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Archos 405 30GB Portable Media Player 3.5" screen | 
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| Brand: Archos
Category: CE
List Price: £149.00
Buy New: £133.81
You Save: £15.19 (10%)
New (2) Used (1) from £119.00
Rating:  1 reviews
Media: Electronics
Fragile: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 68.1 x 52.4 x 24
MPN: Archos 405 30GB
Model: Archos 405 30GB
UPC: 690590510883
EAN: 0690590510883
Release Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Media Player With Potential But Flawed Too August 6, 2008
Northern Warrior (Swindon, England)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
The Archos 405 is a tempting concept - a media player that can handle music, photo and video files and a battery which outlasts most DVD portables. The separate docking station (DVR) offers the ability to record from satellite TV or AV equipment. Well, we were hooked as following the premature demise of the Goodman's portable DVD player were in the market for a more compact "video on the go" system.
Unfortunately the reality did not quite live up to expectation. For the price it's a neat piece of kit but technophobes are going to struggle with some aspects. For starters, if you buy both the 405 and the DVR each comes with its own instruction book. However to work the DVR the 405 must be, er, docked and the instructions get a bit muddled as to whether you are performing an operation on the DVR or the Archos itself. The on screen menu and buttons on the Archos lack clarity and even calling up basic functions such as deleting files seems to work intermittently. The much hyped ability to record "proper" DVD or satellite input via the DVR required a couple of hours of trial and error not to mention considerable head scratching and even then not sure we were doing it right.
If you have bought the 405 with a view to using primarily as an MP3 player that also does media-video, then you can dispense with the DVR and manage the device and files from your PC. However this also has a sting in the tail... The Archos does not come with any pre-supplied software. In order to connect properly to your PC it is necessary to visit the Archos site to download drivers (these just extract from a zip file, no indication where the files need to go) and a utility programme (Archos Link) which can update the firmware and downloads TV listings, for use with the DVR to record TV. This latter seemed to work only sporadically with some channels not showing a listing.
However, I digress... If you want to transfer video from DVD etc. then you need to get this into a format the Archos will recognise. This requires a programme which will "rip" DVD video from the disc and convert it into the required format. Again, amazingly, the Archos does not come supplied with any software to do this. It was necessary to purchase a third party programme (Pocket-DVD) in order to do the conversions. Not expensive ( 12.99) but a device being sold for video playback should come with all the required software. Also, as a final sting in the tail, as default Windows Media does not come with a DVD playback codec, if your PC doesn't have third party DVD software installed you may need to buy the additional codec for Pocket DVD to work!
Once up and running, picture quality on the Archos was distinctly average. Obviously this varies for "ripped" material as to what quality you record at but high quality MP4/avi files will take up much more of the 30Gb hard drive than medium quality. External speaker quality was poor and tinny but using the supplied earphones on a par with a decent MP3 player.
I'm giving the Archos 405 three stars because it does have potential and much easier to carry around than a DVD portable. However it suffers from a clumsy interface, woolly manuals and a complete lack of supplied software to carry out the most basic of functions.
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