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Andy how do/did you find the X50 in terms of battery life? Would it play video for a couple of hours do you think? i.e. a movie on a plane?

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Andy how do/did you find the X50 in terms of battery life? Would it play video for a couple of hours do you think? i.e. a movie on a plane?

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Andy how do/did you find the X50 in terms of battery life? Would it play video for a couple of hours do you think? i.e. a movie on a plane?

Unless it has dramatically more battery life than my X30, then definitely not. They are not really designed or optimised for that kind of use.

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Would it play video for a couple of hours do you think? i.e. a movie on a plane?

Get a PSP, it's cheaper, bigger screen and much better battery life when running off a memory stick. For example I watched 'A Clockwork Orange' transcoded off my Myth box and still had plenty of battery life left, it's also much more tolerant of mid-movie battery swap.

My PSP works a treat for that..... plus I've heard you can buy games for it!

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Cheers Andy(s). I was hoping battery technology had gotten to a point that I could use a PDA as a portable video player but oh well!

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Personally I'm looking at the 160GB Archos 504. Too much money at the moment, though.

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Personally I'm looking at the 160GB Archos 504. Too much money at the moment, though.

And, despite what it says on the tin, not gapless.

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Hmm I'd forgotten all about Archos. I was going to get an av300, but held off for the av400 then held off for the av500 and never got anything!

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Yes though... I could use my old Ipaq for pda stuff and just get myself a pvr.

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How does the 604/504 differ from the av500 series? It seems to do the same things and theres not much difference in dimensions or battery life. Or am I missing something here?

You know how it is, always slight improvements/changes. I think the main difference is the modular design. Their idea, whether good or bad (it's debateable) was to sell the basic player for a relatively inexpensive price, and depending on your needs you could pick up the various add-ons later. So this one doesn't record out of the box, you have to buy one of two accessories. It also doesn't have USB OTG out of the box - again, you need the appropriate adapter. Obviously, this creates a lot of parts, which I don't really like, but the base 604 now starts out at $350.

Beyond that, the 604 is basically the AV500 30GB version (commonly referred to as the AV530). The 504 is basically the AV500 100GB version (or AV5100/AV560), and comes in [I believe] 40GB, 80GB, and 160GB sizes.

Lastly, the 404 is their reimagining of the GMini 400/402/402cc line, except that instead of the GMini 500 (which was exactly the same size as the AV500 but lacked recording features - this was the stupidest move Archos ever made, IMO), it's like a chopped-off 604, with a 4:3 screen. This doesn't scream "mini" to me, but I guess it's mini-er I do like that they're making a distinction between their 1.8" and 2.5" drive product lines. That always bothered me before.

The one thing that's frustrating me is the pricing on the 504 line. It's disproportionate, IMO. The 40GB is $350, the 80GB is $399, [so far I think both are reasonable] but the 160GB is $599. Lets think about this for a second. I'm assuming that you've got your standard 160GB 2.5" drive in there. I just bought such a drive at retail price for $172. So even at the $200 difference, that's a profit of $28 per player for Archos. But that's $200 over an 80GB drive, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were pricing the drives at somewhere around $300, giving them a $128 profit on each sale. Does that seem reasonable to anyone? And that's assuming the retail price I paid for my drive.

Sorry for the rant. It's just been bugging me lately, because I was quite excited to see the new players come out, and I was all ready to get the 504 until I heard about the price. IMO, it's $100 too high.

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Thanks for the in-depth explanation! Yes i see what you mean about the drive pricing Its $200 over the 80gb (as you mentioned). How easy is it to upgrade these units yourself? Buy an 80gb unit and install your own 160gb drive and sell the 80gb drive?

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I'd also have hoped they'd start using the 1.8'' drives to get these things even smaller (or use the extra space for batteries) but then I suppose there would be no 160gb model.

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How cute is that 404? Probably too small for my needs. Yeah perhaps a 504 or a 604. To be honest, 30gb would do me fine (for now) and if I could upgrade myself later then all the better. A 604 would do me fine I think. The only difference I can see between it and the 504 (other than drive size) is that the 504 has 30mins more battery power (5hrs vs 5.5) and is 6mm thicker (17mm vs 23mm).

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Eh? Amazon have the 30gb 604 for £250 and the 40gb 504 for £224. Aren't these identical units?

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Personally I'm looking at the 160GB Archos 504. Too much money at the moment, though.

And, despite what it says on the tin, not gapless.

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Thanks for the help Matt! Yes that wifi 604 looks smashin! I'll hold off I think and see what its like.

Thanks - you've been a great help!

You're welcome! It's just that I've been looking at this very closely since they launched, so I'm just throwing down everything I know about them

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Oh one more question you might know the anwer to... they quote 5hours or 5.5 hours video playback but how accurate are these things normally? Can I expect 3 hours from normal use for example?