Archos 605 WiFi Review

The Archos 605 Portable Video Player has been around for quite some time now but continues to attract buyers. It is a strong contender to the iPod Touch and largely due to its large 4.3″ screen. It has a touch screen, WiFi, high resolution and is Mac compatible too. Overall Archos 605 is a good package that will entice any buyer.

Archos 605 specifications :

• Dimensions : 4.8″ x 0.6″ x 3.2″
• Weight :  6.7 oz
• Display : 4.3″ TFT touchscreen
• HDD capacity : 30GB
• Audio formats supported : MP3, WAV, WMA etc.
• Movie format supported : WMV, MPEG-4, Protected WMV
• Image formats supported : BMP, PNG, JPEG
• Battery : Li-ion rechargeable
• Battery Life : 17 hours(music), 5 hours(video)
• Approx. price:  $300

Archos has excellent design and user interface clubbed into one device much like Apple. The dimensions of the device are just fine keeping in mind the 4.3″ display it supports. The thickness of the device is just over half an inch which makes it easy in the pockets too. The Archos 605 also has a stand that flips open from the back when needed. The device is made up of metal which tends to get scratched with rough use.

The 4.3″ display on the device has excellent resolution of 800 x 480 which produces crisp and clear pictures. The screen is apt for viewing pictures and videos even in broad daylight. The screen is also resistant to fingerprints, which the iPod touch screen fails at. The device also has an inbuilt speaker for casual hearing, don’t depend too much on it in noisy environments.

Archos has a lot of add-ons that you can purchase separately for the device. Although this is an advantage but Archos has used it to its effect by making some format plugins paid too. For $30 you can add browser functionality to the portable video player which uses inbuilt WiFi to connect to the Internet. The Opera browser is Flash enabled and one of the best browser solutions for portable devices. Some of the other useful plugins that you can buy separately include high definition video playback, Internet radio etc.

The player supports a wide variety of formats for audio, video and even images. It even has an inbuilt PDF Viewer, hence adding support for PDF format too. It also has a feature called Content Portal which is basically a content grab service to let you access content provided by providers such as Youtube, Cinema Now, BurnLounge etc. If you do not purchase the Opera browser, this does come in very handy.

You can add support for more file formats by paying extra, not a nice strategy to be adopted. The player has inbuilt support for major formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV. AAC format is not supported but it included in the addon plugins list. Music is sorted on the device by ID3 tags, so make sure you have them in place and complete to be able to enjoy the experience in its full glory. Album Artwork is displayed for the selected music track if its embedded in the tag.

The video player on the device does justice to the awesome video playback, thanks to the great display. MPEG-4, AVI and WMV formats enjoy inbuilt support and should be sufficient for major part of your video collection. However if you own high definition content, then you will have to shell out extra for the high definition plugin pack to be able to view it on the device. You can do a lot of things while the movie is playing such as bookmarking it, resizing it or skipping through portions of it.

The DVR Station accessory deserves special mention as it transforms your portable video player into a digital video recorder. The DVR Station is priced at $99 which we believe is a bit steep. The DVR Sation is basically a dock for the Archos 605 player to unlock its ability as a digital video recorder. You also need to connect your television which becomes the primary output device rather than the small 4.3″ screen of the player. The dock comes with a remote control for you to control the player from a distance. So it can also become your home entertainment system but at a price.

The performance of the player is amazing to say the least. The video playback is exceptional due to the high resolution screen. It beats every other player out there at video playback. The audio playback is great too and the player has various settings to tinker around with. The five band equalizer and independent Bass Boost control are just a couple of settings in the player. WiFi transfer of files is possible and it also has the ability to be connected in both MSC and MTP modes which allow you to use Windows Media Player to transfer files to the player. Normal USB mode is supported too which allows you to use it as a mass storage device. The battery life is good enough at 17 hours for music and 5 hours for video. The addons add a whole lot of new functionality to the player and there is even a battery back to extend the battery life of the player. DVR accessory is just amazing but comes at a price.

Pros :

• Huge screen
• Good design
• Excellent video playback
• Great music quality
• WiFi file transfer
• DVR addon

Cons :

• Bit bulky
• Additional file formats need to be purchased
• Expensive accessories

Final Thoughts

The Archos 605 is a great portable video player. The huge screen with high resolution is ideal for viewing videos on it. The great music quality and WiFi file transfers add to the goodness of the player. Both the audio and video player have various settings that you can play around with. If you are ready to shell out a few bucks extra then you can add Internet capability to the device by purchasing the browser and some of the other addons. DVR addon is the ultimate accessory for this device and we can’t just stop talking about it. The bulkiness and paid additional file formats are some of its cons. Still a very good buy at the current market price.

Rating : 4/5