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Archos 605 WiFi 4GB Portable Media Player 4.3" Touch Screen Best Buy
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See our New 2006 range of cheap Archos 605 WiFi 4GB Portable Media Player 4.3" Touch Screen for laptops and notebooks. Listed below is the cheapest price for the Archos 605 WiFi 4GB Portable Media Player 4.3" Touch Screen with Amazon UK.
Popularity - 4956. The lower the number the more popular.
Price - £118.38 Correct as of 03/04/08
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5 Reviews for Archos 605 WiFi 4GB Portable Media Player 4.3" Touch Screen
Bug ridden software - 29 Mar 2008
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
This unit could be a really good device. Battery life is brilliant on it, screen is great and I can actually do worthwhile Web browsing on it, it will handle the fine detail on the pages.
So what is wrong with this device? Bug ridden software. I have to do an emergency power off at least once a day - this is where the unit doesn't shut down by a conventional press of the power off button, this is where you have to keep your finger on it for around 10 seconds because the operating system in the unit has crashed.
I have had to format the memory and lost the operating system and any installed files once.
The unit has now so badly locked up, that neither repair, recovery or format the unit works, not even the reset button or power off buttons can resolve this. I now have to return the unit back to Amazon for a replacement such is the seriousness of the failure.
The Archos 605 recommends I connect it to the PC and install an update ( download the operating system into it) but alas it won't even recognise it is plugged into the PC!
It has failings when it comes to the SD cards: some SD cards it just won't recognise, and it gets confused whether a card is in or not and this seems to affect the 605's ability to boot-up. correctly
Sorry, I love this product when it works, but I can not accept the number of serious bugs in the design. It's too problematic. The manufacturer should not have released this product onto the market in it's current state.
One should never be able to get the unit into a state from which it can not recover, there should always be a copy of operating system or a boot loader to download and install a new opearting system through the USB, held in non writable memory. This is clearly not the case with this unit.
My recommendation? Don't buy this product. Hopefully sales will then drop and compel Archos to fix the software bugs and I hope they will learn a lesson from it - not to release such buggy units onto the market place.
Beware! - 26 Mar 2008
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
If your looking for a player that's trouble free DONT buy an Archos! The first thing you read in the instructions is 'do not use till fully charged' It's not supplied (WHY NOT?)with a charger so you've got to use the USB, well I gave up after 27 hours! Being eager to use the thing I payed out £60 for the charger/DVR so I could use it quicker. To live with the Archos you have to understand computers, now I'm not stupid but getting the Archos to work well you've got to spend a hell of a lot of time keeping it going. I got to regard this thing like my first old car I got, I never knew if it would start when I got in it and if it did start I never knew how long it would go for (best time on the Archos was 40 minutes before it crashed). If you want to use it at the GYM forget it, the volume is useless, you'll struggle to hear it over the gym equipment. The quality of the earphones is pretty naff too, very tinny. Because it's a sad piece of equipment it's best to carry it's USB cable and a paper clip( needed to reset it when it shuts down on you) problem is that once you reset it you lose everything you've got on it, hence the need to carry the usb and a laptop to download it all again! Defeat's the object of mobile music I think. Mine's going back to get fixed again (only 4 weeks old) and will end up on eBay.
Decent option for those on a budget - 09 Feb 2008
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
Had this for a week now, as a companion to an AV500 (30GB) that i've had for over 2 years and gained much enjoyment from. The 605 is a little thinner and a little lighter so fits in the pocket a bit easier. Video is excellent apart from dark scenes - watching 'Life in cold blood' which featured a lot of night scenes, the blacks were nowhere near as good as the AV500 which really surprised me. Acceptable but a little disappointing - other than that the picture is faultless. Purchased the docking station at the same time and was surprised how many more connections it has/needs than the old style AV500 docking station (The need to buy another docking station was quite annoying). Not yet used the wi-fi features but to be honest that's not what I bought it for. Very pleased with it so far and for approx £170 for the 605 and the docking station it's good value, with the ability to gain more capacity via SD cards.
Shame about the poor software design - 14 Jan 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful.
I liked the quality of sound, and the ability to play back movies. But I didn't feel the user interface had been very well thought through. For example if you want to add to an existing playlist you have to first go into the playlist you want to add to by playing something from it. Otherwise it brings up the last playlist you used, and there's no option to choose the playlist you want via the menu system. Having got the right playlist in the playlist window, you can't just add to it and save because the only save option you get is for the default new playlist name the device displays by default. But you don't want to save it as a new playlist you just want to update the existing list. So you have to use the saveas option. But there is no display of the existing playlists to choose from, so you have to remember the name of the list you wanted to add to and put it in again. In practice for me being an old fart means writing it on a piece of paper first. This is the most frustrating example I found, but I feel it is representative of the generally usability of the device.
I generally agree with the other comments re having to buy add ons, and battery charging time, but having done my research up front I new about these issues.
Much worse than the above was to come. After a few days the "OK" (select) rocker button refused to work, and this though I'd hardly touched it having been mostly using the touch screen. So I tried to reset the device which led to it showing up an error stating that FAT32 system was in error. So I then tried to use the system recovery facility which brought up a tiny white screen with three of options which could only be actioned using the "OK" button. But this wasn't working so I was completely stuffed. Anyway I've returned the device to Amazon for a replacement. Just hope I've done the right thing, perhaps I should have asked for a refund. I note that the price has dropped through the floor and wonder if there are serious flaws in the device that can't be fixed by new firmware releases. I had already done a firmware update prior to the rocker button problem emerging.
I'm really glad I bought from Amazon rather than one of the other Web sellers who insist on sending returns off for repair leaving you with no product for weeks on end.
Two steps forward, one great leap back? - 05 Jan 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful.
I am slightly disappointed with my new toy, I'll try and explain.
I'm a gadget freak! I buy things that I don't really need from time to time (I'm not the only one, right?).... but when I do fork out the best part of week's wage (after the plugins, docking stations etc) I get a little peeved when it doesn't live up to my expectations.
What's the problem? well, the main thing that bugs the hell out of me is Archos have upped the screen resolution on the 605 (great?!) and indeed it is a mighty nice resolution however they have somehow sacrificed colour saturation in the process. The 605 has a pretty 'washed out' look when viewing video content and there's no option to raise saturation levels either - everything I have viewed on the 605 looks lacking in vibrancy and when compared to my brothers 604 with the same files - it's quite noticeable, better resolution yes but poorer colour.
One other slight gripe I have is with the wifi connection - it's not great and takes around 12 seconds to connect up on my home network & pretty slow I have to say - my laptop & even my iPod touch connect & browse much, much faster with the same router/connection. If there's any flash content on a webpage (i.e. You Tube) the 605 crawls before finally sorting itself out, so frustrating!
It's fine as an occasional web instrument, just not as good as it should be and imho nowhere near as good as Apple's latest gizmo's for the web browsing side of things.
As has been mentioned in other reviews you will need to buy the browser plug-in for another £20 or so, pain in the bum but not exactly a shock if you read reviews before buying.
OK, so I've slagged off it's video & web abilities? No not really.
Video playback (apart from the colour issue) is truly stunning!!! the 605 is without doubt the best PMP I have ever used in that respect, it's played everything I've thrown at it, even 1080 HD encoded DIVX/XVID files - the pain in the rear comes when you chuck a VOB or MP4 file at the unit - then you have to purchase the 'cinema plug-in' for 20 euro's then there's the other plug-in for certain audio formats for another 20 euro's, both of which I knew about before getting the 605 and won't be buying as almost everything I want on the device will be in DIVX anyway.
I mentioned the iPod touch earlier and I'm not an Apple fan boy by any stretch of the imagination but there are comparisons between the devices to be made - I'd read a few reviews on the 605 where it was claimed the touch screen was as good as that on the iphone/touch - I guess the people who wrote those reviews might have something against Apple? (or simply have never compared both side by side!) - I own both devices and have no affiliation to either company whatsoever but I can, hand on heart state here and now that the touch screen on the 605 is exactly the same type of touch screen you will find on 1000000 sat nav units, it is nowhere near as nice to use as the screen on the iPod touch - on the Apple devices you barely need to touch the screen but on the 605 you have to prod and push or resort to using the stylus. It's simply not as good so I wish people would stop saying that it is, don't get me wrong the 605 touch screen is NOT bad but again it's just not as good as it should and could have been!
The device itself is pretty solid feeling although being all plastic, no metal casing as on earlier models here and the buttons down the right hand seem a little delicate to be honest and would not take much 'snapping back' if one wasn't careful.
As for the case that comes with it, it's fine! nothing amazing but it's rigid and fits well and I certainly don't feel the need to spend another 20 or 30 quid on a leather one anyway.
One other thing, charging the unit - it comes with only a usb charger and takes 12-24 hours on it's first charge, no idea of subsequent charge lengths but they are likely to be very slow via usb - I've a mini-dock coming!
The 605 has many cool features that I'm still exploring and if you want the best handheld video device out there with occasional web use/MP3 playback then there is non better despite my concerns above, it's much better than the iPod touch in respect of video playback certainly but nowhere near in terms of internet use or indeed MP3 usage (storage yes, ease of use no).
I'd still buy the 605 though, I wanted a good video playback handheld device and do have one but just not the perfect gadget quite yet, maybe the 06 series? shame.
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