User friendly player that is well constructed (Archos 104 6 GB)

Member Name: geek_squad

Product:	Archos 104 6 GB
Date:	01/07/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: user friendly, reasonable photo viewing capabilities, satisfactory sound quality, robust constructio

Disadvantages: lacks radio, terrible software provided, barely acceptable battery life

The Archos 104 has quite good sound clarity even when using the supplied headphones. Sadly this player does not have a radio function.

The player is acutely easy to operate, however the software that is included is dreadful, making Windows Media Player an ideal replacement.

At first glance it is easy to mistake it for an Ipod Nano, the 6GB player is also constructed robustly, with a sturdy structure. Which makes it durable against the occasional drop or knock, the supplied neck strap is brilliant to carry the player securely.

This player can be used with both PC and Macs. The supplied headphones have a fairly long cable and produces good quality sound. It can be further improved by using a set of additional headphones.
It supports WAV, WMA and MP3 formats and has a fast upload time, on average transferring 100mb in about 60 seconds.

In addition it is a reasonable device for photo viewing, it supports pictures in jpeg format, which can be transferred easily using drag and drop. There are fairly basic options to view the photos, because it does not have the capability to play music whilst photos and does not have a slideshow function,

Like any other player, it has the bog-standard feature to hold, resume and play in random order, and also boast a clock. Its a good device, with the exception of lack of microphone and radio capabilities.

When the well designed menu structure is combined with the good position of buttons, it results in a user friendly player. Even though certain buttons have multiple functions assigned to them which could be potentially confusing.

On average a 150 minute charge provides about 750 minutes of playback which is not outstanding. It can be either charged with the supplied USB cable or the mains.

Summary: this player might disappoint users that want a wide range of features and functions

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