First impressions - Lovely and solid and soooo much capacity.
I've loaded it up with Disney for my children on the flight and set parental controls on the movies for my wife and I in the evenings So no accidental playing of adult movies when left alone with the device for 5 mins.
It has the ability to surf the net over WiFi and read PDF's which is nice as I've been saving a few techy mags and so for some late night reading.
One negative point so far is the PDF reader. Whilst clarity is excellent the device takes too long to turn a page. Hopefully they will get some firmware out that can address this.
It also has the ability to play some modest games. I’ve bought the game packs from their website and they are ok for what they are. Interestingly you can also play flash games on it so I’ve downloaded quite a few and they run fine although they’re rubbish!
One thing I’m testing is the battery life – lots of people on the unofficial forum
People were saying is that the battery didn’t last very long and few people were buying extra capacity batteries or a spare for long haul flights etc.
Archos have released a firmware upgrade in the last week and everyone has said it has changed the way the device controls power and everyone is raving about the advancement.
I’m current bench testing a 3hr movie on my desk as I write to see how long I get with the upgraded firmware – I’ll post an update and advise when it finally dies!
EDIT: I've just played movies constantly for just under 5hrs before the standard battery gave up the ghost - not bad eh?
Money: Everyone’s favorite subject. The device is not cheap, but you should be aware of the hidden extras and add another £100 to get the plugins that allow playback of certain movie codecs etc
So far I’ve bought the following extra stuff:
• Car Head rest mount to watch movies in the car/plane
• 5v Charger for the car (Plugs into the cigarette lighter)
• DVR Station Gen 5 (To watch movies through a TV)
• Travel case to put everything in whilst on the move
• The 2 x game packs
• All 3 plugins
This all adds up to a tidy some – but hey, I’m worth it
So no accidental playing of adult movies when left alone with the device for 5 mins.
