Archos AV700 Mobile DVR user reviews (100GB)

Pros Can have a large Hard Drive, has a higher res screen than Windows Mobile Media Centers, and plays many formats.

Cons No card slots, very bad resolution to size ratio for the screen.

Summary In my opinion, this is yet another failed try at making the perfect PVP. If they were not going for perfect, they may have succeeded.

As I list, though the screen has a higher resolution than Windows Mobile based PVPs, it is still too low. I believe this is about the same resolution of a Sony PSP. The problem is that this is not high enough. There is one PVP out now (The Epson P-2000), which has a VGA screen, and the Creative Zen Vision which will soon be released will also have a VGA screen. Both of these have smaller screens, but at 7 inches, the slighly lower than HVGA screen does not cut it.

On the storage side, 100GB is very impressive. That is the highest I have seen for a PVP. Where the problem is is not with the storage, but rather connectivity. Though it has "host" drivers to connect with devices, it has no card slots. You may say, "why does this matter?". For some people, it may not, but if you are one of those people who like to offload pictures from your camera, and you take alot of pictures, you may want to conserve the battery on your camera. Only having these drivers forces you to use your cameras battery to offload the pictures.

To sum it up, this player is perfect if you want to load gobs of media onto your PVP for trips and such, and you dont mind the lower resolution. If you want to use it primarily for downloading pictures, this is not the player for you, but it does look like a nice player. We'll have to wait for some "in hand" reviews.

Pros Huge Hard Drive

Cons Limited DiVX and XVid formats

Summary I travel a lot, and whilst I enjoy watching movies on my laptop, and listening to my ipod, want to watch tv series I have been recording on tivo. Like west wing 5, 24 etc. So I took the plunge and bought this unit. It is amazing, easy to set up, huge hard drive, easy to navigate, and great qulity picture. Only downside I have found so far is the limited file format for mp4 avi's.

Pros GREAT SCREEN! Games, music, movies, and photos.... what else do u need? Uses windows media player 10, it basically combines every pmc or pmp made into one.

Cons maybe the resolution or customer support, its a fairly massive unit but what do you expect with a 7 inch screen

Summary In response to the last rating, he said it is hard to use... hardly. It uses windows media player 10, if you have ever used it, it's one of the most simple programs ever. Music, downloaded movies, photos, and games will be easy to put on. I am not sure about recording tv because I have had a zen ( uses windows media player 10) and it didn't have that capability so I am eager to get my hands on the new Archos.

Pros screen, capacity, features,

Cons wont play atsc/a-52 audio, only rca outputs

Summary i purchased my av700(100gb) on the 22 of december. the unit is excellent. built in speaker quality is great. screen brightness is excellent. screen quality is excellent for its size and battery life. transfer between pc and unit is fine when set on HD mode (basically turns it into an external). i have yet to have issue with the battery life, although its only something like 3.5-5 hrs for video. I have only had a very minimal amount issues with file formats. the most common issue is the atsc/a-52 audio format that allows for surround sound. this has become very common on 1-2 cd mpg4 (divx/xvid) files. that being said, i use besweet and belight, vdub mod, and alltoavi to do all of the video conversions necessary for this player and it has not been a stumbling block yet. i have not yet used it as a dvr so i cannot comment on that aspect of its functionality, but as a straight up pmp or pvp it performs excellently. great for trips or the several hours between classes.

i think its great 9.5/10, but then again, i will work to fix problems instead of complaining about how it "doesnt work"