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| Brand: Archos
Category: CE
List Price: $599.99
Buy Used: $299.99
You Save: $300.00 (50%)
Used (2) from $299.99
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 17654
Color: Silver
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Fragile: No
Batteries Included: No
Hard Drive Size: 100
Display Size: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 10.5 x 7.3 x 5
MPN: 500709
Model: 500709
UPC: 690590507098
EAN: 0690590507098
ASIN: B000AQDOKM
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: used very good ,comes with remote and dvr station ,usb cables
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| Customer Reviews:
So Far, I'm Very Satisfied August 27, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've had the product for a month now and I haven't had any lock-up, connection or any other problems other reviewers wrote about.
I was able to connect it to my tv, vcr or dvd in minutes and start recording, no problem. I do agree that the speaker volume is way too low. You can adjust the video recording volume. I would recommend setting it to the highest level before making a recording, that helps, but with cd's there's not much you can do.
Archos claims you can store up to 250 movies, but that is with the lowest resolution which I think is horrible. With acceptable resolution, you'll get more like 100 movies. Also if you record some dvd's, they are playable on the device, but not thru your tv because of copyright protection. This is annoying.
I would also recommend not using windows to put music on it. This is where the lock-ups occur. I use it as a hard drive device and have had no problems.
I haven't had any dealing with customer service and I hope not to from what I've read. I'm very careful with it, even though it does seem very sturdy and well made. I am definitely backing up important files.
It gets 4 stars instead of 5 because of the low speaker volume, the carrying case is poorly designed, the lowest video resoultion is unwatchable and it doesn't accept any text file formats which archos advertising claims it did. Overall though, I think all my research paid off and I'm very happy.
 Great for on the go. Extremely Happy! August 9, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
After reading all of the reviews. I read the entire product manual that is available on this page before I purchased this Item. Once I got it in the mail. I read over the manual that was included in the box which is for the very basics. In order to completely get the full understanding and know how to operate it you must definately read the extended manual. It is very easy to operate once you read it. I initially bought this to have my son's video's for road trips and I found myself putting my husbands and my favorite DVD's on here as well. I put my mp3's by using the hard drive feature. This is truly a great device, it really does all the things that is featured. I didn't like the sound at first but after going in and adjusting the setting in the main menu. I am very pleased with the sound. I love that I am able to plug this into a TV to view the movies that I have in my media player. I haven't had enough time to test the battery life. I am looking forward to seeing if it will really go six hours when we go to hawaii this winter. The main reason I love this device is for the storage on this device. I haven't had any problems with my device and I purchased it in June. I wanted to wait a while before writing a review because I based my purchase on the reviews. If you have had problems return it and get another one. Maybe it was just a bad unit. You won't be dissapointed. Great product!
 I like the design of the av400 alot better July 28, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
So far the Av500 is a winner for me only in that it has more
than triple the harddrive space than my Av400 has. I don't
like that it's more bulkier and the button pad is not finger
friendly. list. Sometimes it shows up and sometimes I cannot find out how to bring it up. The little speaker is so useless. It has a very tiny sound. The Av400 was just as bad but at least you could hear content clearly. On the bright side, the screen size is nice and it does support a basic wmv format along with Avi's which is an improvement over the AVI limited Av400. So all n all, get this to store lots of content and then get a Cowon A2 too. Also stay tuned for the Av505 which supposedly will have a bigger harddrive version of 160 gb and better button/navigation interface. There's no PMP that is a slam dunk winner. They all have flaws and strengths. Enjoy!
Fantastic Road Warrior Companion July 25, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I travel weekly via plane, and have had some sort of PDA /MP3 type device since 2000. I started with Creative's Nomad Jukebox, 40 gig, CD PLayer sized device at about 10 oz., and for the last few years have had a Creative Zen X-tra 30 gig. I'm a bit older, and frankly am tired of looking at a microscopic LCD screen, that you can hardly see. Also Album Art is important to me, because frequently if I see an Album I'm interested in, I can't remember sometimes if I have it or not by looking at the song, as much as the graphic; also Titles like #1's, and Greatest Hits all start looking the same. There's psychology for me in being able to look at the Album Cover!
From what I read folks buy the Archos for video playing and recording, not primarily for MP3s; and not for carrying while jogging. I bought it after reading all the other reviews primarily to hold my MP3 collection on a bright screen and display album art.
First of all I've used it now about 3 weeks and the device is flawless!!! I spent easily 30 hours though re-organizing my MP3 album collection, cleaning up duplicates, re-ripping CD's that software applied the wrong tags too, or put in Unknown albums. I bought Tag and Rename online to help me do this; and in cases where it couldn't find album art, I did a google search and found jpeg covers, saved them and added them to the tags.
I tried to load my newly cleaned-up collection to my Zen Xtra and found that WindowsMediaPlayer10, created duplicate libraries. Afraid to corrupt my Archos, I transferred the library manually to the Archos putting it in HardDrive mode. Since doing this I have grown to love HradDrive mode to manage the data on the Archos and my laptop and home PCs. It is so easy to drag and drop and don't have to worry about synch issues. I even talked to Archos Tech support, and the rep I talked to said he doesn't use Windows Media Player to synch, does it manual too.
As one reviewer wrote the navigation buttons are not quite intuitive; but after about 2 weeks of working with the Archos, I really appreciate their set-up over any other device I've worked with. The bookmark function is great, and the resume feature I love. The audio quality is right up there with Creative's; and the screen is awesome. The overall quality of the hardware is a good 4 stars, 5 stars would be something really rugged for me.
The little tiny speaker that plays music is not great, but not bad to let you hear something in a pinch; like test a song, etc, or listen to a movie privately. I use either Sennheiser headphones or Bose.
When the track plays, it displays the album art, but not as you page through the music list. But at least I can find the cover and get to know what I have.
Now video. I told you already I bought this to be a great MP3 player, not video; but anything I got with video for me was a bonus. Well I didn't realize that as a Personal Video Recorder it will record video, right from a source. But for me with travelling, I don't want to have to carry another device, open my laptop in a tiny airline seat, or worry about my battery dying. Also I didn't want to take the time to record a DVD from a DVD player to play on the Archos. For me it's easier to rip a video if I could. I don't condone illegal sharing, but making a copy for myself, of movies that if they weren't portable, I'd never find time to watch; is legal as far as I'm concerned. While Archos won't sell or support this, I bought an IM TOO DVD ripper package on the web, and am trialing DVDIdle's CSS and Region free. I have successfully ripped about 4 movies, including Chronicles of Narnia. There's some slight choppiness in the ripped movies, which are probably a techinical issue, because they are slightly choppy or hesitate a tiny bit, on my laptop ripped or the Archos, unrelated to the Archos. But not enough to really effect playability. Anyway the movies for me are AWESOME on the ARCHOS. Picture quality is bright, audio is great; and action flows nice except for what I noted. The side angle viewing is not bad. The device performs really well; is very pleasing to work with and operate. I'm considering buying an extended warranty in the next week. I've had some of these warranties before for other products, and if you ever get a ding on the device, they probbably won't repair it, because they'll say you caused the damage; even when you didn't. But for 29.99 for 2 years I think it's worth a shot. Archos Tech support said they get calls about the devices freezing-up, but then those are the only calls they get? so how many really do? They told me to keep the unit backed-up so if I have to re-format I could.
Also, as you can use the device USB Media Player or as a USB hard drive; Archos is very specific about telling you that if you have it in USB mode, you can "just" disconnect it; but if it's hard drive mode, do a safely remove hardware in windows before disconnecting. Well because I have it plugged into the USB port, I forgot several times, and pulled it out, in hard drive mode w/o doing the safely remove. So I taped a tiny note right on the USB plug, and was able to break the USB pull habit, and have always done the safely remove. As I said I just love the convenience on any computer recognizing this as a HardDrive. I've just started putting photos on it, and some personal movies, and getting all this in one small device; makes this worth it. This is certainly an expensive item, but for weekly travel and portability, and being able to see a screen!!!, it's nice home away from home!
 Poor Customer Service July 22, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I bought my AV500 in May from Amazon. It worked well until early July when the external sound from the built in speakers went out on the unit. I called Archos Technical Support. They told me it was a hardware problem, that I would need to send it back for repair and that they would email me an RMA with return instructions in two days. Two weeks and multiple emails and phone calls later, I still don't have an RMA with instructions on how to send the unit back for repair. Archos keeps telling me how sorry they are for the inconvenience and that they are continuing to look into why the warehouse hasn't contacted me. Customer returns are a routine function of most businesses. There is no justifiable reason why a customer should be kept waiting over two weeks and counting just to get instructions on how to make a return. This is the first and last Archos product I will buy.
Customer support is a critical component in selling a complex and expensive product like the AV500. In my opinion, Archos' customer service is essentially non-existent. Given Archos' demonstrated lack of customer service, I am now concerned that if I ever do get the chance to send the unit back for repair, I will never see it again. Archos could learn a few things from Amazon which has the best customer service I have ever seen. I buy a great deal from Amazon even though they are often not the lowest priced precisely because of their great customer service.
The picture and video quality of the Archos are excellent. However, I found the dedicated A/V cables too short to easily connect to the TV. Recording video on the AV500 is not a simple process for people who are not technologically sophisticated. The instructions for recording off the TV are not helpful unless you have the exact hardware setup described in the written and video instructions Archos provides.
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