Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (4 GB)

by Archos

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1 x 3 inches ; 5.3 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000S5UY1M
• Item model number: 500951
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,076 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description The Archos 605 generation 5 portable media player comes with a convenient WiFi feature, an attribute that offers the fastest and easiest way to access digital entertainment. You can use the built-WiFi capabilities of the Archos to download online media content from the Archos content portal: All you need is a usable WiFi connection, and you're good to start downloading (fees may apply). With the Archos in hand, for the first time you can download favorite movies, TV shows, and music wherever you are, without being tied to the PC or Mac. Other great features include a full-color 4.3-inch touchscreen that crams in an amazing 800 x 480 picture resolution for superior picture quality, 4 GB of built-in flash memory, and multiple options for additional storage (the player accepts SD mini and SD micro memory cards).

With the Archos in hand you can download your favorite movies, TV shows, and music wherever you are. View larger.

Archos media player comes with photo viewing capabilities, supporting JPEG, BMP, and PNG files. View larger.

With full Internet access, the player's Opera browser plug-in offers Adobe Flash support, which lets you access and enjoy YouTube and other Web video sites on your Archos device. By using the player, you can view and post YouTube videos wherever you are with an active wireless connection. In addition to downloading media straight from the Archos content portal, you can stream and watch videos from your home PC or laptop. You can also record live TV or schedule a recording by using the integrated TV program guide available with the compatible DVR station (sold separately). For added video playback versatility, the player is compatible with MPEG4, AVI, and WMV video files. The player features robust music playback features, too. On-board music file playback capabilities support MP3, CBR, VBR, WMA, protected WMA, and WAV files. To help round out the player's multimedia superiority, the Archos even comes with photo viewing capabilities. JPEG, BMP, and PNG files are 100 percent compatible with the player, and the player can pull up PDFs for portable review -- an ideal means to take bigger documents or e-books in PDF format on the road with you. Because of the Archos's USB 2.0 compatibility, files can be quickly transferred to the device in the absence of a WiFi network connection. Charging the device can also be accomplished with an active USB connection. An AC adapter is sold separately for additional charging options. Other great features include mass storage capabilities, automatic firmware downloads, and a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. With an advanced Li-Poly battery, the player supports up to 17 hours of continuous music playback and 5.5 hours of continuous video playback. Weighing in at a scant 5.29 ounces, the Archos generation 5 605 measures 4.8 by 3.2 by 0.6 inches.

New widgets for the Archos 605 include a calculator, currency converter, unit converter, news, and weather (above) as well as a note writer and data vault (below).

New Free Widget Pack
Archos has launched a new widget pack that is free for the 605. A widget is a piece of software that adds new features to your player. It gives you fun, quick, and easy access to hundreds of tools, right on the device. The package contains seven widgets, including a calculator, a currency converter, a unit converter, news, weather, a note writer, and a data vault.

To be able to use the widgets, you need to purchase the Web Browser plug-in (about $30). Then, you can download the free widget pack via Archos.com.

New Dish Network plug-in for the Archos 605.

New Dish Network Plug-in
With a new plug-in, you can transfer recorded movies and TV shows from your Dish Network set-top box directly to your Archos 605. Play back Dish Network-recorded movies and TV shows on the go or on TV--in DVD quality.

Multi-language is supported. The plug-in is compatible only with Dish Network STB models 622 and 722.

What's in the Box
Archos 605 WiFi portable media player, headphones, USB cable, DVR Station Gen 5 adapter, protective pouch, quick start guide, and legal/safety notice.

Product Description

The Archos 605 4 GB Flash, Wi-Fi features the most impressive combination of features in a portable video player. With its 4.3 touch screen, slim size, Wi-Fi capabilities, multiple storage options and low price, the 605 Wi-Fi is the flagship Archos Portable Media Player (PMP).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In LOVE with this device!, October 9, 2007

By 

D. DeKeyser "dekeyser4" (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (4 GB) (Electronics)

Sometimes you buy something and you spend alot of money and just
don't feel like you have gotten your moneys worth or don't use it
enough to justify to yourself the purchase.
Well, for me, the Archos device is just about the best purchase
that I have ever made. It is just incredible. I literally use it
every day. I take it on the train. I take it backpacking. I watch
TV in bed before going to sleep. I even watch it at work occasionally.
I really have no complaints whatsoever on this device!
I previously purchased the Archos 604 30GB model. And yes, I bought
all the plugins... This purchase was for the Wifi and higher resolution
than my 604. After firmware upgrade it has worked flawlessly.
Everything else on the device is just great.
Let me say that I purchased the video iPod and the video itself looks
great but it is SO SMALL! The screen size on this is perfect.
I actually went thru alot of pain to get VIDEO ON THE IPOD!
Well, this baby will play alot of formats the ipod will not. mpeg2,
vob, avi, mpeg4. Just buy the plugins and you are good to go.
Yes, its a little more expense.. blah blah blah
To do movie conversion I use Nero Recoder for ipod (mpeg4).
For TV shows I used bittorrent. :) Legally of course :)
Somehow there are alot of negative comments about the device.
I don't understand. I've had the 604 for about 6 months and still
rave about it. The 605 is just as nice.
If you don't own one already I'd recommend getting the 30GB one
if you can afford it. The flash is nice for expansion but is
slower for copying files to the device. Flash is getting much
cheaper (2GB SD card for ~$20 now...) though.
Anyway, if you want to watch video get the Archos. If you want
a music player buy an iPod. If you want people to think you have
money buy an iTouch.
Hope my comments were useful to you. If you buy it and are
dissappointed I will be too.

The following is added after having the unit for over a month:
- I still love it
- Never had ANY problems playing video
- Never had ANY problems playing music
- Lockup has occurred using Web Browser. They are not frequent
and I am assuming that Archos will continue to make the
product more robust with Opera. They have yet to release
the widgets so my guess is that they are working on it.
So... still very happy with Web Browser
- Complaints about having special cable are goofy (see iPod cable)
- The Media Server option is GREAT! I have a Maxtor NAS drive
which supports uPnP so I don't have to copy stuff onto the
device itself. For shows > 1hr I copy them to the device because
the fast forward does not work with the media server. (If you
use PC and share then use the file browser, it does)
All being said, I would lower the stars to 4.5 because of the lockups
during Web Browsing. Hope the additional comments help you.
Thanks

Update on Dec 11:
New firmware makes the device even better. Haven't seen any lockups
using the webbrowser. And now it supports flash games. OK OK... so
the CPU is not that powerful and it won't play alot of games to
satisfaction but it does play the cards games just fine.
Anyway... Yes yes yes... you have to buy plugins for the webbrowser
and if you want to play some different formats... Just figure an
extra 50 dollars. But again.. if you want to watch VIDEO then this
IS the device for you. If you want music then there are ALOT of
better mp3 players out there. And the complaints about video conversion..
well, 1 plugin buys you anything you would watch on the ipod.
Like I said above.. sorry if you don't like it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Try it BEFORE you write... amazing toy, January 13, 2008

By 

ShotgunF15 (VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (4 GB) (Electronics)

Got this as a christmas present for my daughter (13 yrs)... yes, I realized up front that they nickle and dime you for capabilities... but knowing that up front made it less upsetting, as I mentally added the prices when deciding what to get. I got her the 4 Gig 605, Dock, 4 GB SDHC and the internet plug it... right at $320 for the whole group. So far everything has worked flawlessly... we have played movies on my 50" Sony TV and it looks great... WIFI works throughout the home and the remote allows a 'useable' internet experience on the TV. Watching recorded TV/Movies has made trips in the car fun for her. All-in-all a blast of a 'toy'. Works great with an external drive, so I am confused why anyone would buy the HD versions unless you MUST have access on the road to many movies at once. Otherwise, use a stand-alone HD as your 'home base', and drag movies to the SD card or player as needed. Multiple SD cards allows near limitless viewing on the road, and the knowledge that your hard-drive will never crash on you (since it doesn't have one!). I have an Archos AV500 that has served me faithfully commuting for years... now I REALLY wish it would die so I can upgrade to one of these things! Only negatives (similar to AV500, so I am used to it) are on the MP3 side... pretty lame music-player software. That being said, it works fine for MP3s and I think they have the best VIDEO software/ hardware on the market. This thing is a steal at under $200 for the base unit.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great gadget, February 10, 2009

By 

Benjamin Kane (Horseshoe Bay, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player (4 GB) (Electronics)

I bought this product refurbished. I chose the 4GB flash model over the Hardrive based models for several reasons:

1. Fragility of hard drives. I'd be more reluctant to take the player with me if I there was a chance I'd drop it.
2. Battery. Archos says this and the hard drive models have the same battery life, however I felt that there had to be some improvement since no moving parts.
3. Flash memeory is so cheap now and this supports SDHC so you can put 8 or 16 GB SD cards in it.
4. I like the idea of being able to put movies on the device without needing the proprietary (BOO) USB cable. I simply put my SD card into my laptop and load/offload any files I want. This also seems to transfer alot faster than when I use the USB cable. ~2 min for 1Gig to the card versus ~9minutes when using the USB cable.

Once I actually received the device I was surprised at the size, It's smaller than it looks in the pictures and I find myself putting it in my pocket and taking it with me quite often. All i wanted to do was play around with my new toy, but I had to charge it completly via the USB cable which took ~14 hours. One thing that you should do if you buy this item is immediately update the firmware. Mine had 1.35xxx and the most current is 2.10xxx. Its easy to do, you just have to download the file from [...] and transfer it to the main directory on the player. So I upgraded my firmware and then I put some music on a SD card I had laying around and put it in the device and turned it on. The device came up with a white screen and basically the device had to be reflashed again. This happened 3 times over the first day I was using it. At this point I'm starting to worry that maybe this thing is a piece of garbage, until I realized I had a bad SD card. It was a 1gig, but whenever I formatted it it only read 847MB free. So after using a different SD card now I have had absolutely no problems.

Pros:
Size, Screen size, flash capabilities of the web browser, wifi (but the browser is $30), ease of use, photo viewer is fantastic, you can put Flash games on it which is a great feature. The screen seems pretty scratch resistant. uPNP capabilites so you can pull up any shared media on your home PC while on you home WiFi network.

Cons:
Great browser, but $30 seems a little steep, $10-$15 seems more reasonable. Extremly slow charging time thru USB ~10 hours (which is the only way to charge it unless you buy one of the docking cradles, they have several varities which all cost $$$) Slow boot time, You can't play music while using the Flash games or browsing the web. The silver finish on the bezel around the screen scratches easily. The white finish on the back shows wear easily. Wish the touchscreen was more sensitive, at first I was afraid I would break it because you have to touch kind of hard.

Summary:
Great product, great feature set, be prepared to shell out some $$ to pimp it out fully.