great piece of equiptment (Archos AV700 40 GB)

Member Name: techno_man_37

Product:	Archos AV700 40 GB
Date:	08/11/08 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: can tape tv

Disadvantages: expensive, loads of better stuff out now

This review is on the fantastic archos av700, why I bought it and even though I am currently thinking about selling it, I still loved, and love having it.

Well I bought this, because my old mp4 player, which to be honest was rubbish broke. So when I was looking around for a new one, I came across this one, I saw the prices for it to be around £400, which for me was a lot of money to spend on something I was unsure I would want.
However whilst looking around staples one day, I cam across these at a reduced price. They were £300, which is still a lot of money, but at this time they were actually selling for more near £400 on eBay.
So after a few days of thought I decided to buy one of these, so I went to staples and forked out £300 to get one.
I'm not sure how much they are to buy now, but this was about 2 years ago so no doubt the price would have changed.

The first thing I noticed when I opened it was, how much things you get with it. There's the case, loads of wires, headphones and then the recording box that comes with loads of wires too.
Basically the recording pod, has to be plugged into the TV and because I have a free view box, into the free view box too, this then goes into your archos and charges it as well as lets you video things of the TV. This took ages to set up so I just leave it in all of the time.

The great thing about this mp4, is not only being able to watch videos, but also being able to tape things off the TV, then watch them back whenever you want, you can even play them back over your TV.
It also has great music playing and photo viewing features, as well as being able to download and play games. Although I must admit I haven't yet bought any games so I just play the demos you get of them.

This particular archos is 40GB though you can get them in 80GB and 100GB models. I manage with 40GB easily enough and I always have about 8GB of music on and then I can fit so much hours of video content of there too.
Another thing about this is that it has a USB port b. it comes with a wire that goes straight from this port on the mp4 into any camera with a USB port. This basically means you can put the pictures from your camera straight onto the mp4 player without use of any computer.

This was great when I went on holiday, and my camera memory got full up, I just put the pictures onto this, then I had full memory on my camera again, its so useful.
This is also so good for journeys, as it just makes time fly by. also when I was on the plane, I just sat watching it, and it made 5 hours seem like nothing.

The battery life on its pretty good too, it'll last around 5 hours for video and 30 hours for music which is great. However I also bought off eBay, a battery charger which runs of 4 AA batteries and plugs into the mp4 player to charge it, this Is really useful and I have used it so many times.
All in all this is a great piece of equipment, although I must say I don't use it much anymore, as I haven't been on any journeys on a train or plane recently. Also I now have a laptop, so if I go anywhere id probably take this instead, so now I am really undecided to whether or not to sell it and try get some money back.
But all together, if you did buy on of these you will probably get your use out of it, because I have.

Summary: was good but now doesnt compare

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