I've just spent some of my bonus ...

[AndRu]

... on one of these beauties - A portable digital video recorder. I've loaded it up with over 2000 songs, every "My Name Is Earl", all of the Star Wars movies (copied from my own DVD collection) and there is still loads of room to spare.

Gone are those boring lunchtimes, train journeys, or being stuck somewhere with nothing to do. Yeah, I know I should read a book or do Sudoko (yawn!) but I'm a bloke so gadgets are a must There have been some envious eyes at work today!

 

[ely3857]

My df would LOVE one of these! Absoutley no use for it but he's a mad gadget freak



Jodie

 

[florida sun]

My best friends husband had one of these last Christmas and he loves it, as you say he says train journeys are not so boring anymore.

 

[shellbell]

DH would also love one of these

 

[mandymouse]

DH would also love one of these

Mine too, he's a bit of a gadget freak

 

[wils]

That's one cool piece of kit. Enjoy it!

 

[jjpenguin]

That's a cool gadget.. now I just need to get a bonus

 

[disney13]

Ah, gadgets.......

I have the AV700 which I love. Great on trains, planes or in automobiles! I've loaded mine with every episode of The Sopranos and various other TV shows and films

Have fun!
Andy

 

[Minniespal]

I've had my eyes on one of these for a while now ~ going to have a good look in the US next month.

 

[AndRu]

Oooh - The Sopranos. I've got the box sets 1 to 4 on DVD ... that'll be a serious encoding session to get them onto the player!!

After using the device for 48 hours the only drawback I can find is that it's very sensitive. Sometimes just changing the volume can cause the video to stop playing. Using the remote control gets around this but as the RC is bigger than the player it's not an option to lump around! Overall though the Archos AV500 is a stunning piece of kit.

 

[jockey]

Would love one of these - what a cool gadget!

 

[Tron[ADS]]

Nice bit of kit.
Anyone considering one, but feel they wouldnt need the recording facility, could also consider a PSP with something like a 2Gb card.

 

[AndRu]

I had considered a PSP but even a 2gb card would be too small for me as I'd be chopping and changing all the time. At least with 30gb I can chuck stuff at it and have room to spare. Besides, the PSP is sooooo last season! I've even had admiring looks from girls when using the Archos so that's a bonus!!

 

[Tron[ADS]]

I had considered a PSP but even a 2gb card would be too small for me as I'd be chopping and changing all the time. At least with 30gb I can chuck stuff at it and have room to spare. Besides, the PSP is sooooo last season! I've even had admiring looks from girls when using the Archos so that's a bonus!!

30Gb would be nice, and your probably right about last season, but from what Ive read (and ive not seen an Archos running), the screen has considerably better image quality on the PSP due to it having 16.7M colors rather than the 262,000 or the Archos, and its half an inch larger. Whats your take on that, have you seen them both to compare ?
The difference in purchase price could probably just about buy 2 x 2Gb cards, which would be enough for me at about 50Mb per 22min tv program once converted down to that screen resolution.
I have to say though, why anyone would consider one of those video Ipod's with their postage stamp screen, in preference to a PSP/Archos, is beyond me.

There is of course the advantage of the games on the PSP, though I have to say I am dissapointed in mine. I have about 30-40 games for it, and theres only about one I actualy like. In the couple of weeks ive had a DS Lite, its had more playtime than the PSP's had in almost a year.

 

[AndRu]

I know someone at work with a PSP and we put them side by side playing the movie “Resident Evil”. There were 5 of us watching and the vote went 3/2 in favour of the Archos looking better than the PSP. Interestingly, the owner of the PSP voted for the Archos! My own view is that the Archos appears to have more clarity; it seemed to be easier to watch the darker scenes on the Archos than on the PSP. Don’t get me wrong, the PSP is a great piece of kit and if money (read DW!) allowed I would have one. I think I might be in the same boat as you though as it’d probably only be racing games that might entice me to play. We have a DS at home and the kids love it; my boys for Mario Kart and my daughter for Nintendogs.

The DS is a games console period, it makes no attempt to do anything else – the PSP is a games console and trying to be a media player – it’s close but no cigar. If it had a hard drive instead of memory cards it would be top banana. However, I doubt whether a PSP2 will have a hard drive as Sony will (correctly) be worried about piracy. Any games console that has a high storage device, as Microsoft found with the original X-Box, has the capacity to be used to run pirated games from a hard drive. And that’s the bone of contention. Even though hard drive capacities are rising and their physical size and cost falling, Microsoft and Sony are putting low capacity drives into their new consoles. They don’t want games to be pirated onto hard drives.

I wanted a mass storage device to play music and videos on the go. I wanted something I could just dump a load of stuff onto and then play it at my leisure. For me, the Archos fits perfectly. I’d like a PSP and I’ll probably get one at Xmas for the kids It was for the kids, honest!

As for Apple? I don’t like their computers or their over priced/hyped/rated/restrictive I-Pods or I-Tunes. They’ve managed to corner the market in MP3 players but they are some of the worst available. Companies such as Creative and Rio make far better music players than Apple but people just get blinkered into buying something with the words “Apple” or “I-Pod” as they’ve been brainwashed into thinking it’s the best. Just because everyone calls a vacuum cleaner a “Hoover” doesn’t mean that it is still the #1 – Dyson have proved that and I hope people will soon realise this in the MP3 market!

 

[Minniespal]

I've even had admiring looks from girls when using the Archos so that's a bonus!!

Nice one

 

[Tron[ADS]]

it seemed to be easier to watch the darker scenes on the Archos than on the PSP.

Thats really interesting that you would say that....as I initialy thought that that my PSP screen was near perfect, until I got the game Gradius, which is one of my favorite games from the Arcades 20 years ago or so. I dont know if you are familiar with it, but there is one particular element of the game that really shows the psp screen's shortcomings, and as you have stated, it involves the screen being mostly black. The game is a defender style sideways scrolling arcade shooter, and as its in space, the background is black. When you get a laser, and move up or down with the fire button pressed in, its supposed to give a solid thin line moving up or down with your ship.....however on the PSP screen, the machine fails horribly to do it and the laser line is a flickery mess. The PSP screen seemingly just cannot cope atall with moving white images on black backgrounds. Ive also noticed it on Namco Museum Galaga where the white ship smears on moving left to right, again with a black background.
To give $ony their due, they do a good job of hiding it in other games. I bet they give developers instructions to avoid games with heavy back blackgrounds, clearly not possible on an emulation of an old game.

 

[AndRu]

Now you're reminding me of the old colour clash that the ZX Spectrum used to have - I'm showing my age! I've just read this article on hand held gaming in Japan which states the DS is outselling the PSP by a log way. I'm suprised about this as I had thought that the PSP would've been the bigger seller.

 

[Cyrano]

That's a cool gadget.. now I just need to get a bonus

Me too, great purchase