Archos AV500 - 30Gb Pocket Video Recorder

What can I say ? Wow , wow and wow , this is probably the best impulse purchase , I normally end up buying rubbish but this is absolutely fantastic.

I was looking for a MP3 player but liked the fact that you could switch of the music when you were bored and watch your favourite movie .

The best feature of the Archos is that you can plug it straight into the tv (using simply a scart lead) and press record . It is that simple , its a feature that is not included on a IPOD VIDEO .

In addition you can record from any type of source eg hifi etc .

Now for the playback , the picture is very sharp , the colour screen is briliant quality and at 4 inchs it is perfect to fit in the pocket , but to still enjoy its large viewing capacity.

My version can store approx 250 hours (60gb) of video with ease .

The other great thing with this device is that it is also a fantastic mp3 player . The mp3 auto syncronised all of my tracks and sorted them by genre , title ,album and by one click of a button ,wow , I went back 5 mins later and over 2000 tracks had copied to my device. Another nice little touch is that the cover art from the album shows while the music is player.

You may be thinking that the archos may be a battery eating machine , no its actually very impressive you can easily get 6 hours non stop playtime when playing films and I usually have the volume set quite high ! If you are listing mp3s expect to get nearly 20 hours of high quality playback.

If you have a digital camera you can also store all your photos on the device without the help of a computer . Attach a usb and it will add your pictures to the device in seconds (the device can store over a million pictures with easy so I don't think you will run out of memory space!

The device is very easy to use and the hard disc has never froze.It is very quick to load the video on the device and is very responsive when flicking through your mp3 collection.

It is also a nice looking device so to sum up
Brilliant playback
Enormous stortage
Excellent functions
Multifunctional
Easy to use interface
Nice ergonomics
T3 ( technology magazine gave it 5 stars (gold award)

If you are considering buying an Ipod video instead all I can say is don't bother in my opinion.You will be getting a far better device if you don't buckle into buying the so called trendy ipod.

My advice is to go for it !, buy one you won't regret it

- Battery power is like any other video/mpg4 player, a bit limited for videos. But with this, be smart, get the version with the removable battery go to the archos web site and buy a spare battery......hey presto.

- Button lock. Erm, someone said this doesn't exist, it does.

- If you can, get the 60GB or 100GB versions, the av500 is a bit naff at storage formats of videos. That said, i've 5GB of music and 12 videos on mine. You can easily transfer them to a cheap HD in your PC (like me).

- Read the manual on the HD, much more info.

- Copy all the rubbish on the HD to your PC (don't just delete it) to free up a pile of space.

All in all i'd give this 5 stars, i've no no real problems with it and have been well impressed. I compared it to the ipod thing that's out with a guy at work, archos wins hands down guys.