The device boasts a 4 inch widescreen LCD which sits centre left of the unit with a small but workable D pad to the right, around the D Pad sit a number of buttons. Two for quick scrolling through media and others for interaction with the on screen menus. The silver coating gives the AV500 an air of high quality and the general styling cues sit well with a modern PMP unit. Perhaps our only negative comment on the design is the lack of any method to prop the screen up when sitting on a table, for example on those laughable ledges you get on trains between the sets of 4 seats.

At first we were concerned that the resolution of 480 x 272 would be a bit low given that its not even QVGA, but on a small 4" screen this lack of the acknowledged resolution was not that noticeable and the encoding of video played a bigger part in overall image quality. The Archos AV500 will support the replay of MPEG-4 which is its main format and almost all other video formats are pushed via the MPEG-4 translator which is supplied with the AV500.

We started our tests at the point where most PMP's fail, getting anything onto the device! It's always a surprise just how many portable media players have inadequate methods for transferring both file based media and recording live video signals. Archos have been one of the better company's at providing something useable so we had high hopes. The supplied collection of cables and a dock make setting up your AV500 a bit of a nightmare and even colour coding your cables doesn't help, we managed to get the SCART connection working after a prolonged tussle and the AV500 was finally sat in its video dock ready to play ball.

Then it's time for part 2 and the need to use the 500's on screen VHS machine like settings to schedule a recording, this does work but reminds us of programming and 80's video recorder or a central heating timer! There is the option of using Yahoo's My TV online service, at least this gives you access to listings of Freeview so we could click and select what we wanted to record, but there is still the process of downloading that schedule from yahoo onto the device. Again this does work and to our minds is better than typing in times and dates but its hardly technology of today. Just what is so tricky that none of the PMP makers can get the EPG onto the device itself via a USB or network connection.

The good news is that you can lift DVD's and push them to the AV500 as it supports Macrovision, meaning the copy block that normally defeats most PMP's (using legal software) does not defeat the Archos, although you can only watch the DVD ripped files on the DVR itself and not on a TV via the video output.

So having got some media onto the DVR it was time to try out the replay. The 4 inch screen really looks very good despite the lowish resolution, the images are crisp, bright and well balanced in both contrast and colour. Our pet hate is also largely missing, the blacks are actually black rather than some form of grey which is rare in a portable video device. On a number of ripped DVD's and also some converted MPEG-1 files the video replay quality is really quite something, clearly the AV 500 has sufficient processing power to guarantee smooth stall free playback. All your video content whether recorded or file transfer is categorised and easily sorted by Archos excellent GUI which makes locating files simple and quick even if you have opted for 100gb version which can hold a lot of video!

Its not just video either, while you'd buy a PMP for video it also makes one hell of an MP3 player, working with MP3, WMA (including DRM wrapped) and WAV files. The same intuitive GUI that allows you to easily search for and find video also makes hunting for music easy. Audio quality is very similar to a top end MP3 player like an iPod or Sony network walkman, plus the battery on the AV500 can play audio for around 15 hours on a single charge.

The battery is not only beefy (giving a respectable 5 hours video replay) but its also replaceable which means that when its charge / recharge cycle eventually kills the unit you can replace it rather than having to opt for iPod style open heart surgery.

Then there is the AV500's connectivity, on the IT side of things there are 2 USB connections 1 is the main method for hooking the DVR to a host PC enabling file transfer and control and the other is a full USB host. Which means you can connect a digital camera or other device and suck files into the Archos large hard drive for safe keeping, you can even view photos in a basic photo viewer.

A week later and we'd grown quite used to having the AV500, both while travelling and sat on the desk at work, well sort of sat, more like lying down due to its criminal lack of having a stand! and that's probably the worst part of the Archos AV500. In many ways its a very similar to the bigger AV700 and it inherits the awkward recording method from the family genes. However the AV500 is a much more manageable size and more portable than the bigger and more expensive AV700, it plays video with aplomb and is possibly the most accomplished PMP we've reviewed to date.

100gb model

30gb model

Published - 18/02/2006

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