Archos 704-WiFi gets official

We all knew it was coming. Archos officially rolled out their latest – and quite possibly heftiest -- portable video player today, the 704-WiFi. This one weighs in at 22 ounces and sports a 7-inch, 800x480 pixel touch screen display, 80GB hard drive, 802.11g WiFi, support for playback of MPEG-4 ASP@L5 AVI and WMV video files and MP3 and WMA audio files (with optional plug-ins for adding h.264, MPEG-2 MP@ML, and AAC support), PlaysForSure support, an integrated PDF reader, built-in stereo speakers, Opera web browser, up to 5 hours of video playback, and a retail price of $549.99. There's also an optional DVR Station dock for recording TV shows directly to the player. We'll have some hands-on pics for you soon.

[Jesse S @ Mar 6th 2007 12:24AM]

What do you mean official? I don't even see it on their site...

[Mike Klein @ Mar 6th 2007 12:37AM]

Archos changes their product lineup weekly.

Many of their devices appear somewhat flimsy I'm afraid.

[Jerrell Evans @ Mar 6th 2007 12:50AM]

I had bought the archos av500 a couple of weeks before it came out in america. All i have to say is you have to convert every video file before you put it on the player. It also broke withing the first 1 year of having. I had to take it apart to fix it. other than the lack or support or converting every video its not so bad!!

[3rdsun @ Mar 6th 2007 5:22AM]

who needs a lame ipod when this monster has tons of features

[axzr @ Mar 6th 2007 6:06AM]

Hmmm, now all I need is one of these and a Nokia e90 and I am set.

I think.

[doublej @ Mar 6th 2007 10:01AM]

Had great joy with an Archos Gmini 20gb-smaller than-an-ipod-no-frills-nor DRM MP3 player..

...but i'm struggling to see where they're going with stuff this size. Portable DVD players are about $100 bucks, PSPs or PVR-MP3s are smaller at about 400 bucks...laptops start at ....what ? about 600 bucks ?

nice tho it is, i don't know what they're trying to do these days.

[Paul in Maryland @ Mar 6th 2007 9:53AM]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this appears to be the first PMP with a resolution this high (800 x 480). Aside from the ubiquitous 480 x 272, the only higher resolution has been 640 x 480 in one or two offerings from Creative.

[Daniel Hough @ Mar 6th 2007 4:37PM]

I sincerely hope we will be getting an intensive and in-depth review. I'm quite intrigued by this, as my AV700 was rather nifty back in the day, and I need a new PMP.

[Pingmeister @ Mar 6th 2007 11:03AM]

They are marketing to me. I bought the Archos 604 specifically to dump a bunch of movies from my DVD collection (DIVX'd down to about 800MB) and I use it when I travel.

It also works great as a portable TIVO. I transfer files from my DVR to it and can catch up on a few TV shows (HEROES today on my lunch break!) away from home.

And it looks fantastic output to a TV.

[eric @ Mar 6th 2007 11:39AM]

this may sound odd...but why don't these things have a DVD drive? I have lots of movies (for the kids) that I wouldnt want to put on my hard-drive, and may want to just grab on the go...

[Terry @ Mar 9th 2007 9:29PM]

Any word on when they are going to be coming out with the gps version? I've been waiting for that ever since I saw it on their development roadmap!!

[Ben @ Apr 2nd 2007 5:44PM]

Is it possible to remove the harddisk and replace it for a bigger one?