Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (160 GB) by Archos
|
List Price: Our Price: $275.00 You Save: $124.99 (31%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Network Media Player See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (160 GB)
Digital camera Review: Archos is Junk
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased an Archos 605 160 GB WiFi for Christmas. It sync'd with my computer once and after that I received an error message stating the device had malfunctioned. I had to return it and I'm still waiting for my credit card to be refunded. Terrible purchase, don't do it!!!!Digital camera Review: Archos is a winner in my book...
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been mouth-watering after one of these for a while. I finally took the plunge and bought it. It did not take too much time to learn the new interface. I got the 160gb version so I have a lot of storage space for anything from music, music videos to movies and yeah not to forget pictures. Since I watch video podcasts I did have to get the podcast plug in for it so that was extra $20. Then I was wondering about the whole Opera browser so I bought that to for $30. And then since I own a good selection of music videos which are stored in mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 formats, I went for the final plug-in for additional $20. The additional charges aside, the player right out of the box doesn't have its own power supply. You will have to use supplied USB cable to charge it and it will take painfully long to do so. I would suggest getting either one of the docking stations (preferably the DVR one) or get a power supply from Archos website. After that's all and done, trust me, you won't be wondering why oh why didn't I get the Ipod Touch. I was pondering on this a while myself as to which player I want. First of all, Archos has more storage, second it reads more formats, third you can stream videos/music and view pictures from your own network (or somebody else's if you into this kind of thing) using the built-in wifi.
Using the DVR option you can record whatever you want from tv and carry it around with you. Comparing it to the fancy touch screen on the ipod touch, that's where the novelty ends with Apple for me. Archos has a bigger screen and it's also touch screen and it is very responsive.
The headphones that come with the Archos are ok, but getting something like Sennheiser PX100 headphones (which are rather inexpensive and available here on Amazon) will make your PMP sound a lot better. Speaking of sound, the player has a bass boost with several levels as well as preset equalizers to choose from or you can just set your own equalizer to your liking. I've only tried it with MP3 files and I had no problems since sound quality. I guess I am not that needy.
The video portion which I am sure you are most interested in, I did not have too many problems with. I've tried MP4, MOV (h.264 and normal quicktime/apple format), WMV, AVI (xvid/divx) but for now it will only play videos with resolutions up to 720x575. I've tried HD but the player refused to play these files. Archos however, is promising 720p support through either firmware update or a plug-in. It will not play Sorenson Squeeze codecs.
The touch screen will be a learning curve especially if you never used one before; example being the virtual keyboard and navigating the interface. This brings me to the Opera browser and WIFI. Before you can browse, you have to sign yourself into the network which is easy if you are a techie, but if you are not, the user's guide is accommodating and is in several languages :) Once that's all and done, I naturally went for the Google page since it always shows up. By double tapping in one spot (with new firmware update) you can zoom in, but providing you are not far sided sitting in front of it without glasses, you should be able to see the letters on the high resolution (for a PMP) screen. By default the whole page will fit on your screen. Various zoom options are available which show up whenever you are in the browser mode and tap on the screen. None of the Ajax stuff will work properly in the browser (it doesn't work in the desktop version either) so unfortunately Google maps are out of our reach for now. Instead you can use something like [...]. For me, that's where testing for internet browsing ended since the player crashed while browsing Google maps freezing the whole unit. Like most computers (no matter what size) a quick power down and power up will fix that. VP6 encoded flash videos are not supported by this player which is a shame because a lot of content on the net uses that codec. If there is a direct download of other file formats for download, the browser will present you with a choice to either play them (stream it) or download it to your player once you click on any. It would also be nice if the browser be faster because it gets painfully slow sometimes. The pages on websites do render correctly, but long. The browser has no problems with YouTube videos/website either.
Although you can play music in the background while in your PMP's menu interface, once you access the browser, PDF reader, or try to manipulate your files, the music stops and doesn't remember where it stopped. It would be nice if they fixed that with the next firmware update. But if they don't, you can however quickly go back into the song played and fast forward using the touch screen and scroll to the point where the music was playing before. Archos 605 does have up to 32 bookmarks available for position marking for both your music and videos so you can resume it at a later time, only one bookmark per file.
The PDF reader can only be accessed through the file manager discussed later in this review. There is a PDF reader which can be a cool addition for reading books, but loading pages takes what is seems like forever and you can only read pages in 5:3 mode (player's normal holding position) and can't be flipped. There are some zoom options but that's about it for PDF features. You can also view text files all with the help of the browser.
Picture viewer does have a few nice features that do allow you to browse through your pictures using the touch screen by swiping your finger from left to right going forward or right to left going backwards. Bottom to left and vice-versa will rotate the picture 90 degrees. Zooming in and out is better navigated using the buttons on the side however. There seems to be also a limitation on how big the pictures have to be, to be viewed. My own experience taught me that you may have problems with some Jpegs over 7 mega pixels but I haven't tested that further.
File Manager will be useful to copy, delete, and rename files stored on your Archos. From there however you can access much more like your networked files stored on other computers/devices which are sharing allowing you to stream them. If you get one of the docking stations, and connect a flash drive or a hard drive, it will also show up there.
Little tabs on the top of your screen allow you to choose which of the two columns you are navigating enabling you to say copy a file from one location to another by opening folders in each.
When you go into the WIFI settings, you can turn on the server option making the Archos a wireless server which can be password protected if you wish and accessible from anywhere on your network.
My overall experience with the player is very positive, I think mostly from excitement, so I can't think objectively, but I think you'll be happy if you get one of these. If you travel a lot for long trips across Atlantic, on a train, or are passenger in a car, you will appreciate lack of boredom :) and you just can't beat the portability of this little gem.
Digital camera Review: Archos is just tired, outdated, needs to disappear
Summary: 1 Stars
I have owned the archos gen 3-4-5 and now 7. Each time I buy I swear to drop these crappy players. Now that I have the ipad however, there is no more appeal from these dinosaurs. They are clunky, heavy, crappy battery life, S-L-O-W (ever try and surf the web on one of these pokey players?). They can't handle a reasonable handbrake rip (how many of you are STILL stuck on their lame "Codec H.264 Video and Audio [High/4.1]" error messages - they have been there since 2007 and archos STILL hasn't made an effort to fix this. Now with the new ipad and iphones - all one can say is:
GOOD RIDDANCE, ARCHOS!
Oh, and wait until you pay for this crap, and THEN discover that you have to buy their non-working codecs !!!!!
Actually, not sure I am writing this since I haven't lifted mine in over a year. Just avoid these dinosaurs. Thank goodness for the ipad.
Digital camera Review: Archos should provide more bang for the buck!
Summary: 3 Stars
I have been dying to leave a review on these products so here goes....
First of all, I'm not going to list what I feel as far as pro's and con's because I have mixed feelings about the unit altogether, thus the 3 star rating. I gave it the 3 stars because, even though I feel it is a very nice unit, for the money you pay, Archos should have everything it is able to do already on the unit without having to pay more to download the software later! I think this is sad for Archos to do. I previously owned the AV500 (100gb) which also was a nice unit until the battery swelled and killed the operation of the hard drive. After reading some of the comments, after it is too late, I found out this is common with these types of batteries as I have noticed, is not the case on the 605 WiFi. I have since replaced the exact model of hard drive and battery on my Archos AV500 but to no avail because it refuses to recognize the new hard drive. Does anyone have any info on how to do this? Anyway...
Speaking of the battery, I have never known any battery on any unit I have ever owned be it a laptop or media player to last longer than 2-3 hours max. I have never played a unit longer than that to watch one movie or listen to about an hour or so of music and to me, the battery meter on those units still showed at least half left. So, to you people that complain about the battery power, please don't expect miracles until you own more units to compare it with. Anything with a full color LCD display of 4 inches or larger is going to be a battery power hog and you better get used to it. Also, don't expect these batteries to recharge in just an hour or so. They always need at least 6-8 hours to get full long lasting power out of them. Then, if you know these batteries like I do, you should use the units until you have next to no power remaining before you recharge them....always! If you don't, your battery will fail after time! If you also leave any unit, weather it be a cordless phone or anything with rechargeable batteries installed, if you leave it for a long time on the charger without ever removing it to use, or only using it for a short time and then replacing back on the charger, the BATTERY WILL FAIL!!!
It took me a long time to decide which unit to buy between the 605 and 705. From the reviews I read, the reviews for the 605 were more positive but then, there were more of them to judge. The 705 description seemed to read it came with more "stuff" in the box instead of having to purchase it later as with the 605. I guess I could say that I was lucky the power charger adapter for my 500 died shortly after I got it because along with buying a new hard drive and battery for it, I also puchased the docking adapter kit for the 605, 705..etc, because I needed the new adapter which worked fine for the 500 and now I have an extra adapter plus the mini dock to go with the 605. I now strongly wished I would've just purchased the Archos TV for under $100 because really all I am using these units for is to record TV, which you cannot do with the Creative models as of yet, although they too put out some very nice "toys". And as far as the people that complain about the speaker volume, puhhhhleeaaase! What are you really expecting out of such a small speaker? You people talk about being on a plane or in the car or traveling (however you do it) and not being able to hear the speaker over the loudness of the vehicle you are traveling in. Well do you really want the speaker to be loud enough to annoy anyone else sitting around you? Did you think about that? On the 605 unit I purchased, I think the speaker is fine for listening alone in a quiet room. I mean, that is why they provide headphones so you are able to listen to the unit personally without annoying anyone else around you and with plenty of volume to spare. For any teen using the unit, I would think you would want to be able to watch movies on the unit without disturbing any of your family members, including your parents who may be listening to find out if you are asleep or not. The speaker on my AV500 quit working shortly after I bought it but for me, I just played it on the TV anyway like those old fashioned VCR's. I rarely took it out of the house.
The only other drawback I find about any of the these Archos units is they are heavy and unless you have a shirt or jacket with larger pockets, you can't really fit them into your clothing because of their size and weight, especially the 7 inch screen units. I almost bought one of the new Media Tablet units but I wondered if a person was also going to have to pay more for the web browsing and other peices of software that the units are supposed to be able to do. Why doesn't Archos just go ahead and charge the same amount of money for the units that it is going to cost a peron to download the other peices of software anyway. Also, I noticed most of the other brands of media players include an FM radio. I feel it would be nice if Archos would build that hardware into the electronics as well without charging more money for it. I do think Archos could provide the software for free and keep the costs low, if they would do that.
All in all, I feel the 605 Wifi is a good unit. I also didn't like the way it returns to the main screen after exiting out of a menu setting. I would like to be able to stay in the settings menu and have my own choice when I want to return to the main screen. To those that spoke of the quirky touch screen, I totally don't agree at all. I feel the screen responded just fine, even with the screen protector still in place. I noticed on some of the choices you have to click once to activate the icon and then again to activate the item. So what is wrong with that? I had no problem with how the touch screen reacts at all. Like I stated before, it is connected to the DVR Station anyway and I mostly use the included remote to make choices. Which brings up another point, as with the AV500, Archos included the docking station in the box with the unit as the 605 does not! WHY NOT SELL THE UNIT AS ONE COMPLETE PACKAGE WHERE EVERYTHING CONNECTS AND ALL SOFTWARE IS FULL VERSIONS AND THEN DECIDE WHAT IT ALL IS WORTH?? It's not good practices to advertise a nice unit with all the emenities and expect people to like your product when you surprise them later with how much more money they will have to fork out to fully enjoy the unit!! Thats about all I have to say for now.
Recent Update: I only wanted to mention that Archos thinks they made the unit inpervious to changing out the battery but for a person with electronic skills and the knowledge of where to purchase the correct battery from, and a little help from Youtube, IT CAN BE DONE! The current battery technology is something I am going to "whine" about until I see a complete upgrade in battery technology. I also am very disappointed with the fact that Archos will no longer support the unit as far as getting the tv guide to work as I was using the unit to record tv so I wouldn't have to pay my satelite company extra money per month to have a DVR system installed. And after perfroming one of the last latest system updates again (why I did this I don't know) it renedered the communication between the unit and the docking station useless, and I'll say "again". Thanks to Archos, the unit is pretty much useless to me even with a brand new battery successfully installed. I can watch only the current videos that were recorded to the unit or if I prefer, I can still use the mini doc to record tv if I either split the RCA connections coming from my satelite TV and plug them into the mini dock or simply unplug the connections from my TV and plug them into the dock and back into the TV again when I am finished recording. This really makes me shutter when thinking about purchasing a product with the Archos name on it again!
Digital camera Review: Awesome Player, Bad after sale service
Summary: 4 Stars
This player is awesome. I almost didn't buy it after reading the negative reviews.
The battery life is satisfactory. New users must allow it fully charge before first time use. You should not turn the player off to recharge it. Just turn it on, plug the USB adapter to a PC or the DVR dock, select charge and leave it. The system will go to sleep by itself during the charging cycle. If you turn it off during charging you will not see the blinking fully charged light.
The buttons at the side are very useful when I don't want to obscure the touch screen to activate features.
MP3s sound good and picture viewing was a breeze. I was able to flip through images by just dragging my finger across the touch screen.
I haven't yet used it for internet browsing but will add to this post as soon as I do.
UPDATE:
Beware! Despite the high cost of Archos PMPs, there is virtually no technical and after-sales support in the United States. Calls to the Archos US service center, which they claim is always open, go unanswered for hours and hours. This callous behavior and contempt for customers is begging for a class action lawsuit from Archos US customers. How can they honor their warranty if they cannot be contacted? Getting an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) number from their US offices located in Colorado is a nightmare. I got one email from them to provide additional information; I did and they never responded. Their RMA site is buggy and would not give accurate information.
Their players are good, but pray that you don't have an after sale issue - then you are on your own.