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An Entertainment Center That Fits in Your Pocket
Pros
Many features, no additional software needed, huge storage capacity, easy to use, large bright screen.
Cons
A little bulky and heavy, large screen must be handled with care.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Although I was only in the market for a music player, I am happy this media player. I don't expect to need an upgrade for a long time.
I was in the market for a large capacity MP3 player and I was open to just about any brand except Apple/Ipod. As I have mentioned in other reviews, I am not a fan of their prices, their proprietary format strategy or being shackled to iTunes. I looked at the Microsoft Zune, some of the other Archos products and some lesser-known brands of large-capacity players. I really wanted a product that offered user-replaceable/upgradeable storage, but decided on the 250GB Archos 5 since there was a special sale and the capacity was so large. I also really wanted a device that did not require the installation of additional software as I have had bad luck with those in the past. The Archos 5 can be used and loaded up with media using the existing software on a Windows system (Windows Explorer and/or Windows Media Player ("WMP")). Not that I am a huge fan of Windows Media Player, but it is already on most Windows systems.
Anyway, the Archos name helped me lean towards this player and away from another "no-name" player that was a little more versatile (user-swappable hard-drive). The fact that this player has a touch-screen was probably the clincher for me. This player does everything I could imagine that I will need and even more. I may use the internet functions on it but I haven't decided. My main focus, as I mentioned was a music player, but this unit also plays video (MPG and WMV), flash animations, reads PDFs, and allows the purchase/download of games and other applications. I doubt I will purchase games or applications though. This unit plays MP3, WAV and Windows Media files, and may play other types but I really don't use any others. My music is all in MP3 format. I tried loading Flash Videos (FLV) onto it but it didn't recognize them.
Content can be loaded onto the unit either by "syncing" with WMP or by simply dragging and dropping the files from your PC into the proper Archos folders in Windows Explorer. I mainly use the sync method with WMP and it goes pretty smoothly as long as your MP3 ID3 tags are clean. Like many other music players, the ID3 tags are what WMP and the Archos use to arrange your music into artist and album folders.
Tech tip: The area where issues are most likely to frustrate the user is with those folders or albums that contain various artists and songs. I have a huge folder on my PC of miscellaneous songs by various artists and I had to arrange the ID3 tags in order to maintain that folder on the Archos. I use a small program called "Taggin' MP3" to rename all of the artist info for those songs to "Various" and the album info to "Assorted". This way they will all be in the same folder. Otherwise, each song would be in its own album sub-folder and that sub-folder would be in its own artist folder. If there is no artist or album info in the ID3 tag, it will label it "Unknown Artist" or "Unknown Album". The problem with this is it could be any number of artists whose songs are in that folder.
Another tech tip is if you notice a song with incorrect ID3 tag info, you have to first delete it from your WMP library and sync list, rewrite the tag, and then add it back into your sync list. It took several frustrating and unsuccessul attempts to update song info for me to discover this.
Navigating the menus is very easy. Upon starting, the main menu comes up and you are only a few clicks away from whatever you want the Archos 5 to do. The touch screen works very well at sensing clicks, accuracy, and scrolling. For long lists, you can even click on the scroll bars to scroll very quickly. The only complaint, and it is very minor to me, is that in some menus like the main music menu for example, you have to click your choice twice. So if you want to select music by artist, you have to click the "Artist" button which highlights it, then click it again to actually open it. Like I said, this is very mnor and is not much of an inconvenience once you get used to it. In addition to touch-screen control, the volume can be controlled with physical buttons that are on the side of the unit. This is a nice convenience for me since I have a protective carrying case that covers the screen but allows access to all of the buttons, speakers, ports, etc.
The screen can be adjusted for contrast, brightness, etc. The display is very colorful and bright. The type/font is clear and easy to read. As with most small displays of this type, you have to view the screen from a fairly straight angle or else you get that color fade and images that look like negatives. Videos I have watched on it are very clear and action sequences are pretty clear. There are very convenient time counters and a progress bar so you can quickly search forward and back within a video/movie. While playing any type of media, you can click in the upper-right corner and select "Info" to get technical info on the media file. For example, it will tell you the file size and type, bitrate, sampling rate, duration and resolution (video).
The sound quality is really good. With the built-in speakers it is OK, about what you would expect from tiny laptop speakers. Running the audio out to a stereo gives you the rich audio quality you would expect from a high-quality audio device.
I also bought the Mini-Dock with the unit. This is a small docking station that allows for fast charging (charging is very slow via USB hookup to your PC) and lets you hook up to a TV or other video source. The dock essentially turns the Archos into a digital video player. The picture quality when viewing on a TV is good. It will depend of course, on the quality of the videos themselves.
Battery life seems to be good. I have not traveled with it yet or used it for extended periods, only for shorter periods and with many power on/off cycles when testing, loading it up, etc. the unit is a little bulky and heavy but it feels like its built solid. I have never been too concerned with having devices that are as small as possible, but for users that are, it might be too bulky. After all, this is intended as a multiple media player and therefore was designed to have a screen that is a reasonable size to watch video. It is probably too bulky for a pocket. Also, I don't think it has a "button-lock" to prevent unwanted button or screen pressing when in a pocket or purse.
Some other nice features and characteristics are that if you pause a song or video, it will remember where you left off when you resume. Also, the unit powers on and off quickly. I haven't figured out yet what makes it decide, but sometimes it will go into standby (like Windows Hibernate and sometimes it will "shut down". When powering up after a full shutdown, it is still ready to go pretty quickly. You can also adjust the length of inactivity before it automatically shuts down as well as how long the screen stays lit before going black. These features are good battery-savers.
Anyway, the Archos name helped me lean towards this player and away from another "no-name" player that was a little more versatile (user-swappable hard-drive). The fact that this player has a touch-screen was probably the clincher for me. This player does everything I could imagine that I will need and even more. I may use the internet functions on it but I haven't decided. My main focus, as I mentioned was a music player, but this unit also plays video (MPG and WMV), flash animations, reads PDFs, and allows the purchase/download of games and other applications. I doubt I will purchase games or applications though. This unit plays MP3, WAV and Windows Media files, and may play other types but I really don't use any others. My music is all in MP3 format. I tried loading Flash Videos (FLV) onto it but it didn't recognize them.
Content can be loaded onto the unit either by "syncing" with WMP or by simply dragging and dropping the files from your PC into the proper Archos folders in Windows Explorer. I mainly use the sync method with WMP and it goes pretty smoothly as long as your MP3 ID3 tags are clean. Like many other music players, the ID3 tags are what WMP and the Archos use to arrange your music into artist and album folders.
Tech tip: The area where issues are most likely to frustrate the user is with those folders or albums that contain various artists and songs. I have a huge folder on my PC of miscellaneous songs by various artists and I had to arrange the ID3 tags in order to maintain that folder on the Archos. I use a small program called "Taggin' MP3" to rename all of the artist info for those songs to "Various" and the album info to "Assorted". This way they will all be in the same folder. Otherwise, each song would be in its own album sub-folder and that sub-folder would be in its own artist folder. If there is no artist or album info in the ID3 tag, it will label it "Unknown Artist" or "Unknown Album". The problem with this is it could be any number of artists whose songs are in that folder.
Another tech tip is if you notice a song with incorrect ID3 tag info, you have to first delete it from your WMP library and sync list, rewrite the tag, and then add it back into your sync list. It took several frustrating and unsuccessul attempts to update song info for me to discover this.
Navigating the menus is very easy. Upon starting, the main menu comes up and you are only a few clicks away from whatever you want the Archos 5 to do. The touch screen works very well at sensing clicks, accuracy, and scrolling. For long lists, you can even click on the scroll bars to scroll very quickly. The only complaint, and it is very minor to me, is that in some menus like the main music menu for example, you have to click your choice twice. So if you want to select music by artist, you have to click the "Artist" button which highlights it, then click it again to actually open it. Like I said, this is very mnor and is not much of an inconvenience once you get used to it. In addition to touch-screen control, the volume can be controlled with physical buttons that are on the side of the unit. This is a nice convenience for me since I have a protective carrying case that covers the screen but allows access to all of the buttons, speakers, ports, etc.
The screen can be adjusted for contrast, brightness, etc. The display is very colorful and bright. The type/font is clear and easy to read. As with most small displays of this type, you have to view the screen from a fairly straight angle or else you get that color fade and images that look like negatives. Videos I have watched on it are very clear and action sequences are pretty clear. There are very convenient time counters and a progress bar so you can quickly search forward and back within a video/movie. While playing any type of media, you can click in the upper-right corner and select "Info" to get technical info on the media file. For example, it will tell you the file size and type, bitrate, sampling rate, duration and resolution (video).
The sound quality is really good. With the built-in speakers it is OK, about what you would expect from tiny laptop speakers. Running the audio out to a stereo gives you the rich audio quality you would expect from a high-quality audio device.
I also bought the Mini-Dock with the unit. This is a small docking station that allows for fast charging (charging is very slow via USB hookup to your PC) and lets you hook up to a TV or other video source. The dock essentially turns the Archos into a digital video player. The picture quality when viewing on a TV is good. It will depend of course, on the quality of the videos themselves.
Battery life seems to be good. I have not traveled with it yet or used it for extended periods, only for shorter periods and with many power on/off cycles when testing, loading it up, etc. the unit is a little bulky and heavy but it feels like its built solid. I have never been too concerned with having devices that are as small as possible, but for users that are, it might be too bulky. After all, this is intended as a multiple media player and therefore was designed to have a screen that is a reasonable size to watch video. It is probably too bulky for a pocket. Also, I don't think it has a "button-lock" to prevent unwanted button or screen pressing when in a pocket or purse.
Some other nice features and characteristics are that if you pause a song or video, it will remember where you left off when you resume. Also, the unit powers on and off quickly. I haven't figured out yet what makes it decide, but sometimes it will go into standby (like Windows Hibernate and sometimes it will "shut down". When powering up after a full shutdown, it is still ready to go pretty quickly. You can also adjust the length of inactivity before it automatically shuts down as well as how long the screen stays lit before going black. These features are good battery-savers.
