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By Richard Menta 2/17/05 Recently Archos announced that a new line of digital players would be released in the early part of 2005. Today the first of those promised players was launched, The Archos AV4100 The AV4100 is similar to the AV480, but with the capacity of the unit upped to 100GB of total space making it the first PMP to hit the 100GB mark. For those who rip and download a lot of video, the extra space will come in handy as it allows more movies to reside permanently on the unit. |
 The Archos AV4100 |
The AV400 series is Archos' premier line of portables with MPEG-4 capabilities as well as photo and MP3 audio play. Recently the company announced that it would adopt Microsoft's Janus technology, which will allow the Archos to play movies that will soon be sold by Napster and Microsoft's media web site.
Measuring 4.9" x 3.1" x 1" and weighing 11.29oz, the AV4x series (the x equals the hard drive size) is still a fairly large unit. For those who want something a little smaller expect the Archos GMini 400 series to see an increase in capacity too. The US retail price for the AV4100 is $799.95.
ARCHOS AV400 LINE SPECIFICATIONS
Interfaces:
USB 2.0 high-speed, compatible USB 1.1; PC & Mac; built-in CompactFlash™
Type I slot to accept CompactFlash™ memory cards, and optional 4 in 1 CF
adapter for SD, SM, MMC, MS and MS Pro
Video playback:
MPEG-4 SP with MP3 or ADPCM stereo sound. Near DVD quality up to 704x480 @ 30
frames/second in AVI file format. Compatible XviD and DivX™ 4.0 & 5.0
Video recording:
MPEG-4 SP with ADPCM stereo sound. Near SVCD quality (optimized resolution for
standard TV through composite video line-in), with up to 512x384 @ 30 frames/second,
in AVI format
Music playback:
Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 kb/second CBR & VBR, WMA (including protected
files), WAV (PCM & ADPCM)
Music recording:
From any analog source in stereo sound for WAV (PCM & ADPCM) format. Voice
recording with built-in microphone
Photo viewer:
JPEG (except progressives) or BMP
Display:
AV420 has a 3.5” screen, AV480 and AV4100 have 3.8” screen –
both are TFT LCD screens, (QVGA) 320x240 pixels, 262 000 colors and TV output
AV Connections:
Composite Video/ Earphone/ Line Out jack. Built-in microphone and speaker. TV
cradle to connect to TV with analog A/V In & Out to RCA jacks, S-video In,
and IR receiver for remote and IR emitter for tuner control, SCART In &
Out for European version. Travel audio-video kit in option to record audio and
video analog source on the move
Playback Autonomy:
AV420: Up to 12 hours for music or 4 hours for video on built-in LCD. AV480
and AV4100: Up to 16 hours for music or 4 ½ hours for video on built-in
LCD
Scalability:
Download firmware updates from www.archos.com
Power source:
Internal: Rechargeable Li-Ion batteries. External: AC charger/adapter
Dimensions:
AV420, 20GB model: 4.9" x 3.1" x 0.8" AV480, 80GB model, and
AV4100, 100GB model: 4.9" x 3.1" x 1"
Weight:
AV420: 9.88 oz AV480 and AV4100: 11.29 oz
System requirements:
PC: Pentium® III 800 MHz or higher, Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000 or XP. 64 MB
RAM (128 MB recommended) with USB port and CD-ROM drive.
Mac: 9.2 or X (10.2.4) USB Manager version 1.2 or higher with USB port and
CD-ROM drive
iRiver H10 5GB Audio Jukebox is available on Amazon
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