Rated 
Archos 604
- Very nice, solid look and feel - Very good video quality - Excellent PC connectivity - Excellent portability, easy to use in cramped or crowded conditions (airport, waiting room, exercise, etc.)
- Included doc is sparse - UI needs work - Ext speaker and included headphones so-so - Scheduler function is quirky - Somewhat limited without the DVR Station, DVR Station should be bundled in
Posted Jan 26, 2007 - The Archos 604 looks and feels gorgeous out of the box with nice heft and nifty gunmetal grey accents. A quick look at some of the included video clips shows off the great promise of the device, with excellent video quality. The kickstand looks flimsy but is surprisingly sturdy and should stand up to airplane use. The sound from the external speaker is almost non-existent, but as this is a personal video player, that seems like an acceptable flaw. However, the included headphones are no great shakes either, I compared against a pair of cheap noise canceling phones and a pair of nice Sony noise canceling phones, and even the cheap ones gave superior results to Archos' phones. Hooking the device to a PC is a snap, and the device very handily allows you to choose whether to connect it as a Windows media device or as a hard drive, which is an outstanding feature. Transferring even large video files in hard drive mode is very fast. I was surprised that, being such a technically advanced device, the included documentation is barely basic, you have to go to Archos web site to download the detailed user manual, or you can read it on the device as a PDF file, which seems cumbersome. The more detailed doc is better, but even then you will still find yourself puzzled and will have to resort to trial and error for some of the more advanced functions. The user interface (UI) of the device is inconsistent and needs some polish. Granted they are constrained by the number of buttons, but it is never entirely clear how to "back up" or exit certain menus or save changes. Sometimes you use the Menu key, sometimes you use the Cancel "X" key, sometimes you use the OK key. Getting video onto the device is a mixed bag. I am not a big YouTube or internet video person so I did only a cursory test of downloading internet video into Windows Media Center and then to the device, it works just fine. As far as getting larger media (i.e. movies) onto the device, recording directly from your Tivo or cable/satellite DVR to the 604 using the Archos DVR Station (a $100 upgrade) is by far and away the easiest method and yields very nice results. It makes one wonder why the DVR Station is not sold as a bundle. If you use Tivo-To-Go, good luck. Tivo claims you can synch to Windows media devices using Tivo Desktop and Windows Media Center, but I was not able to get it to work with the Archos. After much searching, I finally found an extremely useful freeware called TVHarmony AutoPilot at TVHarmony.com. The program is incredibly useful and does download from Tivo to the PC as AVI files, and then it's just a quick copy to the Archos. Beware that it takes a LONG time and is best run overnight. Interestingly, the audio quality from this program is outstandingly good. Ripping DVDs (which you legally own of course) to AVI files and then copying to Archos was another adventure. After many trials I finally settled on Xilisoft DVD Ripper Platinum which is a relatively effectve program. You can also use the Archos' Scheduler function in conjunction with the DVR Station to record programs without Tivo or some other DVR, but sadly the function is filled with quirky behavior, I can't really say that I could give the function a "pass" in my testing although it has worked intermittently. However, if you have a Tivo or other DVR it is unlikely you will use the Scheduler function anyway. All this being said however, I am quite happy with the device and am thrilled to be able to travel with a nice, portable and functional video device instead of a bulky portable DVD player. It is also wonderful to use while using exercise machines, etc. All in all, like most highly technical products, it has its fair share of warts, but I would still recommend it highly if you are a video fan.
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Major issues with PlaysForSure media; returned product for refund
Archos 604
