Archos 604 wifi review

[happybunny]

Wow....

Not sure the point of this post other than to share with ya'll this wicked little device.

http://www.archos.com/products/video/archos_604wifi/index.html?country=global&lang=en

I have read that is a linux based OS, but that is not the point either.

I take the train to work each day and was researching portable media players.

I can't stand the iPod's for various reasons we don't need to go into here.

The Zune is just out of the question.

The Creative Zen was OK, but not a big enough screen. Also, it didn't have the color range that this one does.

And then there was the Archos. NOt only are the technical spec's impressive, they actually list linux as a supported OS.

So i get the thing home and I have to charge up the battery for 2 hours....the longest 2 hours of my life i think.

This is where it starts getting impressive:

We are heading out and i notice that the battery is fully charged....so i fire it up, switch it to "usb harddisk mode", my debian/gnome automounts the device, I copy a 900mb avi file to it in about 25 seconds and I was out the door.

So sitting at Barnes & Nobles, i had time to play with thing.

It is simple, speedy, has a great picture, weighs little, and is very intuitive.

The touch screen makes browsing pictures a breeze, and navigating the menu's is logical and it just works.

1 major complaint is that you have to buy "plugins" for some video types. Of course i needed the plugin to play the video i had copied!

I went online and spent 20lbs? maybe 20 franc's or 20 euro's, im not sure, to get this plugin and my ripped dvd file plays fine now. This is obviously their attempt to keep the initial cost down, but this plugin is desperatly needed for a dvd viewing.

This model also has wifi which i used to connect to an open wireless ap while shopping, but didn't spend too much time with that. The screen size makes it almost pointless, but i thought it best to buy this model anyway.

Again, a pointless post, but i just had to share as this thing is pretty impressive so far.

[ladoga]

Hmm...as it's linux based im suprised that no one has made free plugins for DivX, x.264 etc.

Cowon/iAudio makes also very good mp3 players (my friend bought one). Their A2 portable multimedia player also runs linux. There has been some community developement (emulators ported), but not much. No wifi either:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2786595347.html
http://iaudiophile.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.58

GP2X is also interesting. It uses mplayer for playing media (so pretty much every format is supported) also lots of apps have been ported by community (OpenSSH, Qtopia, elinks to name few):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X

[JayMan8081]

What AVI codecs does it support? Maybe I just missed them on the website but does it play divx or xvid AVI files?

[happybunny]

Its confusingly annoying to the point of questionable business practise's in my mind. YOu really have to understand codecs to know what it will play or not play by default.

from the website:
MPEG-4 (ASP@L5 AVI, up to DVD resolution)
WMV (MP@ML, up to DVD resolution).
With optional software plug-ins:
- H.264 up to DVD resolution and AAC sound.
- MPEG-2 MP@ML up to 10 Mbps (up to DVD resolution) and AC3 stereo sound.

This is simply a license restriction, not a codec/technical one. When i put an xvid encoded file on the player, it will play in a preview window, but when I go to actually play it, it says i have to go buy the optional plugin.

I still like this thing very much, but just remember that you need to add about $20 to the cost since it is kindof useless without the plugin.

Also, the battery lasts a long time, too. I watched "A New Hope", the "WEdding Crashers" and about an hour of "Empire" before the battery gave out.