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I unprejudiced got my current Android 5 500GB boom from Archos yesterday and its quite a beauty. I'm upgrading from my frail Archos 5 250GB, so that will be my considerable point of comparison. I also have the following to compare to: iPod Touch 64GB, Archos 605, Walkman X, Samsung P2, and a host of other MP3 players enormous and dinky.
Given that my iPod Touch upgrade this year was less than wonderful, I lovely considerable figured that this upgrade for Archos would be similarly understated. Mainly I impartial wanted the extra hard drive so I could backup all my laptops onto my music player. I was detestable! The unusual Android version seems to have a whole current feel both in develop factor and the novel software. I had heard that Archos was having problems with the software, but they seem to have ironed most of them out as of 1.1 firmware release. I did update my firmware immediately, and the process was quite unruffled.
I'm going to rate this player on my absolute scale. I will also be making notes on the value of the upgrade from my archaic Archos 5. Note: I mostly exercise this as a media center to play music and video; secondarily as a backup drive.
Let's regain to it then, these are the things I worship about my modern Android:
1) 500GB -- totally awesome amount of disk, I can now do impartial about every digital file I bear on the Archos.
2) Android interface -- the overall feel of the software interface has definitively improved with the integration of Android. Effects are crisper, the esthetics are cleaner, things seem to happen faster. I especially like how easy it is to access the most recently played song or video from the main conceal, pops up with a tiny thumbnail that you tap on and voila, resumes accurate where you left off!
3) Apps -- with Android we now have access to some serious app selection. Of course, nobody compares to the Apple App Store, but this comes the closest.
4) Weight -- this actually feels lighter to me than my 250GB.
5) DVR -- this popped honest into my venerable 5 DVR and started playing accurate away. I tranquil believe this is the best DVR/Player combination available of all the MP3 players.
6) Video/Hi Def -- of the players I have owned, this has the best, biggest, and highest resolution conceal.
7) Portrait/Landscape -- Archos has borrowed the iPhone trick of rotating the reveal according to orientation. I guess they have an accelerometer in there now, I dunno. Collected, its fun to spy this feature on an Archos. Its a lot easier to navigate playlists in portrait mode.
Easy and regular firmware updates -- with a WiFi connection, the firmware updates are easily performed on the unit itself. That's the easiest system I've seen of all my players. One thing I've learned about Archos over the years, they will keep out a genuine stream of firmware updates.
9) WMV/MTP mode-- very peaceful interface to Windows for either Media Monkey or Windows Media Player.
10) Dedicated volume button -- power and volume buttons have been conveniently located onto the top edge. This is actually considerable easier to spend when it is docked on the DVR (which is where mine spends most of its life!) .
11) Sound quality is beautiful valid, sounds tremendous through my Klipsch speakers and seems to have more oomph than my other players.
12) WiFi/Browser -- has a honorable browser and WiFi connection has worked well for me. I believe the keyboard is better than the Touch's, although Safari is probably the slightly proper browser. The bigger hide also helps for browsing. Overall I'm inclined to give the Archos the top ranking for browsers.
13) I fair discovered Twidroid, one of many apps pre-loaded, allows me to check my Twitter in a really nice format -- treasure it!
14) Portability -- well there's only so great portability that can be expected with a cloak and hard drive this mammoth. This original form is smoother and rounder so its a dinky more comfortable in a pocket. It is very easy to carry around as a handheld design, fits nicely in my hand as I stroll about the house trying out all of the Android Apps! In any case, this is not as portable as a Touch but I deem its graceful capable for a diminutive computer -- which is basically what this is.
15) No extra slouch ins needed (so far!) . Always in the past I've laid out another $40 for additional Archos plugins to play iPod format music and other video formats. So far I haven't had to do that -- thank you Archos 
16) Archos will stand gradual their product. I've had to send in a couple of Archos units over the years and they have always been jubilant to either repair or replace the unit without quibbling about it, as long as its under warranty. Note: it did remove two weeks to fetch my unit befriend!
17) Multi threading: now I point to my engineer/geek side. This baby can do a bunch of different stuff at the same time, unlike the iPhone/Touch which can really only do one thing at a time. The Android can be doing other stuff while you are listening music. I care for the dinky bar on the top that you can pull down and switch to any other task that is running.
18) Built-in kickstand, very nice feature.
19) Stylus generous touch camouflage -- sometimes you objective obtain tired of trying to type a touchscreen keyboard with chunky fingers! In general, this is one of my popular touch screens. Most of the other touch screens, including iPod/iPhone, are capacitance which means stylus won't work
20) Micro USB cable plug-in: finally a standardized USB trot and you can have it resting on its kickstand while plugged in
Given that the Archos tops the class in several categories, and continues to be the best 500GB 5 trip veil player available I give it about a 4.7 stars out of 5 (round to 5) . There are a few things I'm less than thrilled about:
1) External hard drive EXT3 -- as I understand it, Archos changed to the EXT3 hard drive format for reasons of hurry and reliability. The result for me is that I can no longer simply occupy hard drive MSC mode, chase the Archos into a Windows machine and put a question to to access the drive. You have to install an Ext3 driver such as EXT2 IFS on your Windows PC. Once I did that I was able to access the hard drive and backup files to my hearts direct.
2) The playlist interface didn't pick up remarkable of an upgrade and its mild kind of clunky. I want to simply tap my playlist and it starts playing. Often times I have to do a couple of extra taps to fetch the thing playing.
3) We lost the dedicated play button and removable battery a while benefit -- but I aloof miss them both! None of my popular touch shroud players has either of these features. I'm also missing the brown metallic color and the rubbery backside.
4) Finding a case for this baby is no easy trick. You're not going to glean one at the local Best Steal I'm scared. In the past I've resorted to ordering my Archos cases from European companies like I-nique and Noreve. This is generally good of any player that is not an iPod or a Zune.
5) As always with Archos, you must remember that you are dealing with a French based company. This means that they don't always provide the best support/service/upgrades to us Americans.
6) Lets face it, Archos is always playing gain up. Some of the fresh features aren't fully functional yet. I do have faith that Archos will fix all the exiguous glitches with things like GPS over the course of the next 6 months. The Apps available are currently a bit small. I examine this will improve over the coming months.
7) Maintain in mind that this is not a unit for the faint of heart. This is more for the hobbyist who wants a cutting edge experience that may grasp some messing around to procure it unbiased the contrivance you want it. If you want something easy that requires minimum concern then iPods are going to be more your cup of tea.
For me this is level-headed the best player of its class -- that class being sizable hard drive, gigantic hide PMP players with other fun features. Android makes for some fun possibilities, and overall I'm impressed with this as an upgrade. Once again, if you don't mind a smaller mask and you treasure apps I suggest you secure an iPod Touch. If what you care about most is sound quality you may want to acquire a Walkman X. For me those are your top 3 touch mask players, it objective depends on what you care about the most.
Note: 10-23-2009; I upgraded to firmware version 1.2.03 which fixes some App, Browser, and YouTube issues. Apps do seem happier now, upgrade process was very unruffled. Aloof happily listening to tunes for about 8 hours a day with no problems
Update 11-7-2009: I've been running version 1.2.15 with a host of bug fixes and the unit does seem more stable in general now. Wifi is working better and USB connection seems more salubrious.
This is a large draw with a few minor interface issues and bugs. im not going to write a thesis on this, so ill objective boil it down. objective to let you know, ive previously owned an archos 604wifi and an archos av420.
the pros:
- the interface is very slick, it takes some getting passe to but once you do it is enormous! its Considerable tighter than any apple product in the scheme the interface works seamlessly throughout the entire experience despite what application you are using.
- station up was very simple, streaming from either web radio, pandora, or my personal network (all via wifi) was improbable. surprisingly the battery life doesnt seem bad either. i havent done any strenuous tests yet, but i former the contrivance last night constantly streaming web radio via wifi, connected to bluetooth devices, and with the mask on and active while i was browsing the earn a bit (looking thru applications to add) for 2 or 3 consecutive hours last night, and only seemed to spend 1/3 of the battery.
- its more smart than previous versions, letting me know why clear files i have wont play on this during the transfer process. it offered to mild let me copy them across for storage, but said i wouldnt be able to play them with the design. previously it would copy them, let me add them into the playlist, then bail-out of playback whenever it came across it, which was very annoying since i tend to earn huge playlists and expend stir.
- built in fm transmitter! FINALLY! ive been waiting for them to establish this into (or at least attached to) the arrangement themselves for a long time - basically since i bought the fm receiver for the av420 /thinking/ it was a transmitter. 
sadly i havent figured out how to win this working objective yet, but i havent had alot of time to play with it in the car (thats my after-work project today) .
i havent had the chance to play with the GPS yet, but making this all inclusive like that is a immense understanding, i hope its executed well (however i havent heard well-behaved things about teleatlas) .
the cons:
- its ALOT thicker than it appears on the web - probably dictated by hard drive size, but its basically as thick as my 604wifi. the web image was very misleading, i was expecting something grand thinner.
i dont net why all the applications utilize the accelerometer to change orientation, but the home menu's dont? seems like a comic oversight.
- it seems a microscopic laggy, and its hung a number of times to the point that ive had to force-reboot it. im really hoping for a system update to fix this stability enlighten.
- text entry boxes are a miniature weird, you cant easily click and roam to highlight parts of text to delete or edit. hoping a system update fixes this.
- im shapely fine with tech toys, but i have not been able to bag this thing to "tether" to my phone yet. it seems to pair with phone, but my phone says there are no available services on the archos that its involved in so it never "connects". not quite clear whats going on here.
- not a steady con but since i am a previous owner it was a miniature hard to find former to: you cant resolve to add an entire folder of songs to a playlist when creating them on the map anymore. at first i view they were forcing me to add one song at a time, but its not as abominable as that: what they do is produce you enter the directory you want to add, settle any song and click to add it to the playlist from the menu. once you do it opens another miniature menu asking if you want to add impartial that track or all the tracks in that directory. its mildly annoying b/c it requires a few extra steps for something that seems really basic: they could have unbiased let me add the directory and automated that functionality. im really hoping a system update fixes this as well.
- booting up doesnt seem to be any better than it had been on the 604 (which was noticably longer than the 420 had been) . however it does have a "stand-by" mode that appears to consume no battery life and boots up in seconds. not quite positive if this really is a con since they seem to have provided a solution that is immense, which is why its last.
Summary:
great way, some bugs but very dinky and easy to overlook so far, and they should be easily fixed (hopefully posthaste) . im REALLY angry for this product and hope to examine archos throwing its continued benefit slack it.
sorry, i guess that was alot longer than i hoped or expected.
I have to say that I went against my gut when purchasing this diagram, as it looked really nice, and really, I wanted it for watching movies, listening to music and checking the internet speedily when I am on the bustle in airports.
The movie fragment worked really well. For that, I give this map 5 STARS...I actually downloaded movies to my Amazon Unbox, then crooked up the Archos and bam, instantly on my novel Archos 5 (well, after the movie downloaded to my unbox in 1.5 hours) .
The music piece also works flawlessly. Not really any hiccups there, and the sound was qualified, but could be better. For that, I would give it 4 stars...
SO FAR SO Sterling Accurate?
WRONG
First, I had the reset this map 5 times in 2 days because it honest humdrum froze up. I would acquire multiple error messages when I was connected to internet, dropping the connection frequently (and yeah, I'm glowing skilled at making that work) . Poor Awful Dreadful.
And I don't want to hear how a simple patch or download will fix this whine. If it doesn't work out of the box, than DON'T SHIP IT!! I've been reading that apparently, Archos is getting slammed with this stuff after only a week.
FOR THAT, it gets 1 STAR and should glean ZERO stars!!
Second, the Appslib was never installed on this arrangement. I called customer service, was talking to someone in 5 minutes, who then achieve me on possess for 45 MINUTES!! After 45 minutes (I only stayed on absorb that long cause I was watching NFL game so I had nothing else to really aid to at the time), the phone rang for 10 more minutes, and then, line went dumb. PATHETIC!!!!
I am reading that some software update added actually might have been the reason for the Appslib to never appear, and if you recognize at Amazon space, they pulled the 160GB version.
For that, I give it NEGATIVE STARS...Unpleasant service and Poor that this map did not advance preloaded as advertised.
I am sending it relieve and will expend my Toshiba Netbook to study movies on the plane rides for now. I'm really disappointed. The intention itself was really nice and sleek looking. The interface was nice.
The resistive keyboard was kind of annoying as it took a gorgeous obedient finger press to construct it answer, but worked well enough. I learned to type dazzling well on it in 2 days.
I'm ANNOYED!!!
I would have bought the ZuneHD but the camouflage is too puny for movies, as well as the Ipod touch..
I'm now considering the Viliv ex70 as I've heard expansive things and it's gotten generous reviews.
I've read Archos history but wanted this intention to work...The Android platform has a lot of potential and anything google touches comely powerful works as advertised.
Now, I'll have to shop around a tiny.
I can state you one thing...unless people commence giving this procedure 4-5 stars when the bugs are worked out, I'll never consume another thing from this company.
EDIT TO REVIEW:
I have downloaded a unique firmware update and the plan is no longer needing to be reset constantly. It also does not slip any longer and seems a limited more lickety-split and responsive. I'm going to absorb on to it for now and gape how this plays out over the next 3 weeks. I'm actually flying to CA for a sales meeting next week and so it'll be tested well. If I collect it is fair needing more debugging it's going succor and I'll also update again.
I have 2 movies that I honest loaded to it from Unbox. Wolverine and The Dusky Knight...Both see very ample, although I'd adore to accumulate my hands on a HD version of these movies to push to the diagram.
I'm nervous, however, to pick the HD plugin because I've read somewhere that it does not work or does not read that you have purchased it.
One last thing:
I also unprejudiced read now that on the Viliv you can actually speed Windows 7. It has a camera, and if that is the case, you can snap photos and then ink on them which I do when I'm on job sites taking photos and marking up buildings and plans. That seems practical to me. However, it's expensive (around $800-$900) and this method would be Large if these bugs go away.
Let me also so, Find THE 32GB NOT THE 160GB model. The 32GB runs SSD and it very like a flash. It's also half the weight and thin.
I'd say it's as thin as my wife's iphone and as heavy as holding a titanic starbucks coffee. It's light and thin.
I have yet to try the GPS software but concept on downloading it from the disk provided to catch the 7 day trial out of it. I'd Like that to work. Has a lot of potential when the 3D maps are available for the US in 2nd quarter of 2010.
BEWARE, not matter how mighty you want something...BEWARE
UPDATE #2: Done with it. It is going encourage NOW. I did the firmware update and it did NOTHING to befriend this machine. At first it appeared to accomplish the system work faster, but then, it has frozen up 2 more times. Furthermore, I tried to install the GPS 7 day trial using the disk and the blueprint again froze up. Sorry, but I cannot contain that these people would let these go out the door Incandescent it has issues. How the hell can they NOT know? If everyone here but one person has given this thing delicate dreadful marks, are they only using fully functional and perfectly tested devices?
Literally, glance at the reviews and you will stare what I am talking about. It's incredible to me that a company would do this. Yes, mammoth companies have devices that periodically are returned atrocious. But at the rate that these people are getting complaints, you have to wonder how this could go on for the period of time that it has.
So, Archos will never pick up another dime from me, unless of course they approach out with a fully functional non brick like scheme that people are raving about. I bear my next contrivance will be a Viliv. I have read review after review on those devices and they are almost all certain. The machines construct the design they were intended to, unlike this one.
And it's too dreadful...this is such a nice looking and feeling method. The mask is nice, it feels really easy to employ in the hand...It's a shame it unbiased does not develop.
