Archos 501598 48 500 GB Internet Tablet

I got my package today opened it and unpacked this very heavy piece of electronics. Now to be clear since I have read all the other reviews before I bought this. I only bought this to play music.I have about 27,000 songs or 200GB's worth of music and needed something like this to be able to have all my music on one device. At first glance it looks very nice, like I said it is heavy and seems to be well made.I have read all about the faults of this thing and wanted to test those out first. I read the touch screen is not that good and is a little off. That is true, fault confirmed. It is off and is not really that good at all. Second fault the hard drive is loud and you can feel it when it is running. That is also true, fault confirmed. Now these are little things to me, like I said I bought this to only use for music. So the fact that people had trouble getting on the internet and running apps. That didn't concern me much, but I did just to see if it would work connect to my wi-fi and do a little test and it worked fine. I was able to apply an upgrade and surf the internet no problem. So now to the big issue I have with this thing. It is really slow in lots of ways.I have had this plugged in to my computer since I got it. That is about 30 hours so far and it finally is charged completely. That is nuts, that this would take that long to fully charge.The second things is how slow it is to sync your files or music to the drive. I have had this syncing with Windows Media Player now about 6 hours now and I am only at 5 percent. I hate the fact that you can only use Windows Media Player to sync with this. I figure at this rate it will take about the same time it took our Astronauts to go to the moon and back before all my music is synced.I am sure you would agree with me that this is just insane. So if you are looking for something with a huge amount of space to watch movies, listen to music, or look at pictures this could work for you. But you will have to be super patient and be able to overlook a lot of faults. If you can do that then this is your media player, if not then look elsewhere.**Update**This is a new edition to my original review, I have now had this for 5 days.In the first part of this review I talked about how slow this is.I said it would take about the same time it took our Astronauts to get to the moon and back for me to transfer all my music.I was basing that on the fact I thought you had to use Windows Media Player to do anything with this.I was wrong, I found another program that works with it and is much faster.Winamp works with this and I have now transferred my entire 200gb music catalog to the player and it took me about 8 hours total.Now you may be saying 8 hours holy crap that is still a long time, well not really we are talking about around 27,000 songs most 320kb quality.The player still takes forever to charge I have had this at 90% once but since I have mostly been transferring and not charging I have yet to have this 100% charged.The player as far as playing my music is great, I had a Cowon before this but ran out of space which is why I chose this player. The sound quality is up to par with my Cowon.Now you are going to read a lot of bad reviews on this player and some may be legit, but I am going to guess the most of them are user error and people not giving this a fair chance.For the price and the amount of space you really can't beat this, but remember I am only using this as a MP3 player and that is it.If you are going to do the same and not use this as a internet tablet (email, video, pictures, and games) then you really can't go wrong with this product.

I wasn't looking for an internet tablet. If I were, this would be one of the last products on earth I would buy. You can see the negatives of the tablet functionality in most of the other reviews. I actually lean toward the idea that Archos didn't intend this to be an internet table. They intended it to be a fancy mp3 player with tablet functionality. They failed at the latter. There are many negatives, but I wasn't looking for a tablet.I was looking for a large capacity open source mp3 player, and that's what I got. The display is large, crisp and clear at 4.8". 500GB gives plenty of room for movies as well. I bought the FM transmitter so I mount the thing in a good spot of the car so I can barely avert my eyes and make any changes I need to make while driving. Videos will also transmit through the FM transmitter so if you wanted to listen to Led Zepplin Live at Royal Albert Hall you could while your passenger watches. No lag in sound and video.All the typical mp3 player functions are there - shuffle, repeat, playlist, etc. You can shuffle an album or your entire library. I haven't found any fancy options such as "album of the day" like the old Zen Vision Ms had. Search features are fast and efficient.Changing the channel on the FM transmitter is a drag. You have to leave the music section, return home, drag down a clunky Android screen, choose change channel and then change the channel. That's the only negative I have after 2 weeks of ownership, but the only time I have to change the FM transmitter channel is when it is really stormy (cloudy) outside. I just keep two dead channels programmed into the car stereo.I'm not gonna harp on the proprietary cords and accessories. Other reviews do, but I don't see the point; it's an industry standard these days.My Archos gets good battery life. I can't give you a number, but I let it play for 3.5 hours while working the other day and still had half power left. I'd say 7 hours with the screen off while listening to music. Videos will shorten this time.For my purposes, this is a good product. If you're looking for a large capacity mp3 player, then try this. Amazon gives you 30 days to test drive. If you are looking for a table, go somewhere else.

Simple purchase for me. I wanted something big enough to hold my entire mp3 library and this is the only thing out there that will do it. I abhor Apple. This will replace my trusty Zen Vision:M 60Gb. Received unit, updated firmware and everything seemed OK. Touch calibration and accelerometer are a little wonky but they are decent. After a little searching, I've got access to Android Market and already have Angry Birds running on the device. Time will tell on reliability, but my initial impressions are good. You'll need to buy a charger, as USB takes forever to charge. I love that I can run Linux on this if I want. Firmware changes are easy (I've done a couple now). I still have to load my library on this, but I'm loving the screen and Android apps so far. For $199, it is a steal. Amazon credited me $60 for the difference of my purchase price when they dropped to $199, which is why I keep buying stuff here.If you buy this, be prepared to ask for some help on archosfans.com. It is a great community that has a lot of the problems already figured out. If you want everything to just work and have no problem with a company locking you into their systems, then get an iPod or something else. If you like to tinker and need the space, get this.

I was not sure whether to order this item from the reviews. Well I think its great, but I can see it depends on what you want from it. I want a large MP3 collection to be available to me and some videos, it ticks all the boxes. Its about the right size, picture is good, sound is good, interface is OK and it works. For me well done Archos and Amazon, only down side, no charger, resistive screen is only OK in this world where everything is capacitive and a case would have been nice but for the price these are not a problem.

Supplier tried to get me to change my review because they didn't like it and felt that they were deserved a good rating after I fixed the problem. They deliver a product that immediately starts an update when you turn it on (why they couldn't have done this I don't know). This update causes a blue screen failure which can only be fixed if1. You know what your doing, know Android and Archos2. Know your way round the net3. And have the balls to trust the forums on the problemYeah i got it fixed but no thanks to the supplier.

purchased for listening to my growing MP3 library, iPad and iPhone too small, this however is truly vast, I have our all my mp3's onto, and much much more space to pack with more.Battery bit limited, so needs charging a lot, however, as I use it at home, or have access to power where I use it, fine for me.Can easily connect to other outputs, e.g., speakers, via using the adapter I purchased. All in all, for me, a useful product and cheap!

Bought this item in January 2012, with the plug in tv docking station. First few months, everything was fine, then screen started freezing, not a big problem, problem resolved by turning off and on again. The main problem is the utterly pathetic battery life of this unit. Now I cant even take this unit from my home as the battery lasts 15 minutes tops for video and about an hour for music. Don't waste your time contacting Archos for a repair or a warranty replacement, they don't even reply. I must admit it was the size of the hard drive on this device that attracted me. What a fool i was. Just do yourself a favour and move along to a better quality product.

the touchscreen is largely unresponsive, crashes often and the sound is useless with most headphones, if you invest in a decent pair of headphones may be useful but the touchscreen is a pain