Customer Reviews

Archos 404 30GB Portable Digital Media Player (500868)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is my perfect portable media player. Great price. Big screen. Fits in your pocket. If you're too cool for an ipod, or run Linux, this player is for you. ;)

Great for Mac, Windows, and Linux because it support standard USB mass storage. Just drag and drop files onto it, no drivers necessary. You can browse MP3s by artist, year, genre, etc. You can also browse MP3s by file name and folder.

MP3s sound great, with seamless/gapless track changing. The bookmark feature is really nice for keeping your place in audio books or long DJ mixes.

The video playback is perfect with all my Dixv and Xvid MPEG4 movies without having to re-encode them. DVD converter software tips: HandBrake for Mac. dvd::rip for Linux. AutoGK for Windows. Happy viewing!

Overall it is great. Size, features, except the screen. The size is not the issue, but rather the resolution. At 320x24o it is just too low for this size screen. Also the viewing angles are bad, tilt it up 20 degrees and it looks too dark. The brightness of screen is better than the 604 and less than the 604 wifi(i bought them all to compare and kept the 604 wifi). The colors are also too saturated (unnatural). Overall, put a better screen on this, and i would pay 50% more. Are you listening archos?

This Device Had a lot of feature That I didnot know about it before, After that I loved it.
For the Video, you can just drag and drop your file without compression needed of software. It plays all my DIVX movies, moreover, I can take them back without any need of any Software. just like external H.D.

Screen is vary good, bult-in speeker is not that bad but the sound volume was not as I expected!!!

The things I dont liked about this device is battery recharging witch took a lot of time, mey be bucause I am using the USB cable olny without any docking station.

Overall I recommed This device.

i bought this after purchasing both an ipod and a toshiba gigabeat and then returning both.
the ipod was kinda cute and it was really, really easy to use. but it was extremely limited and for the money, why buy something that had so many limitations. if you want to be a slave to itunes and want to purchase a seperate digital recorder, then an ipod is a great choice. of course, you can also purchase lots of associated goodies to make your ipod look even cuter, but it is not going to change the basic facts about the limitations of the product. but then, i think the simplicity of buying an ipod is one of the main selling points of the product.
bought the toshiba and it is a very nice product. however, i did not receive some of the items - like a docking cradle - that i expected to receive with the purchase and i sent it back. when i got it, i also began to read lots of reader comments about crashes and failures with the product and i do not want any part of that. if i spend hours loading up my player with music, i do not want to have to go back every month or few weeks and do it again because my player crashes. where there is smoke there is fire, and if lots of people are reporting the same problems with a product, you can bet there is a fundamental problem with that product. i've learned the hard way, having bought stuff - from other mp3 players to cars - knowing full well of the reported problems, only to ignore them because i simply liked the product, its design and how it functioned. but if a noticable percentage of consumers are reporting similar problems with a product, the odds are pretty strong that you might have to deal with the same issues, if you get that product. now you might get lucky and not get one of the problem products, but i would rather not take that chance. spending money to send a product back to the manufacturer gets expensive and horribly frustrating. the gigabeat seems like a nice little product, but they'll have to shore up their quality control before i invest in one of their units.
the archos is just a fine solid piece of equipment. i've only had it for a week now, and i've not done much with the video, but it has performed flawlessly so far and it will be an incredible little gadget once i get the accessory that will allow me to do lots of other things, like record from the television. i'm a basketball and hockey fan and i'll load up the player with games and watch them during down time at the office. that is something that none of the other players in the class - the ipod, the gigabeat, the creative - can do.
the video is good, definitely better than an ipods visuals. the screen is appreciably larger.
the sound on the archos is about an 8 on a scale of ten. very good, but not quite as good as creative's. i've tested the zen vision m and i have a small muvo and i think that creative just knows how to do sound better on these small players. one added little touch is a small - though very tinny - speaker that allows you to listen without plugging in your earbuds. i find that it is a very convient thing to be able to listen without earbuds every once in a while. plus you can share it with another person.
the earbuds are good, though not great. i've tested them against several pairs of sony headphones and earbuds and they definitely are better than all of the ones i tested them against. my one pair of creative buds, from a relatively cheap muvo are better. but the archos buds have a volume control on them, which is nice.
its a nice size also. about the same basic size of an ipod, though it feels much more solid and substantial. it just feels like it would survive much more abuse than an ipod would. not that i would intentionally abuse it, but this is an item that i'll end up tossing in my briefcase and it will, as a result, get knocked around a bit. it definitely feels as though it will handle the knocks and pings.
i also love the fact that you can actually control the machine with buttons on the player. while the ipod's scrollwheel is cute, i wonder how durable it has been. while it appears simple in some ways, i just felt that it was the kind of mechanism that might break down or have problems somewhere down the line. the archos uses buttons that feel rock solid.
the one thing i really do not like about the archos is that you have to pony up for another 100 bucks to really use the machine the way it can be used. in order to record and do lots of other things with the player you have to get the tv docking station - $100 - or one of the cheaper docking stations that run from about $25 to $75. i'll buy the $100 station because it is most versatile, but it is kind of a drag to have to pay that much extra to completely enjoy the benefits of the toy.
also, the screen, though smaller than others in the archos line, is plenty big for me. the smaller screen also makes the unit much more pocketable.
it also doesn't have a removable battery, though i imagine that by the time the battery's integrity becomes an issue, i'll buy another one of these toys with even more little features.
if you're looking at this type of unit, you cannot go wrong with this unit. it is just a better product than the other products in the same class.

if it had a small, limited docking cradle it would merit a 5, but the barebones package knocks down the rating just a wee bit.

This is a great Multi-Media player. Huge screen for such a portable size. Easy to use. Decent sized hard drive lets me store all the music, video, as well as store a lot of work-related data. Can also read pdf's though this feature slow as each page loads seperatly. Also with accessories can record and playback to your tv. Very nice. The player is recognized as a hard drive so you can just drag and drop files in windows explorer. In other words you don't have to install fascist software that takes over all the media on your PC and controls what you do with it.

As has been said the internal speaker is terrible, but headphones or portalble speakers fix that. Also, to play .mov and a few other formats requires you to pay more for plugins. You should not have to pay more for your media player to play media!

Overall it is very good.

I bought this player in a good deal on e-bay and have been using it for about 5 months now.

The size of the player is just enough to slide it into the shirt pocket. The screen in this player is big enough. Double the size of an iPod. The resolution is a bit low for such a big screen. It looks pixalated when watching the player very close to the eyes. But does not matter, the picture is clearer when at a distance. The interface and the two way buttons on the right are easy to use.

It has got a tiny speaker. The sound from this speaker is not loud enough but is good to hear in a silent room. The headphone provided with this unit is of very low quality. I'm using a Sony MDR-EX51LP headphone which sounds great. The equalizer in this unit is not very effective. It does not produce a sound that of a Creative, but the bass in this unit is good.

The unit is capable of playing only a few formats of video out from factory. Incase you want other video compatiblity, the plug-ins need to be purchased seperately and installed on the player. I have installed both the Podcast and Movie plug-ins in my unit. Even then the player does not support some video formats like older versions of WMV like verion 8 and below. It only supports WMV 9. This I feel is a major drawback since most of the videos I download form the internet is of WMV8 format and it is not supported by the player even with the plug-ins installed.

The unit comes with a USB cable to connect to the PC. The connector on the player side is a propretory connector. Other universal USB cables could not be used with the player. But, with the DVR Docking Station universal USB cable could be used.

One of the excellent feature of the player is its cabability to record video from any source and playback video. The DVR Docking Station (to be purchased seperately) is required inorder to make use of this feature. With the docking station, I'm able to record video from TV and charge the unit at the same time. It is also useful to playback the recorded video in TV through the video/audio out in the docking station. I'm not sure if the travel adapter could be used to record video from TV. But the DVR Docking Station does it all and it also comes with a remote control to operate the player. This unit also records sound through a tiny inbuilt microphone. The sound quality of the recorded audio is good.

The player comes with a leather sliding case which is decent. But you will need to take the player out of the case to watch video and adjust controls. The case does not have a window to expose the screen or the buttons on the player.

And also when I try to play a MOV video file from a DVD, there is no option to change the language. It just plays the audio in some language which is not default to the region of the DVD.

Overall this player is good for its video recording and playback capabilities. This is something that the iPods, Creative Zens and Others cannot do. Highly recommended if you are looking for this feature in a multimedia player.

This thing is worth every little penny it costs. The menu/navigation are fine - it is not flashy but it works. The buttons a day to get used top as they have dual functions. For example, if you push one button to the left, it does one thing, the same button to the right, another. It is cool.

Alot of people complain about having to buy the DVR Docking Station in order to record. Again, who cares. You can record from your TV - for free. NO TIVO subscription or whatever your local cable company offers.

The only downside is that I wish there were a better way to set up the recording schedule. It used to work with some function of MyYahoo TV or something but it does not support that any longer. You have to do it manually. But like I said before, who really cares?

The case it comes with sucks - you need to buy a different one. I have yet to find one that is too my liking. I also hear that Archos customer support sucks - luckily I have not had to deal with them yet.

I am aware that there a few version of this that are bigger (the 604 and 704 I believe), but I cannot see myself going any bigger with this before it becomes cumbersome to carry.
Also, it took me a minute to figure out how the docking station controls your cable or satellite box when it comes time to change the channels. But once you get it, you are set.

I have had this for 2-3 months and I just love it. I makes my one hour commute to work even more bearable.

As far as buying it without the docking station, I don't know. I probably would not do it.

I love my new toy! I bought it to replace a big clunky DVD player. I'm on-call at my job, so I sometimes have 20 minutes of downtime, and this little thing fills the void. I bought the docking station to record tv shows and movies, and I love the fact that even when you shut it off, it saves your place in the movie-all you do is turn it on and click "resume". The video is really beautiful, very colorful. The sound quality is good, however, the volume is a little low. I don't need headphones unless I'm in a room with people talking. I travel overseas a lot and have several hundred great photos on it, too, which is easier to carry and show than photo albums. Now my husband wants a toy for traveling so I'll probably give him mine and buy the 604 wifi...so I'll more to play with!

The player is small and since it's ultra portable for its size, it's easy to carry around. The added personal wallpapers fits perfectly while managing files and browsing through a list of songs. Movies played showed a very smooth flow of frames, thus flawless playback with great clarity. Playlists on the go is also manageable when you want to line up your favorite songs. Sound is great as well. Excellent player!!

I really love the Archos 404. It's size is great. The screen may be smaller than the 504 and 604/604 wifi, but it is still great. You have many options to change how you view videos, like volume and video quality. The volume is an issue. Without headphones most videos or music are not loud enough. But with headphones they sound fine. Recording shows with the DVR recoding dock is easy, setting it up is a little harder. There is a voice recorder too for recording notes. The device comes preloaded with music, a couple video's, and some photo's. They are all easy to delete on the player or on your computer.

It is also easy to download videos from Youtube using programs found on the web. The case that comes with it is good. You cannot put the 404 in the case and use the controls, but for protection, the case is a great one to start with. It's better than the sleeve that others reported these Archos players first came with when they were first released. The price is awesome for what this thing can do, especially if you want a great music, video, and photo viewer on the go.