Now we've seen people on trains and planes with laptops watching a DVD but this is hardly possible on a bus or god forbid a London tube and that's where the Archos AV400 a portable video jukebox comes in.

The Archos AV400 is 125 x 78 x 20mm which makes it bigger than an Ipod and it also weighs a hefty 280g but and its a big but this is a full on video playback and recording device, the 35" LCD screen can display 262k colours at 320 x 240 resolution. The main format used by Archos in these devices is MPEG4 which is a very efficient form of video encoding, a full lengths feature film is just over 2gb, our test movie star wars the empire strikes back was split into 2 files which added up to 2.2gb.

Replay of the film captured via s-video from our DVD player was stutter free and looked pretty good on the bright Archos LCD screen, the contrast was good for such a small device and the blacks were a little grey for our tastes but then you can't get everything perfect. Audio quality was remarkably good both on the film and also on a number of mp3 tracks we tried at different bit rates, of course the inbuilt speaker is little good for anything other than checking the audio is working, but with a good set of headphones the AV400 turns in a good all round AV performance.

We were very impressed with the AV400's replay characteristics but the real downside is how you get media onto the device, it seems very picky about files you push through the USB 2.0 connection from a host PC. Despite claims to the contrary none of our Divx files would play and even MPEG4's converted using the supplied Virtual dub software seemed to occasionally stall and that's after you have spent what seems like eternity waiting for this software to perform a conversion.

So admitting a file transfer defeat we resorted to direct recording, for this Archos have supplied a little dock into which you shoehorn the AV400 and connect up the S-Video or SCART leads, using the supplied infa red remote you can programme the dock / your TV or set top box to record onto the AV400. The direct record from DVD @ 512 x 384 looked pretty crisp and were more than acceptable for viewing while on the bus but recordings from the Freeview set top box looked a little ropey, plus the AV400 dock / record system refused to control our set top box!

Faced with having to sit in and manually record TV shows we tried the "Yahoo TV Guide" link which you schedule on the web and then download your record list to the device but this just managed to record lots of snooker, fantastic just what you need on your way to work with a hangover. All this is a real shame as the AV400 as a replay device is pretty cool, we managed about 3.5 hours video replay and over 11hrs of MP3 playback on a single charge, plus its a joy to drive with an easy menu system and good feeling soft keys situated next to the screen.

Viewing images on the AV400 is a 100% happy experience, the preview mode is simple to use and allows very quick navigation of photos in the thumbnail view, you can even build slideshows from your collection to bore the nuts off a fellow commuter or work colleague. The inbuilt Compact Flash slot also opens up the possibility of being able to download you cameras images directly to the AV400 a feature which Archos add to many of their devices.

The 20gb model reviewed here should be good for about 16 full length movies assuming the higher recording bit rate, its a real shame that we can't just blast files across the USB 2.0 connection as Archos claim is possible, perhaps later firmware releases will make the AV400 less picky but until then you should expect to have to carry out direct records.

And in short that's what stops the Archos AV400 being a viable gadget for livening up your daily commute, the device itself is small enough with a good battery and nice bright screen and excellent sound, but its more difficult to get into than a giraffes only nightclub.

At £319 it's not badly priced and is roughly an extra £100 over a similar size Ipod, so that's £100 for video replay and photo viewing capability, depending on your attitude towards making direct recordings then this might be a good gadget for you, but for us, well we want reliable file transfer and Archos just aren't there yet!

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