Customer Reviews

Archos 504 40GB Portable Digital Media Player and Recorder (500869)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I am now the proud owner of an Archos 404, after spending one traumatic month having owned, in my opinion, the far inferior Archos 504.

Inferior, you say? But the 504 has a larger 4.3" screen, better battery life, a removable battery, and much larger Hard drive capacities (even for the 40 GB). How then, can I say that it is a far inferior product? Well, primarily because the Archos 404 actually works, while the 504 (much to my dismay) does not.

You see, beneath that beautiful metallic exterior and beautiful screen of the Archos 504 lies a niggling problem that Archos doesnt want you to know about, especially if you live in a hot and dry location. This product is extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY, sensitive to Electro Static Discharge (ESD), and hangs almost instantaneously if you expose it to even the slightest amount of static. Using this player had become an absolute nightmare for me. Whenever I was listening to music, and would for example want to see which track is playing or skip to the next track etc., I would simply touch the player (whether in its case or outside), and not even press a button, and it would hang instantly. Soon after, I actually used to become nervous every time I needed to touch the player, and soon developed a habit of beforehand touching a metallic object (eg. doorknob) every time I needed to use the player. Needless to say, when one has to do such things just to touch a device, it kind of ruins the experience of owning that device. The 404 suffers from none of these problems, I have been using it for over a month now, and it has not even frozen once.

Having said that however, I still give this product two stars instead of just one, because a) the video playback is very good (much better than the 404, and not only because of the larger screen), b) the battery life is decent, and the battery is removable and c) it offers capacities larger than most other video players available today.

As for the sound, anyone interested in an Archos 04 series product should know that the volume on these players is significantly lower than the others, even with the latest firmware 1.6.20. I have made a direct comparison using the same pair of headphones with the 5G iPod, iPod Nano, Cowon A2, Cowon X5, and Creative Zen Vision M, either owned by me or by friends, and they are all louder than the Archos. Better, I cannot say, as that is subjective, but certainly and verifiably much louder.

The Archos 504 is everything I hoped it would be. It is necessary to order the adapter kit to tape TV shows, but the ease of use and picture quality is great. The sound is good, but could be a little louder.

Decent Value for what you get. Glad I didnt shell out the 300-400 bucks for it when it first came out. Yes, as other reviewers mentioned, to get all of the functionality that is advertised, you'll have to shell out more money. Also, as mentioned by other reviewers, the case that comes with this unit isnt adequate. The design is poor and wont protect the unit if you drop it.

This unit is best used if completely stationary. It freezes when moving, so not great for MP3's when on the move (walking at a fast pace). Obviously, because of its size and weight, AND propensity to freeze, not good for jogging.

Yes, there might be a static issue that some people have claimed causes the unit to shut down- I haven't experienced this. But another reason the unit freezes is that you are carrying around a laptop-hard drive (you can see it when you remove the battery).

These drives are designed to stop working when too much movement occurs. This is done to make sure that your hard-drive doesnt crash and you lose all of your information. If you know anything about hard drives, you know that this was a big problem with early hard-drive designs.

Not sure why they didnt just design these with solid state memory (the kind you see in most mp3 players- maybe cost related). At any rate, just be prepared to remove the battery and snap it back in, if the unit freezes.

The only other issue I've experienced is the unit freezing when I was recording a presentation(obviously the unit was stationary). It froze sometime during the recording. When I reset the unit, the data from the recording was corrupted and therefore lost. Yes, not pleased to learn this the hard way!

BUT, it does well to serve as a great portable media unit to use when in a car, on a plane, or to switch info back and forth from your PC to have on the go. Also, if you get the travel DVR unit and the additional cable to play on your tv, you can both record dvd's, tv programs, AND play stuff on your TV (but again have to shell out additional money). You'll also have to invest more if you want the proper codecs that let you play additional formats. BUT I'm cool with just having .AVI and MP3's for now.

In re to powering this thing up: Not a big deal plugging into my laptop at home or work. It powers up just fine. Not sure how well the "very hard to get ac adater cable" is, but you'll be fine without it. I think you can get a 3rd party one for around 20 bucks, but again you don't really need it in my opinion.

The sound from the speakers aren't great, but most portable units dont have great sound- that is if they even have external speakers at all. Make sure to get your own set of headphones, dont use the ones that come with the unit. The sound that is played from my personal headphones is adequate. Not supurb, but not terrible.

Also, you can buy an additional battery for the unit, which is nice. I havent had to need a replacement, as you would only really need this for really long trips.

Overall, not a bad price for what it does. Definitely some flaws. I would not purchase any of the more expensive models until I was sure these flaws were addressed.

You can get this unit from Walmart with the mini-dvr adapter for the same price you see here. If you want the most from this unit however, for another 80 bucks, you can get the full-sized DVR unit. But, it's not really all that travel friendly. Think I covered everything. Hope this review is helpful!

Beware! Despite the high cost of Archos PMPs, there is virtually no technical and after-sales support in the United States. Calls to the Archos US service center, which they claim is always open, go unanswered for hours and hours. This callous behavior and contempt for customers is begging for a class action lawsuit from Archos US customers.

How can they honor their warranty if they cannot be contacted?

Getting an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) number from their US offices located in Colorado is a nightmare. I got one email from them to provide additional information; I did and they never responded. Their RMA site is buggy and would not give accurate information.

Their players are good, but pray that you don't have an after sale issue - then you are on your own.

The first one that I received did not work out of the box. It would not even accept a firmware upgrade. The second unit required 3 phone calls to technical support and 2 hours to get it to accept a firmware upgrade. After it would finally accept new music, there was a staticky hiss so loud that it drowned out the music on low volumes. The third unit accepted the firmware upgrade immediately so I was hopeful. It also had the hiss that was so loud I couldn't listen to music on it. I'm giving up and will now try another brand.

My wife and I started using a portable DVD player to go out to dinner, but between battery issues and disk storage (we would have to buy duplicates of my daughters favorite DVD's). My daughter is 3 going on 4 this Dec. I'm able to record her favorite shows that are not on disk yet, THAT is the best feature of all. I am not using the device for commercial use...just to keep a little red head quiet while my wife and I enjoy some time together over dinner. The compatibility is also wonderful. My wife is able to place the player in her purse or I can place it on my belt; try doing that with a DVD player! The battery life is able to last through four dinners, two to three hours each. My wife is now using it in Missouri on a family trip and the other family members want to know where we got it; which is a common question out during dinner from other restaurant patrons. My wife was not crazy on the price, when you can buy a DVD player for less than $200, but I have shown her the light in compatibility, picture quality and ability to load shows not out yet on video. All and all; I give this product a 10/10!

Unbelievably happy with this product. Far far superior to vidio ipods. Larger, better screen for viewing. Biggest advantage is that it will play most media file types (avi, mov, mpeg), unlike the ipod where you have to convert any of these files to an mp-4 before it will even play. Easy to use and can double easily as an external/portable hard drive to transfer files. The 5 1/2 hour battery life for vidio play is accurate.
Buy and Archos......You'll love it!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just bought a refurbished 504 and love it. I was looking for more of a video player than music (I have a little ipod shuffle for that) and this fits the bill. Very easy to use, screen is fantastic, sound is good. I also bought the DVR station and recording off the t.v. is simple.

Ever since Walter Mossberg wrote a favorable review of an Archos PMP several years ago in the Wall Street Journal I have been interested in buying one of these players. I lucked out and bought a used one from a local fellow who owned three Archos PMPs, his model 504 being the oldest, which was why he was selling it. He obligingly powered it up and played samples of music and video and I was satisfied.

I use it to enjoy music and videos when I travel and also to record live performances of my wife's concert band, and also our neighborhood "garage band". I use the built in mic and the 504 allows me to record either in WAV or MP3 at my choice of sampling rates. I use 44Kbhtz/sec and I get very nice quality recordings. I download them to my laptop and edit the recordings there.

There are several ways to browse and select MP3 songs to play and I like the quality with the Archos ear buds which have a convenient volume control on the wire.

When my wife and I travel by plane, I will sometimes watch a favorite film on my 504. The screen has big, sharp and vibrant color and I can usually hear the audio above the sound of the jet engines...but the sound could stand to be about 10db louder.

Knowing it contains a delicate hard drive drive, I treat my 504 carefully and only once did it freeze up. The green indicator light told me the unit was on, but the screen was black and blank. A quick search on Google turned up the undocumented location of the reset button on the motherboard under the battery. I held down the little button for 30 seconds, and my 504 was restored to normal full operating condition.

Although I was tempted to replace the 40GB drive with a bigger one, I have decided to wait. I located an on line forum which outlined how to change hard drives, but it seemed slightly risky to me, so I will wait until the present 40GB drive fails and then, with nothing to lose, I will try to install a new bigger drive. The 40GB of storage space does, however, seem adequate to me. I have many feature movies and many albums of MP3 music stored on the 40GB drive with room to spare. I delete older files and just add new ones when I tire of the selection available.

My 504 does not feature wifi, but it can display PDF files and TXT files in case I would ever want to try reading an ebook on it.

If you are interested in the Archos PMPs, I would suggest you read as many of the reviews here and elsewhere, then shop around for a used one so you don't sink $300 or more into a product for which there is NO technical support. Again I will say that I am very pleased with mine.

Well, I bought my Archos 504 3 months ago and I havent enjoyed it. Turns out the dealer who I bought from on this website sold it to me used when it said on the product its new. A full battery charge wont last, so much for 17 hours playing music. Overall the 3 months I had it, I spent over 35 hours waiting to talk to tech support and each time they give me a different answer on whats wrong with my unit and they keep saying they will replace my unit but they never do. I sent in my product 4 times and they still havent fixed the problem. Dealing with the tech support is a real headache especially the hold times. I wont be buying any products from Archos anytime soon.