Archos 604

Last week I bought an Archos 604 personal video player. I really wanted a music and video player I could travel with. Many people told me I should look at the video IPod , but to be honest the screen on it was way to small.

So I was narrowed my choices between the Archos 604, the 604 wifi, and the Cowon A2. There were a lot of features that all three of the players supported. They include the ability to play movies, and music, record off tv, browse photo slide shows, and read PDFs. Although the Archos supported a few more media types that the Cowon. All the players sported a 30gb drive. This is a little small by today's standards but large enough for my needs.

The reason I ended up picking the Archos players over the Cowon because I new for sure all my music and video would play on the player. I am not saying my music wouldn't play on the Cowon but I couldn't find all the file types I needed listed on their website.

So now I had to pick between the wifi version and the non wifi version. On the surface the wifi version jumped out at me. The unit could browse the internet and also act as a go between your tv and computer streaming media back and forth. These options sounded cool until I though a little more about it. First why would I need to browse the internet? I have a cell phone that can do that and I rarely use it. Plus on airplane you are not allowed to use your wifi. So I started thinking about the media streaming and decided I don't need that. I can already stream video and music through my XBox 360. Also; while reading reviews for both players I found the the screen on the wifi version did not have as dark of blacks.

After about a week of use, I have been satisfied. I use it with yahoo music anywhere, and have any song I could possible want. I haven't found a online video store that I like yet, but I have been recording TV programs and DVDs to the device. Playback is good, and with some trial and error I even got good sound levels.