I bought the Archos 605 Wifi since 14 months, the battery was gone completely twice, once in the waranty and they changed it to me after one whole month of negotiations..!! and another out of the waranty and I had to change it myself, the replacement procedure is kind of torture and time consuming.. you have to take the player completely apart to reach the battery.. in shor.. the archos 605 battery sucks..!!

Many nice features, video quality is decent but the unit crashes often. Battery life is poor, can watch about 1 1/2 movies and it's done. Forget about buying the battery dock as they are nowhere to be found in the US until late December. I'm amazed that Archos introduced this unit and you can't buy the accessories to make it fully functional. I own an iPod Touch as well and the video is comparable but the unit never crashes. The controls on the iPod are far superior. If you can live with the 16Gb of storage go with the iPod, it's a better quality product.

I bought one to use of long airpplane trips. So far, i've been happy with it. One problem that I have is that when I record a movie and watch it, especially on a plane, the Audio is too low, and I can barely get it up to the point of hearing the dialogue. Anybody have a similar experience?

I bought both of these to see which one I would like better and return the other.

I definitely like the iPod Touch better - although lower resolution it is much brighter and far more vivid, and much more watchable in varied lighting conditions.

The 16GB Touch has more then enough space for me to carry my commuting music, movies, and tv shows, and is way more portable.

The interface of the touch is also instantaneous in almost all operations while the Archos is slower and clumsier. You also definitely need the stylus (which does not store in the unit!) to use the web browser efficiently, unlike the touch.

Also, although both get similar playback battery life, the Archos is VERY bad at holding its charge on standby - you need to remember to manually turn it on and off.

I reviewed the Sorell DN10 after I bought it. About US$120 for 3GB, a HUGE touchscreen, OGG playback, and even GPS. Only useful if you're in Korea, though.
http://ibeentoubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/06/review-of-sorell-dn10-pmp-dmb-gps.html

Just got one of these for my dad, nice piece of kit, but, was not impressed that a mains charger is classed as an optional extra.... very weird business model going on there Archos.

Looks awesome. Pity this won't get the same level of media coverage as the iPod even though its a superior product.

I wish you had put a photo of it next to your hand or something, so I can see the actual size of the device without having to get a ruler!

Only old xvids/divxs files really used GMC and quarter pixel or people who like to mess about with encoding settings. Use autogk and you wont have this problem. Nearly all releases of avi's from dubious sources in the last few years DON'T use GMC etc, Maybe xvid has developed enough that ppl dont need to add these features to get a better picture. And its not really an archos problem. The hardware chip used for the decoding just like in every dvd player that plays xvid and every other pmp that plays xvids doesn't support GMC and quarter pixel. 

Unfortunately more and more media players are just supplying usb cables instead of proper chargers. Was the same with my creative m vision :(

even with the extra features you have to buy its still an amazing product. i just wish they included two things, a drawing app for the touch screen, and a word processing app.

if they included those two things id get rid of my 604 wifi and pick up the 605 in a heart beat.

cool article btw : )

AT £200.00+VAT (1/2 the dollar amount) this would be serious competition for the iPod Classic 160Gb. But £299.99 is annoyingly expensive.

Its a ripoff in Europe, but the price is brilliant for the 160gb in N.America. 

It's a shame you have to buy plugins, but the browser is the only one most ppl need. And that can be used for streaming tv and radio stations. 

But as always, ppl are brainwashed into buying ipods and spendng more time converting videos than actually watching them and eventually give up on the video feature. 

You can even stream stuff from your pc/nas server to your 605 which means even more space. If you watch xvids a lot, this is a must have.

RealPlayer plug-in due in a few
weeks...allegedly.

ugly, bulky and no browser it's hardly comeptition.

and two of those issues that you have are absolutely so important to you that you'd take swallow an iPod pill. at least provide an alternative -- if you actually know of one OTHER than the iPod, mmmkay?


How about Cowon's players, mr author-of-this-article?

I have a 404, very happy with it and its DVR station. Will probably replace this with a 605 based on this and a few other reviews I've seen around. I must admit my primary reason for buying this device was its ability to display pdf files, I use it to read ebooks in pdf format. It also plays xvids faultlessly and the news about realmedia is v exciting as I use RMVB as my archive codec.