Typical price: £550
What is it: Hard-drive based portable media centre
What we think: One of our favourite portable media players, with a wide range of supported formats and solid build quality
What you need to know
Reviewed on: 3 June 2005
Tags: Archos Technology, Archos AV4100, user interface, DVD player, resolution
We like:
Solid design; massive hard drive; easy navigation; great AV performance
We don't like:
Awful sound quality from the speaker; some video formats missing; crashes easily; video output is composite-only, so looks poor on TV
You might also need:
Collection of digitised movies and music
CNET UK judgement:
Archos' AV4100 is a portable media centre with a huge 100GB capacity that offers peerless video quality and a clean, functional design. However, it's expensive and still doesn't offer across-the-board format support, most noticeably omitting MPEG and QuickTime. But if this isn't important, it manages to tick all the important boxes, including external source recording, and it fully supports the omnipresent DivX and Xvid codecs for highly impressive results
Full review:
An entire DVD collection in your pocket. It's a grand claim, but one that the Archos AV4100 personal video player can justifiably boast. An average DivX movie takes up roughly 700MB, so this 100GB Archos has enough storage for over 120 movies. In practise, the encoding process for so many movies would take months, but it's certainly the biggest portable storage device we've had in the office. Continue Reading...
Archos AV4100 History
26 Aug 2005 in Crave
Archos AV700: muggings guaranteed
The follow-up to the Archos AV400 is here -- DivX fans rejoice! The upgrade sees a massive jump in screen size and an even slinkier chassis. You certainly won't fit it in your pocket, but it's set to be one of the year's hot gadgets
1 Aug 2005 in Crave
We try out DivX 6.0 -- a video compression package that lets you fit a DVD movie onto one single CD. The latest version also has built-in menu support, allowing you to create a DVD-style front end for your videos
20 May 2005 in Crave
Archos AV400 has won a lot of plaudits for its compatibility and looks. Crave gets the brand new 80GB version and puts it through its paces
Latest user reviews
August 1, 2005
Posted by: Paul Masters
"It may not look cool but it is perfect for video and music when travelling"
June 6, 2005
Posted by: John Nieurzyla
"Buyer beware"
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