Consumer Reviews

So far, I love this device. Previously, I owned and used a Microsoft Zune 80GB (the hard drive of which broke) and Sony PSP 1001 (which was getting quite old) regularly. The Zune I used as my media player and the PSP I used as my mobile web browser. I’m happy to say that this device has replaced both and actually offered great improvements. I will list these improvements below:

Music: Zunes are great for music, but they stop short of doing anything wonderful. The Archos 5, however, allows you to do a lot more with your music collection. You can create playlists on the go, a feature missing in most modern MP3 players, and the player has great sound quality. Really, the player does just what it should and does not offer any real hang-ups in between you and listening to your music.

Video: Video on the Archos is stunning. With the massive 4.8″ screen, videos are a joy to watch and look wonderful, and look far better than on a Zune or the iPod Touch. The controls of the player allow you to touch and drag the slider at the bottom to move to different parts of the video, and it almost immediately starts playing from that point. There are also options to adjust the play speed of the video and even take a screenshot from the video and apply it as your background. The built in kickstand offers a simple way to watch your media without having to hold the player for an extended period. Archos really exceeds in video, and the Archos 5 is a prime example of their expertise in the field.

Pictures: The Archos 5 has a simple picture viewer that displays all your pictures in thumbnail view and offers several slideshow functions and transitions to view the pictures. Like video, viewing pictures with the Archos is much better than with other players due to the beautiful screen.

Internet: No other pocketable device offers the internet experience that the Archos does. The iPod Touch and iPhone do not offer flash support in their web browsers, so a lot of the media on the web is lost to these devices. The PSP does offer some flash support, but not videos and the support is only minimal. On the Archos, pages load quickly, and flash objects are displayed. On flash heavy websites, there are some issues, such as flash objects that will not load or are slow to initialize. You can watch YouTube and other video sites’ videos full screen on the Archos. Still, the ability to view flash videos straight from the browser is a big plus over the iPod Touch, iPhone, and PSP devices.

Extras: The Archos offers something iPods or Zunes do not offer: the ability to be used as a portable hard drive. This feature is something I sorely missed in my Zune, as I would like to carry around some files that I could use anywhere, and my device would be all I needed. This feature is taken one step further with the ability to stream media from your home network to your device or TV. The file browser on the Archos allows you to view files on your computer, or UPnP can be used to view shared files in your Windows Media collection. I prefer the file browser method, but if you like Windows Media a lot (I’m not sure why), the UPnP service is very helpful. Another benefit over Zunes and iPods is the lack of software to install. The fact that you can use it as a hard drive lets you simply drag and drop music and video onto your player without problem, or use Windows Media Player to sync your entire library. Much better than the Zune software or iTunes method, as both are bloatware. Add-ons also allow you to use the Archos as a DVR or a USB host (which allows you to transfer files directly from a device such as a camera to your Archos without a computer) and a lot more.

Now, there are definitely cons to the device:

You have to buy add ons to get full functionality from the device, which is kind of annoying. Plugins are expensive for what they offer. Without an add on, the charge time via USB is about 8 hours. That is really, really long. Some websites with flash videos don’t work and the videos don’t load.

Overall, I love the Archos 5 and I’m glad I chose it over the iPod Touch or some similar overpriced device. The fact that you get 120 GB and a massive screen compared to the iPod Touch’s 16GB for about the same price, the choice is clear, the Archos 5 is well worth the money and a smarter buy than the iPod Touch. Note, the device is pretty hefty, but not too bad on size. Also, you can feel the hard drive spin, which is a little disconcerting. And battery life has improved since a lot of people have reviewed, so it’s 22 hours audio, 7 hours video, and 4 hours WiFi, which is pretty respectable.

I ordered this product to be used as a video player while I am at work, and it functions very well as a video player. I also own a Zune and this blows the Zune out of the water. I will list some of the pro’s and cons.

Pro’s
Huge screen size, easily the best PMP screen I have ever seen, crisp and clear and bright, no jagged edges in the video.

Drag and drop ability. You are able to use media player to sync with this player, but you can also just drag and drop your files into folders. I don’t need backups of the video files so this is good for me.

The ability to delete items that are on the device. Once I am done with a episode I can delete it to keep space free and keep track of what I have watched.

Built in speaker, It is a little tinny and gets distorted at high volumes but it much better than the psp’s built in speakers.

Touch screen is the right sensitivity and very easy to use.

No need to convert files if you have them in xvid. This saves alot of time compared to the zune or ipod which only play mp4.

Cons

Wireless internet and browser work well from home but does not work from many locations on the road.

20$ for a codec pack is a bit much, I’d be more inclined to buy a DVR station or other add ons if they would include the codecs.

Battery takes a long time to charge with the included USB charger. The battery life is also fairly short. 4 hrs or so for video.

Power charging plug is located on the bottom of the device which makes it next to impossible to watch videos while charging.

Overall this is the best media player for video on the market. I own a zune and have used an ipod touch and PSP in the past. This blows them away in nearly every area. If you are looking for a great video player then look no further. If you are just looking for an MP3 player with video capabilites then pick up a zune or Ipod.

The Archos 5 pains me in the sense that I can see there is a great device in here somewhere; whether that device will ever surface remains to be seen.

First, I will start with the positives. If you’re into movies, the Archos 5 is for you. The expansive 4.8″ screen is a joy to watch movies on, and supports a fairly wide gamut of formats out of the box, and it supports videos up to full DVD resolution (720×480), which results in a gorgeous, ultra-crisp picture on this “small” screen. Touch-screen navigation during video watching is fairly simple, intuitive, and thoughtful – you can set bookmarks, or pause a scene and use it as your wallpaper. When it comes down to it, video is where this player shines through. For music, the main feature on this Archos is ability to play many different formats – including wav, flac, mp3, ogg, and wma. Sound quality is pretty good. The user interface is fairly slick in the browsing of music and videos as well, I especially like the previews it displays next to each video file.

The positives really end there, because for all the features the 5 has, most of them do not work as advertised or have way too many bugs to be considered truly useable.

-One thing that irked me right out of the box was the lack of the inclusion of a charger. The only method of charging included is the USB cable which takes a whopping eight(!) hours to charge the 5 fully. Archos also has a compulsion to nickel and dime you for everything. $20 for a charger. $20 for a plugin for a couple of extra file formats. Ridiculous. With the price these things end up costing, you really might as well buy a netbook with a high capacity hard drive. It will probably do all the things the 5 does much cheaper, better, and with a larger screen.
-The 5’s touchscreen can be very frustrating at times. Whether you like it or not, the iPod Touch has become the gold standard among touchscreen devices, and one thing I will say is that the Touch has an extremely easy to use, responsive screen. The 5 does not. It is not very responsive at all, and often requires multiple taps. And by taps and I mean very very hard presses – almost as hard as if I was trying to press a button. Extremely disappointing, but still useable; sometimes it works very smoothly.
-The user interface, while well designed and effective in many areas, falls flat. My main gripe is the menu screen. There are six items permanently located in the menu, only three of which I actually use (“Play,” “Internet,” and “Tools.”). There is even an icon solely for pushing all the add-ons Archos produces for the 5. I would appreciate the option to rearrange/customize the menu, or at the very least be able to remove items from it. Just looking at all the junk on the menu has become irritating. Also, when listening to music, there is no way to quickly return to the “Artists” or “albums” list – the only thing available is a “back” button that will take you through multiple screens when tapped- first of the album you are currently listening to, then the artist’s list of albums, then the artist list, then the main music menu. it becomes quite annoying. Browsing of FLAC files (as of firmware 1.3.05) is currently poorly integrated; when browsing through the music library/list of albums, album art will not display (they’ll display when you actually play the music though).
-Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the misleading advertising of this device as an ‘internet media tablet.’ You would think that with a name like that, the browsing experience would be flawless. While it is better than most, it definitely should be advertised as an extra and not a main selling point. The 5 loads pages fast most of the time but gets poor wi-fi reception and drops the signal where other wi-fi devices (PS3, laptop, etc.) do not. The Flash 9 experience is not as full-featured as they would have you believe. Heavily flash-dependent sites such as hulu will not even work. Scrolling with your finger is laggy and horrible. It has nice tabbed browsing and is able to run a few tabs without a real choke though. One strange thing is no address bar – URLs are entered through a separate menu, resulting in more unnecessary taps. Tapping links is also difficult because of the innacuracy of the touchscreen combined with the lack of hilighting of links, so it is difficult to tell what you are actually clicking on.
-The integrated speaker is one of the worst things I have ever heard. It’s passable for viewing videos but horrendous with music. It’s not that big of a deal though, because most of the time I use headphones. But if you are the kind of person who intends on using the speaker a lot, then please be aware of its awfulness.
-The firmware is actually downright buggy too. It freezes up often while using the mail application and shuts down and restarts sometimes while browsing the internet. Sometimes after watching a video for an extended period of time, I try to tap the screen and nothing will come up, forcing me to shut the 5 down and restart it.

From reading my review, you would think I would have rated it lower. I gave it three stars because like I said, there is a great PMP somewhere in here and Archos can fix most of the 5’s shortcomings with new firmware. The 5 just feels half-baked as of now, and Archos should have taken more time with it before releasing it.

I Finally took the jump purchasing the Archos. Had a hard time deciding if I should get the 5 or the 7. I decided to try the 5 and consider getting the 7 at later time.

The Archos been around for a long time but I was not sold by the older Archos player design. The new archos IMT 5 has very sleek design and a very wonderfull and sharp screen. I still think Ipod touch has slightly better screen quality, but in my opinion the Archos beat the ipod in many categories.

What I like about the Archos:
I like the fact that I can plug the Archos to my PC without synching with any software. You can copy the file from your HD and paste them to Archos 5, as simple as copy and pasting file to a usb flash drive. There is of course option to sync it with windows media player. (I have not however try synching it with WMP or pluging this to a Mac). I also like the fact that it takes avi format, wmv, divx. Touch screen is very sensitive, but since I applied a screen protector on mine, I find it easier to use my nail instead of finger. Some Opera Widget can be use in the Archos and flash seems to work decent in the archos. I also like that the archos 5 has wifi, email client, Opera for web browsing (full web browsing), great viewing angle, plane mode, Adult and Child Mode (keep violent movie lock away from your child , this mode will completely hide the video file mark as adult content in child mode), pdf reader and allow browsing of directory with the ability to edit the file such as deleting it.

What I did not like about the Archos:
battery is not removeable, it is a bit heavy and it might not be ultra portable for some people, Web browser end the session once you go back to main screen, pdf reader is there but not very useable, it has to load every pages that you browse…. page 1 loading….. scroll to page 2… loading…. scroll back to page 1 loading…. good for 1 page pdf maps, or train schedule, etc. (Text is readable in IMT 5, however if you want to get the archos to do lots of pdf reading, wait at least until they make it better through firmware upgrade I hope). Other than free flash game that you find online, there is no free game made specifically for the archos 5. I do not like that they charges too much for codec. if they bring the price down to 9.99, I can guarantee, many people will be very willing to buy all the plugins. (for Vob, HiDef Video and H264).

(more…)

I’m an iPod fan. Yes, i’ve owned every version/generation and probably will continue to do so. But when I met the Archos family something clicked. It was like meeting that cute girl across the room for the first time.

I first was introduced to Archos about 3 years ago. My friend had some movies and music on his. It was interesting. I didn’t have much need for such a bulky product. But then I came across the Archos 5 online and did some research. It was perfect, or so I thought…

Let’s start with the basic Pros:

1. It’s big enough to watch video on without hurting your eyes.

2. It’s recent firmware updates have kept this guy going strong since i’ve bought it.

3. The hard drive is HUGE! If you are using this for mp3’s and videos on long trips you will have more than enough space. We drove from San Francisco to L.A. and back and never ran out of media.

4. It’s sturdy. You don’t feel like you are going to break it while you are using it.

5. When you have the right accessories this thing wails on the competition.

A> The DVR Station is well worth the extra $100. It can use your Archos as a DVR and you can record those TV programs or On Demand Movies for your watching pleasure. I’m also a DJ/VJ so I can record my sets with video in real time from the club. You also get the handy DC charger so as not to use USB to charge your device.

B> Buy the plug-ins, they rock, and it’s worth the money to make sure you are using the Archos 5’s full potential.

6. The internet, mail and other appz work just fine. I have not had anything crash, bug, or tweak out yet.

7. Battery Time is AWESOME! The numbers are pretty high, I did about 6 hours for video and over 12 for audio with more life remaining.

Ok, now the cons:

1. You do have to pay for the extra accessories. Some of the prices can be steep.

2. Some plug-ins aren’t available yet.

3. The Archos website is pretty lame and confusing. Be careful there, you may end up buying something from th UK store by accident.

OVERALL:

The Archos 5 is a feat of genius. I can check my mail and surf the web from any wifi. I can watch days of movies, listen to weeks of audio. Share my pictures with friends. I can record t.v. and any other audio/video source I put in to it (with the dvr station or dvr snap-on or course).
I have not had any battery or program bugs at all in the month I have owned it.

For your $400-$500 for a reliable sturdy, forward thinking touchscreen PMP that’s miles above the iPod, the Archos is perfect. If you don’t want to invest in, or have the need to go to some of the extremes i’ve listed, stick with the Zune or iPod. They will play just about anything you want them too, but they aren’t as flexible as the Archos 5.