Digital electronics maker Archos has consistently offered well-specced portable media players, but (like everyone else) has struggled to reach mass-market adoption in the shadow of the Apple iPod. But the company is not giving up; in fact, it’s busily touting its Generation 5 line of portable media players, which the company says (PDF), announced last June, are now available worldwide, although the two top-end units aren’t due until early October.
The headline feature of the Archos media player remains recording and displaying television content. The Generation 5 systems offer an integrated program guide enabling users to select and record television programming. The Archos 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi offer 4.3-inch and 7-inch displays with 800 by 400 pixels resolutions which handily full-page Web surfing, with Flash support for streaming video and accessing interactive and animated online content. Archos also offers video-on-demand selections via an online Archos Content Portal, which teams up with content providers in different markets (in the U.S., video downloads are handled by CinemaNow. Pricing for Archos Generation 5 devices ranges from $89 for the 2 GB Archos 105 all the way to $349 for the Archos TV with a 250 GB hard drive. The Archos 405 runs $149, while configurations of the Archos 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi range from $199 to $499, with capacities ranging from 4 GB to 160 GB.
