Archos's Generation 5 players are now available worldwide

Yeah, we already knew the 605 and 405 had been loosed Stateside, but Archos is finally ready to unleash the whole family on the world -- pictured above, with convenient comparisons to other players you-may-have-seen-around courtesy of Archos. Unfortunately, the Archos 705 WiFi and Archos TV+ won't actually be available until early next month, but the Archos 105, 405 and 605 WiFi are all out today. The players aren't terribly expensive either, with the 2GB 105 at $89; 2GB 405 at $149; the 4GB, 30GB, 80GB and 160GB 605 WiFi at $199, $299 and $349, $399, respectively; 80GB 705 WiFi at $399, 160GB at $499; 80GB Archos TV+ at $249, and finally the 250GB TV+ at $349. As for those curious about content partnerships, the WiFi models connect wirelessly to the "Archos Content Portal" for PC-free purchasing of premium content, and there are currently over 15 partners worldwide -- with CinemaNow doing the honors in the US.

[Thanks, Peter L. Warning: PDF link]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 12:40PM]

i dont understand why everyone wants GPS in their PMP, what is the need for that?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 12:42PM]

you know what, I wish Apple has the Touch with 160 GB..but is Archos will be the right choice for me now?

I don't know...I never played with Archos Media Players..but I think that the 160 GB classic will be my choice.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 1:48PM]

If they only had better industrial designers, these would rule the world.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 1:15PM]

I'm looking for something like the 605 or 705 to use as a digital photo album: I want to upload photos from my camera and then show them to people on its screen. I really need for it to be hackable, so that I can install my own photo-viewing application. But Archos have "tivotised" their bootloader so that, even though they comply with the GPL (v2) by distributing the source code to the Linux kernel that it runs, you cannot change it (it has a checksum). This loophole has been closed in GPL v3, but it seems that Torvalds is happy with the practice and will stick with v2. So if anyone knows of something that's vaguely like this but is hackable, I would love to know about it.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 1:24PM]

What is wrong with the embedded photo viewer it comes with? You obviously don't have the 604, which has a beautiful photo viewer, and I hear this one is only better.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 1:52PM]

This is different because it is a personal media player, aka mp3 player.

Half of what you want can probably be handled by websites out there, and the wifi would allow this. This product is not released as a photo viewer only, it shows the photos great, but what you want is a tablet pc.

This doesn't have to run the software it is supplied with, in the past on the gmini I could run NES, gameboy, gamegear, and Sega master system emulators. Archos has no problem with you hacking their stuff. They did in fact release the linux source, or a portion of it at least on the 604. It does have the hardware capable of running software like you want, just you will have to do it yourself.

In fact, if archos ever became as popular as ipod, I could see them having no qualms about outside companies producing software to run on their pmp's, unlike apple who just bricked alot of iphone 3rd party hacks.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 5:27PM]

Is it really that much harder than hacking an iphone. I can't imagine Archos has more security protection than apple. Its just that there are way more hackers attacking apple products than the iphone. On the older models, one guy found some kind of exploit and used that to run his own OS that could run emulators ported from the GP2X. I have been hoping for another opportunistic hacker to take a crack at these.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 1:43PM]

> What is wrong with the embedded photo viewer it comes with?

I haven't used it, but I've read reviews. Does it superimpose the photos on a world map based on GPS data? Does it let me search based on tags that I've given the photos? Does it let me view photos stored on my NAS over WiFi (and if it does, does it cache downscaled versions)? Does it let me choose which cropped portion of the image I want to see by default? I've implemented all of this and more in the photo viewer that I run in my DIY wall-mounted picture frame, and I'm looking for a hardware platform for the portable version.

(But there's the more philosophical point: would you suggest the PCs or laptops could be locked down to only run the software that they're supplied with? Why is something like this any different?)

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 2:57PM]

> This doesn't have to run the software it is supplied with

> They did in fact release the linux source, or a portion
> of it at least on the 604

Although they released the source, if you change it you can't run the changed version: the bootloader verifies a checksum. This is what people call "tivotisation". I'm not aware of anyone cracking this, having searched - please correct me if I'm wrong! Yes, there were hacks for the earlier models (e.g. the gameboy thing); they were less well protected.

I almost want a tablet PC, but they have quite a lot of stuff that I don't need and cost a lot more. The 605 or 705's hardware is almost exactly what I want, but their software upgrade policy cripples it for me.

The reason why they lock it down is their pay-for-features idea for codecs etc. If it were more hackable, people would produce free codecs and they wouldn't be able to sell the upgrades. It doesn't look as if the pay-for-codecs business model is very popular with people here, so maybe if they can be convinced that an all-inclusive package would be more popular then they would have less reason for the lockin.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 1:54PM]

Nope, just a marketing team like they have over there at apple. Ever since I knew this company existed, they have produced products a year or two ahead of anything done by any competitors. The only thing better about Apple is their marketing.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 2:00PM]

And Archos is the first company to stream content wirelessly to a PMP, regardless of what some fanboys have tried to say. They prefer to compare apples and cardboard, oranges are to similar for them.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 6:41PM]

Weird, the 160Gb 605wifi is a lot more expensive here in holland than in the US...

485 euro !!

http://www.mp3shop.nl/product/44217/archos-605-wifi-160-gb.html

[smcquade Posted Sep 13th 2007 3:14PM]

is the screen resolution really better? I seem to remember some really sucky archos big screens - very big gaps between the pixels. Has somebody seen the screen on the 605 wifi? And does the touch screen work with fingers?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 4:42PM]

At 800x480, the resolution is almost twice as good as anything from apple. I have the 604 which has a lower resolution and it looks great.

I can't imagine an archos product that had gaps inbetween pixels unless you are talking about something from back in 2002.

The touchscreen works fine with fingers, but internet browsing is faster with a pointer. If you zoomed into a page you would only need fingers, but with such a high resolution, most pages can be viewed with no zoom unlike the iphone/touch.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2007 5:32PM]

Somebody need to be "stone" compare Archos with iPod with different sides? Why they not put on same level? with by with and hight by hight? Screen is much better and bigger by Archos and actualy new 605 is much greater than iPod, i test with internte and all pages works fine - who cares about iPhone - i think its much better ideas when talking on the phone and watching your news or internet pages but not ony by one think like on iPhone.

[rento Posted Sep 14th 2007 8:15AM]

Archos makes the best PMP.. just read the specs, they are amazing.
Apple just isnt there yet. All hype, cramped specs and restrictive functionality.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 14th 2007 4:04PM]

Does anybody know where you can buy the 605 160 gb? It is sold out everywhere I've looked.... Thanks

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 17th 2007 9:09PM]

I'm a 605 owner for now almost 3 weeks and i love it! Other than what has already been said, one HUGE advantage the 605 has, in IMO, is wireless streaming from your home PC. So you can download a torrent movie, wirelessly play it on the 605, but display it on your big TV. It supports divx, xvid, etc out of the box, which will play most torrent movies.

Plus it streams and plays movies, tv shows, etc directly from www.joox.net! Incredible!

John

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 22nd 2007 12:36AM]

@ John

Does streaming from Pc-> TV through the 605 require the DVR dock or any other accessory? I am hoping it is out of the box.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 28th 2007 1:47PM]

unless ur another teenage girl w/ too much of daddys money than the archos is the only and obvious option. ***Supreme***