Archos 605 WiFi 30GB

The device got delivered to me already broken with a failed HDD. After sending it to France, got it back fixed within a week.

The touch screen is great and with ease of use. The sound as well great, lovely image quality, nice thin design, many features like equalizer, widgits,opera browser, WiFi etc.

I hate the Archos politics of forcing you to pay extra for almost eveyrthing to get the device working, like AC-3, MPEG, AAC codecs, AC adapter (!) or TV dock. The battery is a joke! It lasts maybe 2h, in continuous mode, maybe 3h. Wihout the battery dock (extra £40) you have to charge it at least 12h with PC USB cable.

The device goes crazy from time to time, resting itself, turning on itself(!) or freezing from time to time, as well as the buttons start to react less and less with every month of use (luckliy you can touch the screen to operate). So after 3years of use, I give it another year before it stops working on me and will be forced to buy another one. This time it will be a Cowon or similar. Will never come near Archos again.

Now had the archos for over a year and what a top peice of kit it has been. All features work well, sound quality with a set of good headphones is great and the screen is ultra clear. I have used the item for my daily 30 min train journey and always watch a movie recorded via the docking station from Sky.

I cant fault this item, two Ipods have broken in the time I have owned the 605 Wifi belonging to my son. Shame about the earlier reviews, guess I was licky with my one!

Bought this Archos 605 WiFi 30GB in Oct 09 worked ok but then things started going wrong a couple of months ago ,I can only use the touch screen as the buttons don't work properly & now it won't connect to the internet. The battery life is useless, about an hour watching videos The screen size is the only thing going for it.I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, waste of money!

sound quality compared to i pod crap, and this is my 2nd archos to go wrong, also you have to buy a charger and get charged again to access wi fi,

i bought it cos of the screen size and picture quality, but the tv switch packed up 2 weeks after buying, i think they look nice but arent reliable at all

Great when working. But in my experience it crashes regularly..

Unable to obtain help in UK for me personally. Where can you get them repaired?

I do not recommend the Archos 605 WiFi 30GB mp3 player.

very please with the Archos MP3 Player. No notes product great pocket video player

I have the Archos unit, the 605 wifi 160gb for about six months. I have music, films and photos loaded on to it. It is easy to double the cost of your purchase by buying plug- ins from the archos site. Without them certain video formats wont play which can limit the usability. All the plug-ins should be free and archos' point that customers can purchase plug-ins if needed is rather a shallow marketing ploy which I feel it is now.

THe PC /Laptop connectability is straightforward. Drag and drop very simple.

As one of your other reviewers stated using the features (paticularly the plug-ins) is not at all straight forward but I suspect it could be with a little access to plain english. The sceen quality is very good and I have been delighted with the video reproduction. The built in speaker is poor and so are the bundled earphones. I purchased the docking station ( £75) which enables me to play videos(avi plug in purchased), games ( £40 extra) and view my photos on the TV screen. I still havn't worked out how to stream video via wi-fi or to use the 605 as a PVR. Web access (plug-in purchased) is very slow certainly not worth persuing, its quicker to use the laptop.

Battery life average.Video (main reason most purchasers buy the archos 605)very heavy. I bought a battery pack (not Archos) that powers the archos through its USB port to extend usability when power points aren't available. This particular model has a built in battery that can't be changed.

I have experienced freezing although not to the extent of your other reviewer. I switched off for a few minutes and rebooted and all was well.

Does this review sound negative? I still feel that the 605 160gb is still the best all rounder for all its faults.

If you only want games/photo viewer buy a PSP

If you only want slick web access buy a iPhone

If you only want to watch video on the move buy a portable DVD player

But if you want all these, then the 605 tries to be all these things and in some respects pulls it off and in others it fails.

I thought long and hard before buying a media player, it came down to the Archos 605 80GB or an Apple Ipod-touch 32GB, I chose the Archos mainly because of the larger screen and 80Gb hard drive. On paper the Archos has a very rich list of features and I must admit I was very impressed when the unit arrived, it appears to be very well made with quite a substantial weight to it, perhaps slightly too heavy. After about 24hrs of owning the unit I started to have problems with crashing. When the unit does have problems it starts up in a kind of safe mode which offers you 3 options, Repair, Restore or Format. OK so its crashed lets hit repair.....nothing, ok how about restore....still nothing, guess what happens when you press Format, yep you guessed it absolutely nothing. The unit will just go blank for a few seconds and then return to the same screen with the same options, basically the unit will start to work when it's good and ready. I persevered with the unit for about 4 weeks until eventually it refused to work no matter what I tried. The company from market place Amazon passed me direct to the manufacturer.Archos refused to replace the unit even though it was new, the alternative was to send it back to be repaired under warranty.They don't arrange for collection so it cost £10 by TNT to return it.After almost 4 weeks it was finally returned, minus my 2 plug-ins and slightly scratched!!!I'm currently still trying to get my plug-ins back but due to a very buggy website I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.

I bought the Archos 605 WiFi 30GB for my wife for Christmas. Really, I just wanted it for videos, photos and music. When you start using it you realize that you have to buy plug-ins to watch video - a bit like buying a new TV and finding that it's only got sound and you've got to pay extra for the picture! I loaded photos onto it only to be told that they were too big. I resized everything on my computer to 1600 x 1200 and still some would display and some wouldn't. I have spent hours messing about with this machine trying to get photos to work and it has been back to the shop a number of times. It also has a habit of freezing and crashing with monotonous regularity. The picture quality is excellent if and when it works, so if you're the sort of person who's into classic cars, where you spend more time under the bonnet than on the road, this might be the machine for you. For me, after six months of nothing but hassle, I gave up with this hopeless, hateful piece of kit and took it back to the shop for a full refund. Looking at other reviews, maybe I was just unlucky but never again will I ever go anywhere near an Archos. Oh, and now I'm now sat looking at the leather case and docking station that I bought elsewhere and have absolutely no use for. Horrible, hateful experience oh, and when you take the cost of the machine, the plug-ins, the case and the docking station, you're into the £300 bracket, or put another way, a decent laptop.