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Archos 7 (320GB)

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By Nate Lanxon, CNET.co.uk
Feb 10, 2009

For watching movies, bigger screens are better. It's a fact. But, when it comes to portable devices, a 5-inch screen is about as large as most people can handle. But not if you're French. Archos has delivered the Archos 7, a 7-inch version of the Archos 5, which had one of the finest-quality portable video screens we've ever seen.

The Archos 7 comes in 160GB and 320GB capacities, with prices starting at around US$519. It's on sale now.

Editors' note:

This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.co.uk. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia.

Design

As with the Archos 5 previously, the Archos 7 represents an extraordinary advance for Archos, both in terms of design and user interaction. Archos has bid a much-needed au revoir to navigational buttons on the front of the device, and whispered a sweet bonjour to a gorgeous, all-metal chassis and all-touchscreen display.

Between stereo speakers on the far right- and left-hand sides of the system is the aforementioned--and relatively gargantuan--resistive, 7-inch TFT LCD touchscreen. However, it still packs the 800 x 480-pixel resolution that the Archos 5 featured, meaning a larger screen, but less crisp images.

The chassis itself is extremely glossy, easily picking up grease and fingerprints. But, as a result of its construction and size, the Archos 7 is satisfyingly solid, and weighty enough to beat a donkey into a coma with.

Features

The Archos 7 runs on an Archos-built Linux operating system with a 600MHz CPU, backed up with 128MB of system RAM. It'll handle MPEG-4 SP, WMV, DivX, Xvid and Flash 9 FLV video files up to DVD resolution, as well as multiple audio streams and soft subtitles, providing they're in the .SRT format. Also, downloaded content from the BBC's iPlayer service played perfectly, but it must be synchronised through Windows Media Player.

Once again, Archos wants you to pay for the extra codecs that make the player so attractive -- despite many competitors offering them out of the box. It'll cost you about US$18 to get support for 720p HD WMV and MPEG-4 (when made available later in 2009), another US$18 for MPEG-2 and DVD VOB files, and another US$18 for H.264 video and AAC audio. The Cowon A3 comes with most of these built-in.

Audio support is a little above average, with supported files including MP3, WAV, FLAC, Ogg and both protected and unprotected WMA. AAC support costs an additional US$18, as mentioned. AIFF, Apple Lossless, Monkey's Audio, AU, Musepack, WavPack and WMA Lossless are not supported, and neither is gapless playback.

Internet functions are mostly handled by Opera's Web browser, which comes pre-installed and gives you big-screen access to the full Web, with the added advantage that it supports Adobe Flash content, unlike the iPhone. There's also a simple and efficient email app for accessing POP and IMAP mail accounts, and YouTube content--standard definition only--can be run in glorious full-screen.

This is all accessible via the Archos 7's built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and your music and video files on your networked PC can be streamed in the same way.

A bunch of forgettable games comes preinstalled, although we also saved some Adobe Flash games off the Web--including YetiSports--and even found some of them quite playable.



Tags: Archos, Adobe Systems Inc., built-In, video, game
 
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