I dislike the archos product. I think its poorly designed, with a poor screen.

Likes:

Built in File Manager: the file manager performs wonderfully, as it offers two side by side windows for copying. easy to delete and rename folders. i got giddy the first time i use it.

Lots of codecs: most everything i have plays on it. Divx/Xvid support is awesome. No AC3 without buying a module if i believe.

"Browse by Hard Drive": since it doesnt know how to show me album artists only (shows track artists instead), this is a god send. does not take advantage of folder thumbs I so painstakingly placed.

Cool video thumbnails: it has animated video clips for thumbnails. Cool.

PLAYS YOUTUBE VIDEOS!!!: YEY!!!

NO DRIVERS: NEVER!! PRUG AND PRAY!!! nice!

WiFi networking: can play files off the network. can put the player into server mode also (so u can stream from it).

Downsides:

Music player: I absolutely hate the music player. I couldnt tell you how to play 'shuffle all' for the life of me. When you play a song, it opens a new tab. You then have to click between tabs to go to song lists and 'now playing'.

Duplicate keys: all hardware keys are represented in touch also. Dumb.

Hardware keys: could they have tried to make a more absurd control scheme.

Battery life: turn on the wifi, turn on the battery drain.

Wont ever charge completely: comes with a USB cable, will never charge completely.

Wifi has to start every single time I bring up the browser: yep.

No stylus holder: but the stand looks like a stylus...im confused.

Finicky web video support: doesnt want to play all streams all the time.

No 'Browse by album' art: never seems to use album art when appropriate.

No Screen Saver/Visualizations: hate that!

Limited power options: no option to keep 'screen on' all the time.

Gets hot: yep.


Its a stupid device. No other way to put it. Many people complain of hearing audio noises with wifi enabled. My Creative Zen Vision W put the screen to shame (too bad the creatize had horrific softwares also). Kudos to awesome Youtube support, no drivers, and network playing.