ONDA Honey VX858LE: Cheaper, Better..?

Several months earlier Chinese ONDA released the VX858 to their Honey line of music players, a player well received by the Chinese market. Later it was also brought to Italy by Pasen as the iTouch.

The “iPhone clone” recently saw a price drop of 100 CNY (approx. 13USD). Now labeled VX858LE (limited edition or just poor naming?), the player had its stylus, charger removed and DSP changed from a Wolfson WM8750 to a Rockchips RK2808A. Apart from the internal speakers now being a little quieter, the casual user won’t find much difference. Internal tests by The Gadget Site however also show that the touchscreen has been improved; with new and better looking finish plus more responsive controls.

ONDA VX858LE is a solid-feeling player with obvious design cues “borrowed” from Apple’s iPhone. It’s got a nice 2.8″ touchscreen featuring 1.6 million colors and supports MPEG-4 (and soon Flash Video) video at 24fps, MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, APE, TXT, a FM tuner, voice recording and… Tetris.

The 2GB VX858LE is currently available on the Chinese market for 499 CNY, or roughly $66 USD.