note: go to the bottom of this post to read the updates.
Impressions:
So as you can see, at first impression quite an angular player. It felt sturdy, made of half aluminum half plastic material whatever that is. It weights 2/3 of pound, it would not be good to drop this on a hard surface. The player measure about 5.2" x 3" x .75". Buttons are very tactice, each buttons are actaully two buttons, so there are 10 buttons overall for navigation. Since the player is touchscreen, I never use the buttons beside the power button. The touchscreen works very well, it is responsive and extremely enjoyable to use. Although this maybe due to the fact that I haven't used PDAs before.
The screen is 4.3", the exact same size as the Sony PSP. Good thing it come with a screenguard already attached. It is detailed and colorful and has a very good viewing angle. I can't vouch for the pixel pitch though, it probably isn't the best one out there, but I'm quite satisfied. There are three brightness option, but it's best to use the lowest option, which is actaully good by normal standard, otherwize the battery will go down very fast.
Main features:
video, music , photo, wireless web browsing and file server, tv recording (w/ purchase of travel kit dock or dvr station @ 640x480 mpeg4), audio recording, camcorder (w/ purchase of portable camera), multichannel digital output (w/ purchase of dvr station), play dvd files (vob & ac3) and apple formats (aac &mp4) with purchase of online plugins.
The case, sucks as usual. But it protect the player well and has a slit in the bottom to store a stylus (which you will find one there, not as nice as the one you see above). About the $25 case they are selling, similar to my gmini400's case design, with the button you have to unclip and fold back the flap to see the lcd screen. I really, really disliked that so I'm not getting it.
Battery:
The battery is removable, an excellent feature. There is a latch in the bottom to release it. Video and web browsing will average at 4 hours in realtime. Due to the very nice and detailed color screen, I do not want convert my videos to lower bitrates. I use divx/mp3 1200kbs/128kbs. Therefor I think buying an extra battery for this player is necesary. I guess if you use 800kbs 320x240 you can get 5hours or more.
Charging:
As you can see Archos do not have a standard usb port to connect to. You must use archos provided usb cables or buy their dock. This is by far the most annoying thing about this player. To even use a wall adaptor you need to atleast buy one of the cheaper dock to connect it to.
Transfer speed:
I should mention the transferring speed for this player is quite fast actaully. I know all of them supposingly are usb2, but this one is faster than both my ipod and gmini. (from computer to device)
Sound:
album art
EQ 
sound settings
playlist 
I won't say much here, but the sound is as good as my Gmini400, which is pretty decent. I doubt it can compete with a more dedicated music player. There is one flaw that it don't go very loud if a song has low gain. Therefor for some quiet songs or videos I actaully has the volume near max. (Don't worry too much as with some high gain songs it can be the opposite.)The playlist is excellent ofcourse. Even my gmini has this window-typed playlist feature which is very convenience.
Photo:
photo
thumbnails 
zoom 
I don't use it much, but it is really excellent. The photos are display very fast. Colorful and zooming is instant. If you look at "zoom" picture there is a white icon to the bottom left, it actaully indicates which part of the picture are you currently zooming.
Video:
This is what I mainly use the player for mostly. It play maximum video resolutions and framerates at full colors. DIVX, WMV9. It just works so well, there is one video that has image upside down in my computer and this player display it correctly. You can choose normal aspect or fullsize which automatically stretch anything to its widescreen format. The maximized option zoom in the video a bit.
It won't play WMV8, video w/ MP2 (purchase of plugin i believe), and Quartet-pixels. Purchase of plugins can allow it to play dvd and apple's mp4 h.264 encodings.
WIFI:
This is the main thing about this player, unfortunately not the best thing in term of the opera-based web browser.
The network signal detection is fine in my opinion. Not as strong as a labtop or wireless card, but I think it is quite usuable. I have no problem connecting at a coffee cafe and at a college campus.
It does detects WPA and WEP. When I stand in the middle of downtown it detects 4 or 5 servers, although really low signal and locked. It detects a full signal ADHOC server, too bad it said "this device do not support ADHOC". Not that know what it is, my wireless knowledge is very limited.
There is a fileserver feature that I think allows you to transfer files from your computer at home even when you are on the go, pachinkoman from the other thread confirmed this.
The connection as you can see is okay, but the problem is the web browser. For display there is a desktop or smart mode, the smart mode scale the website down to the width of the player's screen. It display full image and colors of the website. It do not support flash animation or flash videos, don't even try maps.google, although maps.yahoo works.
The webpage loading is slow, I know its not the internet speed because I can download fairly quick. While it is loading you can't really move around. You can add another 'tab', but that will just slow things down. With the latest firmware its not so bad actaully. It still feels a bit sluggish, especially if you use smaller text, so its better to have the text at normal size. Another problem is you have to bring up the drop menu to use many functions, "back" "foward" and "bookmark" for example. The virtual typing works well, the virtual keyboard show up whenever you click on a typing field.
I can browse my mail, ebay, forum without troubles. So the webbrowsing feature is best to use for reading news, wikipedia, and quickly check something. I wouldn't use this device to browse the web unless I have no access to a computer. I sort of expected this, but am not disapointed. I know there is a potential to really improve this as its just the software, for example if they have a text version only that will immensely improve the speed.
Extra things:
There is a kick stand to let the device lean back on, very nice.
Ofcourse as with many PMPs, there is an external speaker. This one is okay, not great, loud volume it will distort, and low quality video it sound sharp and thin. But I can tolerate watching video and have the sound coming out of it. Again, sound files with low volume gain it won't sound loud enough.
Downfall:
-The issues of non-standard usb connection stated above. If I go on a trip and lost its usb cable than I have no way of charging it.
-Needing expensive dock for video recording: a travel kit or DVR station.
-Minor, but the buttons and headphone jack should really be to the left, not the right. Quite annoying for me.
-30gb not enough, mine already full with videos. (ofcourse there is the 504 w/ 160gb)
Overall
The main feature of this player is the wifi, unfortunately it need improvement on smoother browsing. The touchscreen is a good candidate for some games, maybe a calculator, or a text reader.
Unless you really need the web browsing or the fileserver feature, then it won't be necesary to buy this player, because there are the cheaper versions, 404 and 604, which offer the same features without wifi. Ofcourse you will miss out on the touchscreen feature aswell.
Future supports: Interviews with the Archos representative said they are looking for features like online tevelision, IPTV, but they are looking to form partnership with the companies.
Update: As of now with the firmware update many things has improved. A bit smoother webbrowsing, I complained about it being sluggish, but people from archos forum actaully said it does better than their other handheld devices. I don't have a palm pilot so I cant make a comparison.
Docks: The $30 dock adaptor has a standard usb jack you can plug to your computer, instead of the original cable provided, it come with the usb cable too. The $70 travel adaptor has AV in for video recording and a dc jack for charging, "i think" it come with the AV cable and adaptor.
DVR Station: I bought this dock and it is excellent. Few note worthy features:
-digital coaxial out
-widescreen video recording (via firmware update)
-has mini usb jack (like the cheaper dock adaptor) and a standard female usb to transfer file from another device.
-charges battery quicker
-excellent remote, the remote came with it allow really easy functioning, ofcourse it will be difficult browsing the web with it, but that wasnt it's intended for.
cinema plugin: i purchased the online cinema plugin that allow me to play vob files (dvd), so you can copy the file directly from your dvd. this plugin gave me some bugs though, sometimes while playing video it shut off and i have turn it back on, not very often, but hopefully it'll get fix.
apple's plugin: this one allow you to play apple video and audio format: aac and mp4, although i didn't buy it.
extra battery: i bought two extra batteries, that allow me an overall of 12hours of video on the go, excellent.
about replacing harddrive: after firmware version 1.3 archos has lock the harddrive so if you try to replace it with a different one it won't work. and you can't downgrade your firmware.
Helmet Camcorder: this is a costly one and it come with a 'travel adaptor' that you must use to connect the camcorder to. i was quite disapointed with it because it was hard and clumsy to use. but people have bring the camcorder on roller coaster ride and parachuting. the image quality isnt bad, and it can 'see' in the dark to some good extend.
Impressions:
So as you can see, at first impression quite an angular player. It felt sturdy, made of half aluminum half plastic material whatever that is. It weights 2/3 of pound, it would not be good to drop this on a hard surface. The player measure about 5.2" x 3" x .75". Buttons are very tactice, each buttons are actaully two buttons, so there are 10 buttons overall for navigation. Since the player is touchscreen, I never use the buttons beside the power button. The touchscreen works very well, it is responsive and extremely enjoyable to use. Although this maybe due to the fact that I haven't used PDAs before.
The screen is 4.3", the exact same size as the Sony PSP. Good thing it come with a screenguard already attached. It is detailed and colorful and has a very good viewing angle. I can't vouch for the pixel pitch though, it probably isn't the best one out there, but I'm quite satisfied. There are three brightness option, but it's best to use the lowest option, which is actaully good by normal standard, otherwize the battery will go down very fast.
Main features:
video, music , photo, wireless web browsing and file server, tv recording (w/ purchase of travel kit dock or dvr station @ 640x480 mpeg4), audio recording, camcorder (w/ purchase of portable camera), multichannel digital output (w/ purchase of dvr station), play dvd files (vob & ac3) and apple formats (aac &mp4) with purchase of online plugins.
The case, sucks as usual. But it protect the player well and has a slit in the bottom to store a stylus (which you will find one there, not as nice as the one you see above). About the $25 case they are selling, similar to my gmini400's case design, with the button you have to unclip and fold back the flap to see the lcd screen. I really, really disliked that so I'm not getting it.
Battery:
The battery is removable, an excellent feature. There is a latch in the bottom to release it. Video and web browsing will average at 4 hours in realtime. Due to the very nice and detailed color screen, I do not want convert my videos to lower bitrates. I use divx/mp3 1200kbs/128kbs. Therefor I think buying an extra battery for this player is necesary. I guess if you use 800kbs 320x240 you can get 5hours or more.
Charging:
As you can see Archos do not have a standard usb port to connect to. You must use archos provided usb cables or buy their dock. This is by far the most annoying thing about this player. To even use a wall adaptor you need to atleast buy one of the cheaper dock to connect it to.
Transfer speed:
I should mention the transferring speed for this player is quite fast actaully. I know all of them supposingly are usb2, but this one is faster than both my ipod and gmini. (from computer to device)
Sound:
album art
EQ 
sound settings
playlist 
I won't say much here, but the sound is as good as my Gmini400, which is pretty decent. I doubt it can compete with a more dedicated music player. There is one flaw that it don't go very loud if a song has low gain. Therefor for some quiet songs or videos I actaully has the volume near max. (Don't worry too much as with some high gain songs it can be the opposite.)The playlist is excellent ofcourse. Even my gmini has this window-typed playlist feature which is very convenience.
Photo:
photo
thumbnails 
zoom 
I don't use it much, but it is really excellent. The photos are display very fast. Colorful and zooming is instant. If you look at "zoom" picture there is a white icon to the bottom left, it actaully indicates which part of the picture are you currently zooming.
Video:
This is what I mainly use the player for mostly. It play maximum video resolutions and framerates at full colors. DIVX, WMV9. It just works so well, there is one video that has image upside down in my computer and this player display it correctly. You can choose normal aspect or fullsize which automatically stretch anything to its widescreen format. The maximized option zoom in the video a bit.
It won't play WMV8, video w/ MP2 (purchase of plugin i believe), and Quartet-pixels. Purchase of plugins can allow it to play dvd and apple's mp4 h.264 encodings.
WIFI:
This is the main thing about this player, unfortunately not the best thing in term of the opera-based web browser.
The network signal detection is fine in my opinion. Not as strong as a labtop or wireless card, but I think it is quite usuable. I have no problem connecting at a coffee cafe and at a college campus.
It does detects WPA and WEP. When I stand in the middle of downtown it detects 4 or 5 servers, although really low signal and locked. It detects a full signal ADHOC server, too bad it said "this device do not support ADHOC". Not that know what it is, my wireless knowledge is very limited.
There is a fileserver feature that I think allows you to transfer files from your computer at home even when you are on the go, pachinkoman from the other thread confirmed this.
The connection as you can see is okay, but the problem is the web browser. For display there is a desktop or smart mode, the smart mode scale the website down to the width of the player's screen. It display full image and colors of the website. It do not support flash animation or flash videos, don't even try maps.google, although maps.yahoo works.
The webpage loading is slow, I know its not the internet speed because I can download fairly quick. While it is loading you can't really move around. You can add another 'tab', but that will just slow things down. With the latest firmware its not so bad actaully. It still feels a bit sluggish, especially if you use smaller text, so its better to have the text at normal size. Another problem is you have to bring up the drop menu to use many functions, "back" "foward" and "bookmark" for example. The virtual typing works well, the virtual keyboard show up whenever you click on a typing field.
I can browse my mail, ebay, forum without troubles. So the webbrowsing feature is best to use for reading news, wikipedia, and quickly check something. I wouldn't use this device to browse the web unless I have no access to a computer. I sort of expected this, but am not disapointed. I know there is a potential to really improve this as its just the software, for example if they have a text version only that will immensely improve the speed.
Extra things:
There is a kick stand to let the device lean back on, very nice.
Ofcourse as with many PMPs, there is an external speaker. This one is okay, not great, loud volume it will distort, and low quality video it sound sharp and thin. But I can tolerate watching video and have the sound coming out of it. Again, sound files with low volume gain it won't sound loud enough.
Downfall:
-The issues of non-standard usb connection stated above. If I go on a trip and lost its usb cable than I have no way of charging it.
-Needing expensive dock for video recording: a travel kit or DVR station.
-Minor, but the buttons and headphone jack should really be to the left, not the right. Quite annoying for me.
-30gb not enough, mine already full with videos. (ofcourse there is the 504 w/ 160gb)
Overall
The main feature of this player is the wifi, unfortunately it need improvement on smoother browsing. The touchscreen is a good candidate for some games, maybe a calculator, or a text reader.
Unless you really need the web browsing or the fileserver feature, then it won't be necesary to buy this player, because there are the cheaper versions, 404 and 604, which offer the same features without wifi. Ofcourse you will miss out on the touchscreen feature aswell.
Future supports: Interviews with the Archos representative said they are looking for features like online tevelision, IPTV, but they are looking to form partnership with the companies.
Update: As of now with the firmware update many things has improved. A bit smoother webbrowsing, I complained about it being sluggish, but people from archos forum actaully said it does better than their other handheld devices. I don't have a palm pilot so I cant make a comparison.
Docks: The $30 dock adaptor has a standard usb jack you can plug to your computer, instead of the original cable provided, it come with the usb cable too. The $70 travel adaptor has AV in for video recording and a dc jack for charging, "i think" it come with the AV cable and adaptor.
DVR Station: I bought this dock and it is excellent. Few note worthy features:
-digital coaxial out
-widescreen video recording (via firmware update)
-has mini usb jack (like the cheaper dock adaptor) and a standard female usb to transfer file from another device.
-charges battery quicker
-excellent remote, the remote came with it allow really easy functioning, ofcourse it will be difficult browsing the web with it, but that wasnt it's intended for.
cinema plugin: i purchased the online cinema plugin that allow me to play vob files (dvd), so you can copy the file directly from your dvd. this plugin gave me some bugs though, sometimes while playing video it shut off and i have turn it back on, not very often, but hopefully it'll get fix.
apple's plugin: this one allow you to play apple video and audio format: aac and mp4, although i didn't buy it.
extra battery: i bought two extra batteries, that allow me an overall of 12hours of video on the go, excellent.
about replacing harddrive: after firmware version 1.3 archos has lock the harddrive so if you try to replace it with a different one it won't work. and you can't downgrade your firmware.
Helmet Camcorder: this is a costly one and it come with a 'travel adaptor' that you must use to connect the camcorder to. i was quite disapointed with it because it was hard and clumsy to use. but people have bring the camcorder on roller coaster ride and parachuting. the image quality isnt bad, and it can 'see' in the dark to some good extend.
