Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (80 GB)
by Archos
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List Price: Buy Used: from $129.99 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (80 GB)
Customer Review: Coolest gadget ever!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's interesting reading reviews and what people don't like. I read the interface wasn't that good and buttons on the side were excess duplication. Hogwash! I read a critique of the battery and saw a shot of the Cowan interface with Windows CE. That was horrible. I like the interface. It's simple and to the point. I also found the keys on the right to be great. When I don't have a sylus in hand I may use a fingernail or opt for the keys. I got this for a trip to Europe for a geek conference and found out someone I know had worked on part of the interface. Small world.
Here is the good. The video is awesome. Mostly I was viewing video recorded through the DVR dock. I also had some camera videos and some downloaded video. It played whatever I handed it. I have an iRiver PMP120 which required a lowgrade rip and when I got it used it had one movie on it which I could not navigate. The Archos not only worked perfectly but it has bookmarking. You can turn it on and restore to your movie, but if you did something else with it you can go back to videos and every one of them can have their own bookmark! That's sheer genius. I played a lot of music on it in flight with an in ear noise reduction system and it was excellent.
I thought the wifi might be kind of cool. It's better than that. It's easier to use the Archos to buy hostspot time for a wifi phone than get the notebook out. The amount of internet radio and podcasts available is also huge. I haven't started using the network streaming yet, but the popup touch keyboard works nice and I've checked my email and composed emails with it.
I had problems installing a plugin and tech support was prompt and very helpful even on a Sunday. I had to reset it and thought the touchscreen was messed up but there is actually a menu item for calibration. I have a word for people complaining about the cost of plugins... Chill! Look at the price! I got the DVR dock, the browser, web radio and vidieo and the cinema plugin as well as a leather case. For this I have a Tivo with three times the disk space of my Tivo, all my music and pictures and I can check email in coffee shops and watch TV in the can... plus network it all. I spent around $400 for that and I can carry it in a cargo pocket in my pants. I'm amazed this exists, forget the price.
Now for my recommendations. I'm not sure about the battery life. I recharged for almost two hours between 7 and 5 hour flights. It was plenty for music. Video eats more battery. I got a USB lithium ion unit that is supposed to charge an iphone three times and it ate it every time. I recommend the battery dock for long flights as I expect it would work better. Also as far as I can tell the Cinema plugin may be able to play *.vob files but it looks like I still need to rip and due to copyright issues Archos isn't answering questions there. What is recorded onto the DVR station plays back on the TV very nice. I'm not sure the full benefit of the Cinema plugin as yet.
As to how much I like it, I'm thinking of getting a second one with the 160 GB drive if the wife wants to use this one to act as a Tivo on the second TV. It's not perfect, but closer to 5 than 4. I would like to be able to plug a camera into it without the dock as well as play into a friends TV without a dock. It has operated close to flawlessly. I was just viewing and downloading images from my camera on the TV with the remote. I think this is nearly the ideal personal entertainment device and it will impress your friends too.
Customer Review: Archos is a solid performer, and I like it
Summary: 5 Stars
The Archos player is pretty cool. Not as cool as it could be, but cool enough. Here are my observations:
a. Awesome video quality. The fact that the screen is bigger really helps.
b. Multiple file formats supported. That by itself beats out the iPod and other players. You can drop divx, mpeg and a host of other formats onto the device and they will play just nicely.
c. It is really easy to use. Drag and drop is the way to go. The only thing that you will have to pay attention to is editing video that you record from TV. If you screw it up it could be painful.
d. Archos support has not been bad. It will take them about a day to answer your emails. If you are patient you can call the hotline. The folks there were really helpful. So I don't have a problem with them.
e. The battery sucks so bad it is sad. You can barley turn the damn thing on without it losing 2 bars on the energy indicator. So if you are doing a lot of traveling you will need to buy the battery pack (whichever one you want).
f. They nickel and dime you on the plugins and other stuff. That is really frustrating. I shelled out $70 for the internet, podcast and video plugin. These functions should be inherent to the device. If each player came with these features out of the box I am sure Archos would gain a greater market share.
g. The DVR station is a must. Correction...don't buy the DVR station buy the travel one. It is cheaper and does the same thing. Either way you are going to want that capability. It ain't cheap. The DVR station was another $80 or $90 bucks. I recorded a show the other day and edited out the commercials on the device. Worked like a charm and now I am hooked.
h. I bought the 80g version. I have loaded about 50 music videos, 10-15 movies and a bunch of music and I still have about/or more than 40 gigs left. If you are going to DVR a lot of stuff you will need to get the 160gig. You can basically put your whole collection of stuff on the 160gig player. You won't play much of it due to the battery life.
i. Don't buy the leather case from the archos website. It is the one with Archos stamped on it. If you are going to buy a case buy the one that has the stylus holder on it. I think it is about $50 from Amazon. It is a better leather case. A better buy is to pick up a $10 case logic case from best buy. They sell them for holding external hard drives.
j. You need to buy a screen protector. I have not but I will.
k. The wifi thing is kind of overrated. It works and works pretty well. But I don't use it very much. If it were like the iPhone it would be better. If you can't use the internet on the go, outside of the house, it does not do much for you.
l. Also, no one has really talked about any security issues either. I am not sure how much we are at risk when using this thing in public.
Customer Review: Archos 605WiFi
Summary: 5 Stars
Archos 605WiFi
Great product maybe too pricey to be called a Gadget but when you grab one up on Amazons "Deal of The Day" you can't not just beat the price or help but to buy one,but at that low price you can call it a Gadget or anything else you want for that matter. First of all this baby has WiFi, an 80g drive and has a touch screen. It isn't just a media player like all the others out there. This little fella can also work as a portable hard drive and even a back-up drive. It's terrific, it not only records movies direct from your T.V.,satelite network or cable box but you can rip/copy dvd movies direct to the Archos ( even if they are copy protected, although if they are copy protected they will not playback on your T.V./monitor. However you can still watch them on the Archos screen itself.) You can copy music, video, photos and text files from your computor to the Archos. And because of the virtual keyboard you can work on documents downloaded from your computor. You can listen to your favorite music or take a break and watch a movie or play games. With the web availability you can surf the web, watch internet T.V. or listen to internet radio,access your email and you can even access your Dish Network DVR recordings without having to wait until you get back home or if you just can't wait to watch that episode of your favorite show.now I dont have to carry my laptop around,i just drop it into my pocket and go. The only down-side i found is that in order for some features to work you have to purchase the plug-in's. Also the dvr is sold seperate unless you buy the bundle. But as an overall.. this really is a great product which by the way, my second Archos. Not because the first broke or died on me, but because of the great quallities, features and that infamouse "Deal of the day"
Customer Review: Very good PMP
Summary: 5 Stars
The Archos 605 Wi-Fi is a great PMP. You almost don't have to worry about video or audio formats, it will play pretty much anything (mainstream, that is). All you have to do is copy it to the specified folder in the internal HD and that's it. No boring conversions. It works pretty well with Windows Media Player and will sync without a glitch.
The user interface is good and the touch-screen works flawlessly. I was even amazed by how easy it was to type in the touch-screen based keyboard - to the point that I wish it had some sort of text editor in it, so I could take notes.
It is not perfect, though. The battery is just ok - it will play around 4:30 hours of video in good days. If you need an extra juice, you have to buy an external battery, that looks somewhat bulky.
I don't like that it does not have an expansion port for memory cards nor a video-out connection (it comes with the optional DVR Station, which is a must have). And while I also don't like that the web-browser and other video formats are optional, I understand that it is a reasonable way to cut costs, since it is not everyone that need them.
The thing I miss the most is a way to search for music. With 80GB of songs, it is at least boring to go through folders. Since the keyboard works so well, there should be a search function. It is so obvious that maybe there is one and I couldn't find it...
Customer Review: Ipod touch has nothing on this.
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased my Archos 605 about 2 days after it was released and couldn't be happier. I'll admit, I had never heard of Archos products before until I started to do a little bit of research on PVP's. Most of my friends have the various forms of Ipods that exist and my little sister has a Zune, both are okay but have very small screens and less than stellar resolution. The Archos 605 provides a much larger size screen (4.3") with great resolution (800x480) for such a relatively small product (I will however admit, the 605 80G is a little bulkier than the other two products previously mentioned). Being WiFi accessible makes it a sweet investment too, I've taken it on several trips and have been able to sign into any open wifi connection for high speed access, something that the Ipod/Iphone and Zune can not do with their limited technology. I didn't even mind paying the extra cost for the add-ons (Opera Browser and Video player). Everytime I have my Archos in hand people ask me what it is, I think the screen and the wifi accessible perks people's interest, it sure suckered me in....I'm definately hooked.