Archos 604 WiFi (30 GB) Digital Media Player

Ok. Where to start? How about with this; Go see my other reviews about the , Archos Jukebox Recorder 20GB,Archos AV500 and Archos 504 160GB Model to get a feel on how I review technology advances from this outstanding French company Archos Technology.

Pros: WiFi, Touch Screen, Records TV shows,Plays DVD's and h.264 codec, USB Recharing instead of conventaional Power Cord
Cons: WiFi is slow, Only 30GB's, No Kickstand on back, Processor is slow, Slightly thicker than any of the other 4 Series due to the addition of WiFi, Battery life sucks, have to buy acceriores that used to come stock with the AV Series to save money (Bullet Cam, Docking Station, Power Cord)

Start breaking this down for ya. With all the good that this comes with, the bad is almost as equal. Archos packed this with all the right stuff, but still fell short on their delivery, mostly because had they done a better job, the price for this would be about twice as much.

Price - Pro
This is not that pricy, which is a good thing and somewhat of a bad. It doesn't come with alot of stuff,so the price is somwhat low compared to the 504 160GB's retail $599.99, this 604 30GB WiFi will run you $449.99 if bought from Archos OR you can try eBay and get it for less than $400.00.

Battery - Con
Archos has made leaps and bounds in advances in this department, but still falls short. Nothing has changed between any of the 4 Series (404,504,604) Battey life sucks. Videos can play about 8 hours before recharge and Music can play about a whole day. *Note* Turning the screen brightness in the settings to 1 or 2 will extend battery life and still have a bright enough to see what your doing.

Playback - Pro and Con
Archos finally did a good thing and threw downloads of $20.00 each you can play .VOB files and files that use h.264 (MKV and OGM) That means Dual Audio files and the ability to play DVD files, as well as AC3 and OGG audio.
Still a bad part is the limited Video playback formats it has (AVI,WMP,WAV) That means NO Quicktime files, NO Loseless audio, Limited MPEG Video codecs and you can't simply download the codecs, you have to reformat the videos to the useable formats already playable, Archos needs advancement in this secetion.

Wifi and Touch Screen - Pro and Con
1200 more characters left and counting, gotta wrap this up.
Wifi...awesome, I can now be on the net, anywhere, anytime...Cool....wait if only the pages didn't load up so slowly, and oh what's this, I can't load Flash pages either like YouTube or Myspace? WTF? Whats the use of having WiFi with so many restrictions? Plus, you need a place with a strong singal to stay connected. Plus, you are on the Internet, and the device is a hard drive.... put those two together, Hard Drive + Internet= Viruses and you don't have Norton or McAfee's to save your behind if you get that nice Trojan or Worm

The touch screen, awesome. Archos you did a great job, the 1st on the market with this, other than say Blackberry or a conventaional Palm Pilot. 1st to have WiFi. Apple, Microsoft,Creative Vision, all of the competion are behind in this field and are playing catch up. Now all Archos needs to do is stay on top and a step forward of the group.
**BEWARE**
http://www.archos.com/pro​ducts/video/archos_604wifi/tec​h_specs.html?country=global&am​p;lang=en

Archos's Tech Specs
Note on the bottom about the limited Recharging cycle and filesizes thigns have to be at in order to get the quoted amount of files stated above @ the top

Pros: Amazing video quality, Easy avi.(Divx) drag and drop, battery last about the equivalent of 4 full movies, great sound, easy folder navigation without having to use ID3(or similar) tagging, easy wireless navigation that can view some interenet videos, great features not found in other Audio/Video players(ex. Zune, Ipod, Creative Vision M/W), touch screen, constant firmware upgrades.

Cons: No FM radio, battery should last longer.

Summary: Overall a great mp3 player with great features and internet capable. The reason I purchased it is because I have about 7000 music files in my computer that are from older CDs that are not MP3 id3 tagged and I cannot navigate easily by these new MP3 player like Zune, Creative, Sony, Ipod, because of navigation only by Artist, Album, Genre, etc. Only thru navigation of folders will these show correctly and allow me to find them easily. Watching downloaded or DVD movies will be very easy and highly enjoying when away from home. Excellent Overall.

All in one entertainment system in a nice looking unit. Good for travel. Average battery life - 5 hours for video. Spotty wifi connection for internet access - don't buy this unit if internet access is critical. Screen not as bright or clear as some other manufacturers but adequate. If you want brighter screen, go with 604 without wifi. Good music playback but the use of controls at right is not intutive nor easy, especially in the dark. The biggest draw is that you get a nice screen size for a very good price. It's a decent unit that doesn't excel in any one thing but is adequate in all (except for the wifi). If you can get it for under $100 it's a good value. I was able to get everything, including the docking station for below $100.

I debated what rating was best to leave for this device and decided that the unit deserves a rating that is higher than where my feelings are. This is because I purchased this unit because it said that it was WiFi. It turns out that it is not! There are two models, one with and one without. This one was advertised as with. That disappoints me beyond all imagination.

I like almost everything else about the unit, the sound is a little weak on the external speaker but it is absolutely great on stereo headphones. The picture quality is great and it is easy to transfer movies to it. I would like a little more control over the sequence that the files get stored on the unit but with the use of folders I can work around that. It would be nice if it had a larger disk but it does support having an external disk when connected to the DVR station. The case that comes with it is a little difficult to get the unit in and out of and covers several of the connectors, but is very adequate for protection. I will get another case but I think it may be a good idea to have one for the unit and one that is larger so that all the accessories can be transported, including the 604 in its case.

This unit does not have a touch screen and is a little cumbersome when compared to an iPod but is definitely equal to the performance, and you get a larger display screen.

Lists everything in categories on it's own, in it's own way. Should give the option of viewing in the order I had been filing my mp3's for years. Makes it hard to find songs because it won't let you view in alphabetical order. Example, for years I've cataloged my mp3's in artist - song order, as in Beatles - Hey Jude, but when I loaded my mp3's into the Archos it listed them however it chose and changed things around. My opinion, it's a simple player and shouldn't have been designed with all the useless functions to try and hide that fact, when in fact all I wanted was a simple player, I'm more than capable of doing my own categorizing. Wouldn't buy another one.