I am currently looking into purchasing the Archos AV320 (or AV340). I am a bit anxious about this purchase, more so than most I've made, and I'll explain why.

I currently own an Archos Jukebox Recorder (the first one, the 6GB one), and had definite problems using it. The bugs and crashes and such left me with a device I now rarely use. Since then, I've considered buying an iPod like everyone else, but it's pretty expensive and I don't have much use for an MP3 player. You see, I bought the Archos over the iPod specifically because it could record. I had a lot of use for this, but was disappointed, in the end, that getting an amplified input was not very feasible without a couple hundred dollar mic or line from a camcorder. Even then, the hard drive noise was terrible on the finished recording. This was a major factor in why I no longer use the device. The last is that the build quality was not the greatest in the world.

Despite this, the AV320 device fascinates me. *edit* I meant to add that every fault I found with the current Archos device I have appears to be fixed in this product *edit* I could really go for this sort of thing, and was wondering if I could get a personal/insider opinion on it from someone who has used/seen/owned one. I've read about 15 reviews, looked at dozens of online stores, and read up as much as I can on the device (the extremetech.com review is the best I've run across so far in terms of in-depth reviewing). I've even read through the entire downloadable user manual. I'd really appreciate hearing straight from the source, if one exists here.

Among my questions would be:
1) how stable is the device? any crashes? any chance of data becoming corrupted or deleted accidentally?
2) how is the build quality?
3) how bad, really, is the offset viewing of videos on the screen? I've read one view that praises it, and another that only leaves the possibility for direct-on viewing.
4) I can't seem to find out whether you can simply watch a video input, without recording. I'd love to use this as a small TV monitor while sitting at my computer desk. I looked through the online manual, and what I've seen of the recording process, I'm not sure if you can remove the display data in the pre-recording process.
5) how long does it take to fully charge the batteries?
6) does anyone know how upgradeable the hard drive is? I'd love to go fr the 20GB version now, then upgrade in the future. I know it's a standard laptop drive (Hitachi, I think), but I'm not sure if there's anything tough about the process.

That's all. I'd REALLY appreciate any help you can give. If I get a favorable "vibe" about it all, I may be ordering one as soon as tomorrow. I know it's quick, but depending on when I get off to Europe, I want to have this for plenty of time in order to get used to it or return it if need be and get something else.

The major impetus for the purchase comes from the fact that I will need a digital wallet for my trip. With my girlfriend and I both taking pictures every day for almost four weeks, my 256MB and her 64MB cards won't cut it. For this use alone, at least a portion of this product is justifiable. My concerns are mainly with the above points.

Thanks so much if any help can be offered.

I know a guy who had a AV320 and was *extremely* disappointed with it.

I forget the exact complaints that he had, but I know that he said that it didn't play DivX (despite it saying that it did) and he had a whole host of other issues with it.

He took it back and got his money back, so there you go.

I know that this is short on real info (i'll bug him when I See him again for details), but it might give you a steer.

Cheers,

Paul.

my 256MB and her 64MB cards won't cut it.

Would it be less expensive to just buy a couple more 256 MB cards?

Any chance of borrowing someone's computer during your trip where you could download the pictures then FTP them to your computer at home?

tanstaafl.

No no, that's good. I want to know about these things. I'm not going to be suprised at all if this turns out to be par for this device. Most of the reviews rave about it, but I take all my research with a grain of salt, whether it be good or bad reviews.

For one, I don't think I'll be doing much conversion of files already on my computer. Actually, I probably won't do any at all. Considering the length of time, the frustration, and the general low sucess rate of MPEG4 conversion in the first place, it would be much easier and quicker to simply record straight to the device its self.

And in case anyone is wondering, I have looked into the competing products, of which there only appears to be one: the RCA Lyra RD2780. That product has some serious selling points over the Archos, including a built-in CF reader and video-in jack. On the other hand, the CNet review points out a large amount of missing functionality that has yet to be enabled, which concerns me because, at the moment, I can find absolutely no official site for this device. This stuns me. RCA's website doesn't even mention it aside from a press release. The device appears to have been produced by a company called Thompson, but there's nothing about their physical products on their website.

So, that and the much shorter battery life turned me off the Lyra, but I may end up with that device if anyone here has it and can speak highly of it.

*edit*
Another knock for the Lyra: it blocks copy-protected media recording. So I won't always be able to record DVDs and such.

Would it be less expensive to just buy a couple more 256 MB cards?

Yes, it probably would, but that's not the obstacle here. I'm not too concerned with the price, I just want a device like this. Like I said, I wouldn't want an iPod because I don't want to only listen to music. This device plays and records audio and video. Having portable digital video with me is a dream come true. Add to that the ability to store digital photos, and a file taxi (a nice 15MB/s transfer rate on a 20GB drive is nice for the video projects my friend and I would transfer between our computers), and it's the kind of device I'd love to have.

Plus, I can see the two of us taking some time each night to look at the pictures we took that day. That would be really nice.

Hiya... just been given a link to this thread from a friend.. i've never been here before.

I had the old 6GB Archos unit aaages ago, then got the 20GB Multimedia version.

I then got the AV one... the lovely big screen, nice GUI.... *drool*

Actually... what a bag of pants! I never thought i'd say this about an Archos player.

Many mp3s failed to play, as well as wma files (I tried downloading the latest firmware, which apparently corrects such issues - it didn't), I had to buy a new Video attachment as they cleverly modified the design to render the old one useless... hardly any video would play, definitely none of the advertised formats would play other than a silly demo file which came with the unit.

In short, I was wholely upset at the purchase - I gave it 14 days in case I changed my opinion, but no... hated it.

Good Points:
Large Storage Capacity

Bad Points:
- Still weighs a lot (like the old ones)
- Very buggy with mp3, and doesn't work with wma with the latest firmware.
- video is dubious - doesn't fare well with divX, xVID, avi...
- Screen is not recessed and therefore VERY susceptible to scratching
- Doesn't really offer any additional features since the multimedia unit - just looks to be a prettier GUI and a larger screen.
- Crashes a lot.
- Batteries don't last long enough to watch a film... the idea is supposedly to be able to watch, for instance, Last Samurai whilst on a train from Manchester to London.... the batteries would be flat by the time you reach Stafford, and you wouldn't even be at the end of the film.. (yes, I tried it).

Like I said, I hate to say this about an Archos unit, but it really is atrocious...

Cheers,
Stringy

Thanks stringy! For the record, this is the guy that I mentioned....

Not sure if the issues are really going to bother you DIGNAN but after my personal experience of the old 6GB Archos MP3 player, I'd never touch another one of their products.

Talking of which, anyone want a slightly used Archos 6GB MP3 player?

Cheers,

Paul.

I know you're time-limited due to the EuroTrip, but if you weren't, I'd lean toward checking out this new product:

TAZ I

For me, I offload the contents of my 8 small SmartMedia cards (totalling around 200MB) onto 1 large (512MB) SD card using an adapter in any available computer. And I can look at or organize them on my Palm-based organizer.

I really appreciate you taking the time to visit our boards just to help me out on this. Due to your comments I think I may wait a while on this, but I still think I may try it out. If I do I'll definitely order from somewhere with a good return policy I was planning on going through Newegg anyway. I'd like to comment on your points, most of which I'm not too suprised to hear, unfortunately:

- Still weighs a lot (like the old ones)

This was never something I was very concerned about, but a decent point to make. I'm more worried about the heat it might create, which I've read can be a good amount.

- Very buggy with mp3, and doesn't work with wma with the latest firmware.

The MP3 part is something to worry about. I don't really count WMA absence as a check against it, becaue they don't advertise it as such, and I don't have any media in the format anyway.

- video is dubious - doesn't fare well with divX, xVID, avi...

This is the hardest part about owning these early devices. Hell, codecs in general are what I like least about computers over anything else. I do a lot of video conversion, and it's a serious PITA. The only thing that somewhat negates this point for me is that converting videos to anything else would take far longer than a simple analog export to the video recorder in the unit. I assume the unit will play videos it recorded its self. At least I hope so! How was the recording process for you?

- Screen is not recessed and therefore VERY susceptible to scratching

That's a good point. It's hard to get a good idea of how the screen is placed from pictures online. I take good care of my devices, but I'd be worried about this.

- Crashes a lot.

There we go. That's what I was expecting to hear. Archos needs to hire some real programmers, because I can't believe they release such shoddy software. The one thing that might help is the open source project for the device, but It's not the firmware, just the OS, so I don't know if the bugs would all be worked out, but I want to keep an eye on it.

- Batteries don't last long enough to watch a film...

This is odd. I've been seeing a whole range of results from people. Some say they're getting pretty close to the rated length, others say it's much shorter. Last Samurai is pretty long, but most places I see are saying around 3 hours for the batteries. If I ordered the product and found it wasn't getting long enough battery life, and I liked it enough to give it a shot, I'd try replacing them with one of these. I read the tests they did on them and they seem to know what they're talking about.

Don't get me wrong, I've taken your opinions to heart, and I've been somewhat turned off of the product, but I'm still curious. Besides, I would really like a product like this, and all the other companies that seem to be working on this are coming out with theirs in around a year from now, and/or are running WinCE on it or something similar. Also, that TAZ 1 device doesn't really appeal all that much to me. It doesn't seem very portable, and also doesn't appear to have video recording functionality. It's an interesting device, but not quite what I'm looking for.

Mine was pretty buggy so back to the store it went, (it was just one of those inpluse buys anyways) I can do the same stuff and more on a HP 5550 with a 1 gig microdrive, and it plays movies better and mp3 too.

Until Tight actually ship the TAZ, it's just Vapor. And after it ships it will need to be independently reviewed. ANd not by CNET either. Right now it's as much a product as OQO's hand-held computer. It simply exists in renderings.

Bruno

How about the vulcan mini pc. Is that going to be vaporware too. My U101 is getting beat up and who knows if sony will make a successor to it.

DIGNAN, I know that you want a small device, but for my digital camera and camcorder needs, I actually bought a Apple 12" Powerbook. It's small, pretty rugged, and does everything that you mentioned via the iLife tools.

And, if you are on a long vacation, just burn the stuff to CD or DVD (depending on model).

It's definitely a companion for my travel plans now, wouldn't be without it, and it means that we can review the photo's each night on a decent screen.

Cheers,

Paul

Heh, I said the price tag wasn't as much of a consideration, but I meant in the $500 range

Hehe, fair enough.

However, it *is* fun to play with a new OS as well! Definite geek value!

Cheers,

Paul.

I wanted to offer my opinion of the Archos AV340 MP3/Video player, since I asked for help on researching it a while ago.

First off, I bought an Archos Jukebox Recorder 6 a few years ago instead of an iPod. That was a mistake. It was a cheaply-built, horribly-programmed device that didn't even record well, which is why I chose it over the iPod in the first place (there was tons of HDD noise on the recordings).

I'm not a user who would benefit from just a music playing portable player. I'd get bored after a while, and I just wouldn't have much use for one. That is why the AV300 series players are great for me. As a portable I can listen to MP3's, watch videos, view pictures, listen to the radio (with an add-on), load pictures from a CF card (with and add-on), and even take digital pictures and video (with an add-on). At home, I can play audio and video on my TV, and capture it as well (with an included add-on). I have also used it several times for its portable hard disk use.

Every single one of my issues with my previous Archos product have been solved or improved. The build quality is significantly improved, with only the joysitck feeling a tad weak and loose. The software is actually intuitive and clear (suprising compared to my old Archos). Lastly, the recording quality is excellent. There is no noise from the hard disk. The audio quality overall is far better as well. The player is also suprisingly fast. Most videos open in about 3-5 seconds and that is the most labor-intensive task it has.

It's actually very easy to record onto the device. This is my preferred method of getting video onto the device in the correct format. Converting would take several hours, so real-time recording is actually the fastest method

I went with the 40GB version. It was just the most appealing size to me. I'll also be able to fit quite a lot of data on it. I recorded a 55 minute VHS tape at a very good quality level, and it only took 613MB. Granted, the video won't look great put back onto a TV, but for viewing on the device it's self, it's fantastic. I can fit quite a lot of movies on there at that size.

To summ up, the my Archos AV340 is my new favorite toy (no, not more than my empeg, but it's up there). The screen is beautiful, all the usual Archos pitfalls are adressed and nearly eliminated, there's an incredible amount of functionality, and the device actually does what it's supposed to do incredibly well. I can't wait to take this to Europe for a month!

ps-there's many more features that I haven't mentioned. I could go on for many more paragraphs, but I won't