5mm port rather than mini HDMI as on the Archos 43. We would actually consider using it on a regular basis, given its media playback chops – more on that later.

Best Android tablet

Android

Like the rest of the French company’s Android media player line, the Archos 32 Android tablet runs Android 2.1 out of the box, and is quickly and readily upgraded to Android 2.2. We’d recommend doing so since the process takes five minutes, and gives you a jazzed up homescreen that switches out the tray for the Froyo dock instead – plus support for more apps.

The Archos 32 runs Android without the frills

Finding those apps however is a chore: as ever, Google hasn’t blessed the Archos 32 Android tablet with its core Google apps, so you can’t get Android Market access without hacking it. That’s easily done if you know where to look, but the point is most people don’t – and it severely diminishes the Android experience. But Archos has an ace up its sleeve.

Buy the Archos 32 Android tablet now

Video and music skills

While we criticised the Archos 28 for its ability to play almost nothing, Archos is very much back on track with the Archos 32 Android tablet. This. Plays. Everything. We lobbed high def movie clips at it, lossless audio files, and it handled it all with aplomb, even rendering subtitles in MKV video files.

Our only complaint is that it lacks the Wi-Fi video streaming skills of the Archos 43 and 101, but really, Archos deserves heaps of praise for what it’s done to Android. Google, Samsung, HTC and others really should take note: the Archos 32 Android tablet plays HD video on a piddly processor without breaking a sweat. What are they doing wrong?

We wish every Android device was as good at playing video files

Combined with the TV-out, it could easily make for a handy, tiny device for frequent travellers to plug into hotel TVs (Of course, since the screen itself isn’t HD, so don’t expect things to look deep pan, crisp and even). Also do be aware that the Archos 32 Android tablet has no loudspeaker (though it does have a mic for recording), so all sound has to come through headphones.

Screen

The problem with having such stunning media skills in such a little device is that there isn’t a fitting screen to show them off on. The Archos 32 Android tablet’s 3.2-inch, 400×240 screen looks grainy and dark.

On resolution alone, it’s well behind the times, but to make things worse, the touchscreen itself is resistive – a cheap, irritating technology which requires precise inputs. You’ll find yourself having to use your fingernail rather than fingertip to press anything, and trying to type into the web browser is a laborious process as a result – we doubt many UK customers will be using a phone that doesn’t offer a better web-surfing experience than this, Wi-Fi or no.

Verdict

Archos is so nearly there, but once again fails with a frustrating screen

Archos has released so many slight iterations of the same device now that the Archos 32 Android tablet really struggles to stand out.

It’s older brother, the Archos 43, was very nearly better than the iPod touch, save for its irksome resistive touchscreen. For this same reason alone, we can’t endorse the Archos 32 Android tablet over the iPod nano, this generation or last.

It’s a pity, because Archos’ this is an incredibly powerful device for its size otherwise. One for hardened stylus fans only, raised on Windows Mobile.

AirPlay and networking

Apple AirPlay compatibility is available as a £39 upgrade for the Denon CEOL RCD-N7 (Instructions can be found on Denon’s site here). It works brilliantly. Get a CEOL (or several, up to six) hooked up to your home network and you can then wirelessly stream music to it (or them) from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or computer running iTunes – in anything up to Apple Lossless quality.

AirPlay through the CEOL is every bit as seamless as you'd hope

The iTunes version is impressive enough (when you adjust the volume on your computer it changes on the CEOL too), but AirPlay’s iOS implementation is even better, because it’s not restricted to simply the iPod function: you can stream audio from any app with a volume bar: Last.fm, Spotify, YouTube… it’s brilliant. You can also use Apple’s Remote app to control AirPlay playback on a PC or Mac.

The networking function also opens up Last.fm and Napster playback (subscriptions required), Internet radio and standard DLNA audio streaming, so even without AirPlay there’s plenty to admire.

Audio quality

The Denon CEOL RCD-N7 can be twinned with any pair of speakers, but Denon offers a package including a brace of small, similarly white-finished boxes. They produce good detail but don’t shift much bass. We hooked up a larger pair of Denon speakers and had better, more fully rounded results, so if you’re trying to fill a larger room you may want to skip the small speakers.

Even over AirPlay, there's not a hint of compression

We can’t quibble about AirPlay either, which is, in general, rock solid with no sign of compression or harshness. In many hours of wireless AirPlay use we had one instance where the signal dropped for a moment, leading to a stutter in the playback, but that was it.

Build

The Denon CEOL RCD-N7 eschews the brushed aluminium look, instead opting for clean, Apple-style white plastic. But don’t fret: it still feels like a quality product, oozing solidity and sturdiness.

There’s a three-line LED panel on the front to display information such as the current track number/name (this works with AirPlay, so you can see what you’re listening to). It also aids with setup, allowing you to input your Wi-Fi key or Last.fm login details.

It may not be made by Apple, but with its minimalist white design, it almost could be

Up top there’s an iPod/iPhone dock hidden under a flap, while connections include USB, line-in and headphone (on the front) and three sets of audio inputs (one optical digital), Ethernet and a subwoofer output at the back.

Verdict

Have you tossed out most of your physical music media in favour of MP3s? Then you are the market for the Denon CEOL RCD-N7. Sure, it plays CDs and there’s a radio, but there are far cheaper systems that perform just as well if you want that – the real draw here is the ability to draw on music from your Apple gear, your home server and the web.

The system isn’t cheap, costing around £500 alone or £600 with the matched speakers. But this isn’t some tinny/bass-heavy iPod speaker dock – it’s a finely tuned mini system with good sound quality and some excellent features. If you’re looking for something that can take your digital music and do something special with it, the Denon CEOL RCD-N7 is a perfect choice.

Build

There's something charming about the plastic design

We’re really starting fall for Archos’ design ethos – sure, it’s plasticky, smeary and cheap, but there’s a certain charm about it, a je ne sais quoi, since it’s a French gadget. There’s something reassuringly solid about it, and contrary to just about every other gizmo of the last year, the sides are dead straight.

Buy the Archos 43 Android tablet now

On one side you’ll find the mini HDMI-out port, on the other the volume rocker and power/lock button, while the bottom curve houses the mini USB port and 3.5.mm audio at an angle – which is better than it being on the sides. We like the backplate the most though thanks to its cool metal finish, almost invisible camera sensor and the little kickstand that pops out.

Hooray for kickstands

The only annoying issue is the lack of physical Android buttons: instead, these are replicated at the bottom of the screen. They’re there most of the time, but not in certain apps (like the video player) which can be a bit of a pain. The loudspeaker also isn’t up to a great deal.

All in all though, the 130g Archos 43 Android tablet is definitely one of the finest looking low price PMPs we’ve seen in a long time.

See our Best Android tablet Top 5 now

Screen

At a glance, the Archos 43 Android tablet’s screen looks rather exceptional for the price you pay. It’s a crisp 854×480 panel which renders videos beautiful – and viewing angles aren’t too bad either. So what’s the catch?

The Archos 43 Android tablet’s screen is resistive.

The screen is sharp, even if colour reproduction isn't all that

That may sound like a minor issue, but it’s hard to understate how irritating this is. For those in need of a quick primer, resistive touchscreens are generally cheaper to produce than the capacitive displays used on most modern smartphones and expensive tablets. They’re very accurate with small pressure points, but the problem is, fingers aren’t small pressure points – they’re big broad ones.

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

As a result, trying to swipe or type through anything on the Archos 43 Android tablet can sometimes be a maddening task. You’ll find yourself pulling out your headphones to tap something on the screen rather than use your fingers, and anyone who’s ever used pinch to zoom gestures on a touchscreen phone to zoom in and out of web pages, maps and pictures, will find it frustrating – no multitouch here amigo.

We can’t stress enough how much of a dealbreaker this is. It’s what makes the Archos 43 Android tablet only a decent Android PMP, rather than a true iPod touch toppler.

Android 2.2

Out of the box, our 16GB Archos 43 Android tablet (There’s also an 8GB option, and both have space for a microSD card) runs Android 2.2. The good news is that Archos has left it be for the most part, with a plain launcher, and the 1GHz CPU means performance is certainly respectable.

Android 2.2 is mostly untouched - a good thing

The bad news is that out of the box, you don’t get Google’s core Android apps, like Gmail, Google Maps, and most importantly Android Market. Instead, you’ll be left to forage for apps on the sparse shelves of Achos’ AppsLib store, or for install files online.

The native Android keyboard is also maddening because of the screen: we tried to install Swype to solve this problem (it works wonders on resistive screens), but didn’t have any luck.

But wait! Tinkerers – you can quite easily install the core Google apps on the Archos 43 Android tablet, you just need to find the right file online. We Google Maps was blindingly fast, and we even managed to install Flash from the Market and tune into the BBC iPlayer Android app. This absolutely isn’t for mum and dad, but it’s a nice bonus for Android hobbyists.

Media

This should come as no surprise, but the Archos 43 Android tablet is a cracking media player. It played all the high def MP4 and MKV files we threw at it without a stutter, and lossless FLAC files sounded fantastic. It opens night on everything.

We were also delighted to find that the video app on the Archos 43 Android tablet can stream clips from elsewhere over SMB and UPnP, just like its bigger brother, the Archos 101 Android tablet.

The Archos 43 excels at playing anything and everything

Oddly however, the Archos 43 Android tablet wouldn’t output to our TV, no matter what we tried: it’s a bit of a pity, as otherwise it almost would act as a portable Boxee Box. Don’t settle for one that doesn’t work: return it if needs be.

Verdict

It’s so frustrating that the Archos 43 Android tablet falls at the final hurdle. We don’t mind that its camera is appalling, the battery life is excellent, and even without core Google apps, there’s plenty you can do with it.

If only Archos could have come through with a capacitive screen, this would have been sitting high, high up on our best MP3 players and best Android tablet list.

Is an iPod nano a tablet then? Because this is one of our favourite Android flavoured, low price rivals to it yet. Read on and find out why in our full Archos 28 Android tablet review.

Build

A nice clean design is spoiled by the lack of physical volume buttons

When it comes to design, the Archos 28 Android tablet barely differs from 2009′s Archos 3 Vision. At 100x54x9mm, it’s around the same dinky dimensions, and tips the scales at just 68 grams. The lock button is placed on the bottom left hand corner, which takes some getting used to, but the capacitive buttons below the display are pretty responsive.

Visually, the smooth front face looks mesmerising, and we love the feel of the smooth plastic backing. However, Archos hasn’t fixed a few outstanding practical issues we flagged up back with the Vision.

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

The lack of a volume rocker for one, is a major pain, as you can’t adjust volume or change tracks without unlocking the Archos 28 Android tablet’s screen. And adjusting the volume while watching a video also pauses the video (and in one instance crashed the video player).

The screen leaves a lot to be desired - we really wish it wasn't resistive

The 2.8-inch 320×240 resolution screen is also rather poor: it’s grainy, washy and because it’s resistive, very difficult to type with – the letter L in particular is almost impossible to register. We actually found it easier just to use the end of our headphone jack to tap, since no stylus is included – we don’t think this was Archos’ intention.

It’s also worth noting that the Archos 28 Android tablet lacks a loudspeaker – all sound comes through the 3.5mm audio jack on the bottom. No choons on the back of the bus please, we’re French.

Android itself

Truth be told, you won’t be using many of the features of Android, since the screen is so frustrating. But if you want, you can check your email in Wi-Fi areas, browse the internet or record sound clips, as well as install any apps you can find the APK files for online and support QVGA resolution devices. What you don’t get however are the core Google apps, like Gmail, Google Maps, and the Android Market for downloading thousands more apps.

See our best Android tablet Top 5 now

Actually that’s not quite true: if you upgrade the Archos 28 Android tablet to Android 2.2 (it comes preloaded with 2.1 but it’s the work of minutes to upgrade from the prompts), you can quite easily find illicit Android Market install files. We’ve checked and they work, albeit while forcing to use landscape mode only.

Ooops. We did a hack.

But that won’t be looked upon kindly in the warranty, and more importantly, the screen will put you off doing much anyway.

Media skills

Of course, none of this makes a great deal of difference if you just want to listen to music. The Archos 28 Android tablet plays MP3s, WMA, WAV, AAC, OGG Vorbis and lossless FLAC files, and it does so with the minimum of fuss. The music player is easy to use, you can sideload from any computer (or sync with doubleTwist) and sound quality was impressive for something so puny. But we’d expect nothing less from Archos.

Unfortunately, the Archos 28 Android tablet isn’t quite capable of the video feats of its bigger brothers: we could only play AVI files up to 640×480 resolution. While in theory it can open MKV files at the same resolution, frankly you’d struggle to find any on the internet so you’ll need to encode them yourself. Still, the clips we did manage to open did indeed run smoothly.

Spotify oh my

We were going to give the Archos 28 Android tablet a much lower score until we had a thought – sure, it may not have legitimate Android Market access, but what if we installed Spotify? The Spotify Android app is available as an APK from Spotify’s mobile site, and Archos’ handy on board file manager means you can quickly sideload it and install it.

Spotify works perfectly on the Archos 28

To our delight, Spotify runs flawlessly on the Archos 28 Android tablet. There’s no issue with the low screen resolution, and music streamed through over Wi-Fi sounds fantastic. You can also jump to whatever’s playing through the notification bar, as you can on any Android phone running the incredible app. This alone makes it worthwhile.

Verdict

To be clear, the Archos 28 Android tablet isn’t worth your time if you have no intention of subscribing to Spotify Premium. The screen is just too much of a headache to be dealing with.

But as a way to listen to all the songs you like on the go – don’t forget you can sync offline playlists too – at £79, the 4GB Archos 28 Android tablet is money well spent for music fans without a smartphone.

Cast your mind back to last Spring, when we reviewed the Cowon J3: we said that for iTunes haters the delightful little portable media player was one of the best iPod touch alternatives out there. Sadly, its Android powered sequel is not.

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

On paper, the Cowon D3 sounds like a dream come true: Android and Wi-Fi combined with a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen and Cowon’s sterling media skills, plus HDMI out put for 1080p playback on your telly, FM radio, 32GB of storage and microSD slot for adding your own storage.

Design and build

As you'd expect, Cowon has delivered with a gorgeous screen

That screen certainly is gorgeous: at 800×480 it’s just as sharp and vibrant as anything we’ve come to expect from the South Korean firm, and the fact that video support is so solid: it effortlessly handled your regular AVI and MP4 files, and even high def MKV clips without stutter.

We didn’t get to test the HDMI output unfortunately – this requires a cable sold separately, although we were more alarmed to find a US charger in the box instead of a UK one too. You can charge the Cowon D3 through its USB cable, but watch you don’t lose it as it irritatingly uses a proprietary connection.

This is the only angle the Cowon D3 looks nice from

In reality however, the Cowon D3 is far too big to be practical: it’s thicker and wider than the similarly shaped Nokia N8, and positively gigantic when placed next to a fourth generation iPod touch. It doesn’t help that the track control and pause/play buttons on the side don’t always react immediately when you press them – though we suspect the software might be to blame here.

Android

The Cowon D3 breaks with tradition by running Android: outside of Archos’ range, very few Android flavoured media players are actually on sale in the UK yet, although on the basis of this, we can see why. Running a skinned version of the year old Android 2.1 build without Google’s core apps, the Cowon D3 exhibits all of the problems with Google’s OS, and none of its great advantages.

The Cowon D3 runs a skinned version of Android

At first glance, everything seems in order. The menu screen is attractive, and launched from the homescreen with a swipe from the right hand side of the display. The web browser is pretty nippy, and the touchscreen keyboard easy to type with. Cowon’s even tweaked it enough to run lossless audio file formats like FLAC natively, which audiophiles will love, and there’s a pleasant CD widget for juggling your tracks. You won’t be able to install apps from the Android Market however, so you’ll have to find APK files for anything you want to install – not always an easy task.

But – and this for us is a dealbreaker – the Cowon D3′s Android build is so unstable as to be nigh on unusable. It crashed repeatedly in testing, despite numerous resets, causing whatever app was open to drop.

We also found the Cowon D3 became unreasonably warm with use – it’s possible you could feel it through your pocket.

Verdict

For all the Cowon D3′s media playing skills and incredible sound – its audio quality through headphones is vastly superior to anything Apple can muster – this is a flawed device, especially at an eye watering £279. By contrast, the 32GB new iPod touch sells for £254 on the Apple Store.

With powerful Android phones becoming so cheap these days, we’re also wondering if the Android PMP market is already dead in the water – why buy this chunkster when you can get a great phone with most of the same skills for £100 today? We can’t answer that for you, but maybe Samsung will soon.

Cowon D3 review unit supplied by advancedmp3players.co.uk

We love the idea of the Archos 28: a low price media player with added app support. It’s certainly cute and reasonably attractive too, though we’ve yet to try out its media playing skills – its 2.8-inch screen is a bit of a struggle to activate with finger presses.

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

Of course, the lack of Google certification means this little device is missing the crucial apps like Gmail – and the Android Market – out of the box, and as ever, we suspect that’s going to be our biggest issue with the Archos 28. But hey, we’ll give it a full and thorough test before bringing you our review next week.

Anything you want to know about the Archos 28? Drop your queries here in the comments and we’ll get back to you in the coming days.

iPod docks with integrated speakers are as much lifestyle devices as audio products. Sandwiching two, or more, speakers together makes iPod docks convenient, compact and speaker cable-free. It’s the kind of gadget that non-geeky other halves might not object to – compared to a full 5.1 system, anyway.

The front of the Edifier Breathe iF600 is a speaker grille that hides the dock’s main drivers and is home to a few physical controls – volume, fast forward and rewind, and the all-important play-pause button. The real secret of the Edifier Breathe iF600 isn’t on its front, but underneath. Turn the giant egg on its side and you’ll see the driver that makes this dock fulfill its room-filling promise – the subwoofer.

The sub is the main reason why Edifier has let the Breathe pile on a few pounds (it weighs around 5kg). The last thing you want in an iPod dock is for it to start ratting away as soon as you crank up anything remotely approaching a “bangin’ choon”.

As the Edifier Breathe iPod dock’s subwoofer-centric design suggests, the sound is a little on the bass-heavy side, but nowhere near as much as the recently-reviewed Orbitsound T12. What’s disappointing is that there’s no control over the sub’s level, so short of propping-up the Edifier Breathe on a couple of bricks to calm it down a bit, you’re left with the iPod’s own weak EQ.

The keen bass can leave the Edifier Breathe’s lower-end mids sounding a little muddled, but otherwise the sound is beefy and bold, although lacking the insight and detail you’ll hear in top-end iPod docks like the B&W Zeppelin. But comparing the two is a bit like putting a mid-range Mondeo against a Ferrari. It might do for Top Gear, but not Electricpig.

Check out our Best iPod dock Top 5 now

The sound isn’t what disappoints about the Edifier Breathe – its that its looks don’t make up for the sonic compromises of an integrated iPod dock, most notably the loss of proper stereo imaging. Shop around and you’ll find a non-integrated Fatman iTube dock for around the same price, that that’ll outdo the Edifier Breathe’s sound quality without much trouble.

What’s wrong with the Edifier Breathe’s design? From a distance it stands out enough, like a tiny little egg shaped volcano for your living room, but get closer and its looks become more ham-fisted than impressive.

The buttons on the front look cheap – more “My First Hi-Fi” than “America’s Next Top iPod dock” – and the remote control is flat-out poorly designed. It has to house a handful of buttons, as it lets you navigate through your iPod/iPhone’s menu system rather than just skipping through tracks, but the button layout’s not the problem. It’s that if you hold it in the most comfortable one-handed position, your finger slips right over the IR transmitter – you can tap away with gay abandon, but the dock itself won’t hear you.

We’re fans of odd-looking docks, like the JBL radial and the fantastic B&W Zeppelin, but whatever Edifier’s going for with the Breathe, it hasn’t quite aced it. It’s a little too big to be convenient, but the design stumbles mean that it doesn’t pull off that alluring designer flavour.

Gok Wan-like comments aside, the Edifier Breathe iF600 iPod dock is a good-sounding dock that offers a tiny bit of welcome flexibility with the auxiliary input, but when its doing battle with dozens of other docks – some better-looking, others better-sounding, we can only give it a tentative thumbs up.

The Altec Lansing Muzx Ultra buds are powered by balanced drivers. Some earphones at a similar price point use multiple drivers in each earphone, such as the Jays Q-jays and Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5 Pro, but these babies make do with just the one.

What does using a balanced driver mean? Unless you want to get deep into the electronics involved, it’s best to think about the Altec Lansing Muzx Ultra’s drivers in terms of how they differ from the alternative – dynamic drivers.

Check out our Klipsch X10i review now

Dynamic drivers, used in most budget earphones, are capable of piling on the bass like ladling custard on a sonic pie, but you can’t beat a balanced driver set like the Altec Lansing Muzx Ultra for excellent detail and separation. The Muzx Ultras’ sound signature is typical of this driver type.

It rewards close listening with its superb separation and open, insightful detail. It’s mature, refined, and very balanced, giving a super stereo image. But it won’t be for everyone.

The Altec Lansing Muzx Ultra’s bass is taut, lean and digs down deeper than one of Tolkein’s gold-hungry dwarves, but it’s not all that voluminous. If you’re a certified basshead who needs their beats to pump-out with ear drum-worrying power, you’ll want to look elsewhere. There’s also a slight roll-off to the treble at the very top end, but it’s nothing you’ll notice unless you’re used to bright-sounding earphones.

What the Altec Lansing Muzx Ultras lack in bass boom and high frequency zing, they more than make up for with detail, insight and a thoroughly satisfying sound. They offer the analytical accuracy of the top Etymotic earphones, but without the clinical, cold feel that often comes with such scientific sonic precision. Their sound isn’t bombastic, but it doesn’t seem compromised in any way, which is what we’re looking for at this price.

Before you even jam these buds in your lug holes though, you’ll be struck by their unusual design. With an angled plastic arm holding the earphone cable in place, the Altec Lansing Muzx Ultra earphones have a hint of industrial design to them, but thankfully it doesn’t translate to heavyweight headphones.

They’re big for a pair of single-driver earphones, especially when compared to the tiny dual-driver Ultimate Ears 700, but with the right rubber tips applied, they’re comfy enough for hours-long sessions.

The unusual cable arm design of the Altc Lansing Muzx Ultras isn’t there to just look odd, it also reduces the strain put on the connection between the earbud and cable, which usually has to take the weight of the earphone cable – and nine times out of ten is where earphone wear and faults start.

It’s a neat addition but one that creates another problem. The loop of cable it creates behind the bud is just begging to be used to pull out the Muzx Ultras from your ears, which means we’re back to square one. Top earphone tip – pull them out by the bud itself, not the cable.

On top of being a seriously impressive pair of earphones, the Altec Lansing Muzx Ultras also feature a remote control and built-in mic that lets them double as a hands-free kit and MP3 player volume control, for an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

With a kooky design that wouldn’t look out of place in Skullcandy‘s larger-than-life range, we started off with some worries about the Altec Lansing Muzx Ultra earphones. A focus on an eye-catching look often goes hand-in-hand with a bloated, bass-heavy sound in earphones, but the truth is anything but.

With an immaculately tasteful and balanced sound, we only have to ask why we in the UK are left paying £99.99 when our overseas cousins are paying $99.99. At a fairer translation rate of £79.99 (still a lot more than today’s exchange rate equivalent) these buds would have been nearly unbeatable.