Archos 404 (30 GB, 7500 Songs) Digital Media Player

This little known maker of hard drive based multimedia players has been cutting edge and ahead of the game since the first introductroduction of hard drive players, when ipod introduced its first hard drive based player with a non removable battery, archor released the slightly larger jukebox WITH the removable replaceable battery, and now unsurpassed streamlined entertainment. The 404 retails currently retails for around 220$ thats 30$ cheaper then the popular competitor Ipod video but this player proves that the rule you get what you pay for can be entirely wrong. This player sports a huge lcd, nearly unsurpassed format compatability and a beautiful alluminum casing that is to say the least scratch resistant. The player natively plays Divx, Xvid, WMV9 right out of the box and drag and drop convenience which to many audiophiles is a VERY important feature as opposed to the software dependant competitors but for the few that prefer the streamlining of playlist syncing, well you can do this to. One of the major hurdles in hard drive players offering drag and drop interface was the innability to play DRM content but not with this player, this problem was solved by offering the WMP10 sync option. Unfortunatly the unit does not include a wall adapter but it charges surprisingly fast on a standard 2.0 USB hub and the battery offers a slightly above average battery lifetime at about 10 hours full volume and bass boost enabled and about 3-4 hours video. If there was something to hate about this player is the costly extras to unlock some of the players interesting extra features such as the optional DVR station which currently retails for about 70$ but hey the docking station offers a huge upgrade to this player including multiple inputs and outputs for video, audio, and even data including a very slick host input which comes in handy for those thumb drives and card readers, and although it does not yet support any hard external hard drives at the moment it does show promise for this in the future, this combined with the intuitive remote interface would make a incredible set top replacement for TIVO(R) and DVD recorders as there is virtualy no monthly costs or discs to buy or scratch. This player also acts as a programmable scheduler which automatically tunes your digital cable box or vcr and records at a set time so that if you work strange hours like I do you don't have to miss that episode of your favorite show. This player supports VOB and AC3 audio for a 20 odd dollar firmware upgrade but any way you look at it the mpaa has made this illegal so if you were to copy your dvds it makes more sense to encode in Divx which plays natively on the player and it also supports podcasts for about the same price but if you have experianced this players vivid 16 million color screen then your less likely to be interested in content designed for the Ipods inferior 65 thousand color screen. All in all BUY THIS player if you are shopping for an affordable portable multimedia player that gives you more bang for your buck and make sure that you do the free firmare updates.