FIRST IMPRESSIONS: ARCHOS 504

You know how it goes… You’re going to the store to get a World of Warcraft gamecard, but some shiny thing caught your eye and now you come home with some new fandangled gadget. Yup, (sigh) that’s what happened to Jeff and me. We were looking at HDTVs for some reason or another, then somehow ended up at the mp3 player section. Of course, being a girl, I spotted the sleek, modern, brushed aluminum Archos 404. It stared at me with its flat matte screen and said, “You want me”. OOOO, I did too!

Of course Jeff began looking into it. There was also the Creative Zen 30GB widescreen video player beside the boxed Archos. So, after a few minutes of building up my courage to go ask the sales guy if he could open up the display, we were able to read all the details and stuff on the boxes. However, there was no Archos 404, but the 504 and 604 (with wi-fi). Now, with all his crazy knowledge about technology and all those funny words that make no sense to me, Jeff began reading off what stuff the 504 and 604 had and comparing it to the Creative Zen. Naturally, the sales guy wasn’t from this department but from the music department - he was just covering someone on lunch break - so, he couldn’t give us any more information on the products except for the prices. When the sales guy from this department finally came back, he really didn’t have much more of an idea than Jeff did.

In the end, I decided to go with the Archos 504. It has 40GB hard drive (Jeff thinks this is important - its the same size as a laptop 40GB hard drive - whatever ), a 16:9 glossy LCD display, a small giant battery (17 hours while listening to music and 5.5 watching video on the built in LCD screen), DVR capability (with $100 adapter), plays Windows “PlaysForSure” media (including Windows media video and audio), H264 (a popular video format on the internet), and also mp3s of course. The 604 had 10GB less, but had wi-fi, and the 404 also had 30GB but no wi-fi. Why I didn’t go with wi-fi? I wanted the extra 10GB instead and it was a little cheaper.

After getting the Archos 504 out of the box (we’ve only had it for a very short time), we found that it is quite a bit thicker and wider than the 404, due to the wide screen. You can’t just throw it in your pocket, it’ll fit, but it’ll be uncomfortable. It’s smaller than a PSP still. The controls are pretty easy to use, not as direct as an iPod, but the Archos can do a lot more. I really like the fact that you can record TV shows with it - I like my TV! It’s really different than anything I’ve ever had (only iPods and CD players).

More to come and pictures to follow. I’m excited to use it!!!