Simply put, the Archos, is a media player - but it doesn't end there.
The Archos can play almost any format of music, video and photos. It can schedule, record and playback through your TV, browse the web, display photos straight off your camera, has WiFi, plus a massive 320gb hard drive hat would put most netbooks to shame. However, the best bit, once you have last night's episode of Doctor Who recorded, you can slip it into your pocket and take it to work.
So, if it's that good, you ask, why won't I buy another one?
If a car dealer sells you a dodgy car, would you go back there to buy your next one? If a restaurant served you three week old sushi, would you recommend the same place to a friend? I doubt it. So looking back at the previous model, I've put together a short rant list of reasons I wont buy the next model.
The Accessories
Buying the Archos is not cheap to begin with. For the 160gb Hard Drive model, it set me back £280. Naturally the first thing I did was to buy a £30 leather case to keep it shiny. Then the fun started. In order to record/playback through the TV, I needed a dock, which was a further £100, to schedule programs, I needed a subscription to tvtv.co.uk (£20) to play DVDs you need a plugin at £20.
Playing ipod compatible video: £20. To browse the web: £30. If I want to play the Archos through a TV (and record) while at my parent's house, I would need two additional mobile docks each costing around £90, thats a total of £400, just to get it to do what the advert says!
Customer Support
Then there's the Customer Support which is quite frankly embarrassing. Replies to emails were sometimes one-liners (or just a link to a webpage). Registering online often takes you into an endless abyss, asking you to re-enter your serial and model number several times. And the first plugin I bought, resulted in a charge to my card, but no sign of said plugin (eventually sorted out).
Updates to the device were reasonably frequent at first, but as soon as the new model was released, they soon stopped, leaving traces of features marked "coming soon" in a state of limbo.
The £680 paper weight
One year after purchase almost to the day, the worst thing that could happen to any gadget freak happened: it stopped working.
Well, that's not entirely true, it works to a point, but it won't connect to any accessories, which for an Archos is a fate worse than death. It doesn't always charge, it won't connect to the TV and it certainly won't allow anything to be uploaded or downloaded from the device. Yes folks I have a £680 paper weight.
I'm now saving up for an iTouch.