Archos 5 (120GB)

Pros: Beautiful screen (when it works)

Cons: Screen is wonky; non-standard USB interface, no plug ins currently available, ships with beta firmware, still slow to navigate

Summary: I was looking for a high capacitiy MP3 player that supports subscription services. When I read about the 6th generation Archos which also has built in Wi-Fi and video playback I was sold.

Once I turned it on was anther story, the LCD screen is very jumpy -- it's not a dead pixel issue but it almost looks like there's some sort of interference that's affecting the screen. I have to keep rebooting the player to get a viable screen that I can use to navigate.

Further the player ships with beta firmware and only beta firmware is available on the Archos website at the time of this writing.

Even worse, the plug ins that you're supposed to be buying aren't even compatible with the 6th generation archos player -- but they don't tell you that until after you've bought it and contacted support -- which then redirects you to the order takers. I was hoping to use this player with Tivo To Go but until the plugin is available, you are SOL. Tech support says it will be coming shortly but seriously , how can this not be done until after the player is released?

It took 8(!) hours to upload 10,000 songs (over 40GB) to this unit. The non-standard USB cable is extremely slow!

I was excited about this unit and couldn't wait to get it. Now that I have it, I can't return it soon enough. It's a major disappointment. I hope they can rectify this stuff, but I'm not waiting.