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November 7, 2008

Archos 5 review

Product Code: 501122

The Archos 5 touchscreen media player offers spectacular video and music playback to go along with its elegant design. It also has a multitude of available accessories and features - although you will have to pay extra to get them.

At 127.5x78.3x12.9mm, the 5 is basically the same size as its predecessor, the Archos 605 WiFi. In this iteration, however, Archos has added a generous half-inch of screen - its size is now 4.8in, so it takes up almost all of the device's faceplate.

See also: Archos TV+ review

Except for a power button and a volume rocker, the Archos 5 is controlled nearly entirely by the touchscreen. A chrome casing and a glossy screen give the player a slick look, but the entire device is easily blemished by fingerprints and dust.

The Archos 5 is a bit awkward to hold because the headphone jack is on the side, jabbing into the palm of your hand. There's space for a jack at the top and bottom of the player, so this design flaw could easily have been avoided. Luckily, Archos includes a handy tabletop kickstand with the player for hands-free viewing. The Archos also has a small but powerful built-in speaker on the opposite side of the jack.

The touchscreen is responsive for the most part, but it was difficult to flick through the media library. Scrolling wasn't always smooth; we found ourselves flicking repeatedly to get a response. This proved frustrating when we were trying to navigate through a large music collection. Music is displayed like a typical file browser with a window showing album art and information about the selected item.

The Archos 5's menu system is easy enough to navigate, but it includes unnecessary menu options for the various accessories you can buy for the player. For example, the second main menu option is for recording and scheduling TV programs via the Archos 5's DVR station, which is an added extra. Another menu option is for add-ons, which are basically advertisements for more accessories: GPS, Remote FM, a 3G + Modem, and more.

We wish Archos allowed you to customise the main menu to declutter some of these unused options, or only make those options active when the accessories are connected.

Out of the box, the Archos 5 supports AVI, WMV, MPEG4, and Flash video. An extra $20 adds support for h.264, a standard for high-definition video compression. And for another $20, you can buy a high-definition software plug-in to allow 720p playback from WMV HD, MPEG4, or MPEG-2 files.

Video looks great on the Archos 5's big, glossy screen, but we did get a bit of glare in certain environments, such as bright indoor lighting and outdoor daylight. The 800-by-600 resolution is bright and clear, and colors look accurate. Video plays back smoothly with little evidence of ghosting or interference.

The Archos 5 music player supports MP3, WMA (including DRM-protected files), and WAV files. AAC support is available if you purchase another plug-in. The music player displays thumbnail album art during playback, lets you sort your library by ID3 tags, and allows you to bookmark long audio tracks, such as podcasts and audiobooks. You can tweak audio quality to your liking using the 5-band graphic equalizer. Also, you can easily create and manage playlists directly on the device - something we found very useful.

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Independent customer reviews from

Archos 5 scored:
9.0 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 10 reviews:

06 Dec 2008 Chris, Enfield

9

Good Points

The hard drive feature which turns Archos device into a harddrive when connected by USB allows varied files such as AVI or JPG to be instantly dragged unto the device from PC to Archos folders is infintely superior then other devices like my ipod touch which requires file conversion with all files. If you register the product on their website the free codec given is sufficient to view most video files which I bought the Archos for. I also have divxauthor which allows me to convert all the other video files which are not immediately viewable to mpeg4 which the archos can play already without additional codecs or fees. The touch screen is not bad either and does not get smudged easily.

Bad Points

The sound quality is quite good but I dont think it's the archos' strong point. Beware of the video default settings they do not flatter the device, it looked frankly poor but once adjusted it was as good the Ipod touch, in fact its excellent. Lastly alot of the features the archos has are not fully explained with the instructions. At first the videos I used were blown to big for the screen, it was a couple of days using the device I found the icon on the touch screen which changed the video screen size.

01 Dec 2008 Anonymous verified purchaser

9

Good Points

Looks amazing, superb screen quality and great storage size for the money. The range of features is superb and if you buy some accessories it can be your portable music player/video player and can attach to you TV in HD quality allowing you to watch downloaded video content on the big screen

Bad Points

Plug ins are extra as is the charging dock which makes charging massively quicker than with the supplied usb

See more Archos 5 reviews on Reevoo.com

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  • www.archos.com
  • 0870 609 1263
  • Archos
  • £219.88 inc VAT
  • £320 inc VAT for 120GB; £360 inc VAT for 250GB

Click here to buy now

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