I was going to name this post “keep taking the tablets” or something witty like that, but then I realised it would be an extraordinarily bad pun and not very funny.

Anyway, here’s the problem… I’m a contented soul who doesn’t want for much or expect much. I have a few gadgets… I actually have four iPods (and use them all) and an Archos 605 media player. The 605 looks a bit long-in-the-tooth – it’s three years old which is almost pre-historic – but it serves one extremely important use case for me… I can record from Sky Plus and then watch stuff wherever I find myself with my trusty 605. I’d have you all believe that I’m furiously working during long journeys on the Camberley Express, but the reality is that being sardined into a position where you can’t move your elbows is not a good work environment. So out comes the 605, and I can catch up on movies that I don’t get a chance to watch back home at Adams Towers. Generally a good thing, but occasionally I end up watching something like Will Ferrell’s Land Of The Lost, which made me wish I’d spent the time snoozing, looking out of the window or counting the hairs on my arms instead.

After three years of use, the 605′s battery life isn’t what it used to be. The original life of more than six hours has dwindled to under three hours – the battery isn’t easily replaceable without risky screwdriver surgery. Given the advancements of technology in the last three years, and the fact that once again Mrs A has no idea what to get this contented want-for-nothing soul for Christmas, I started looking at the options for a new device (remembering my primary use but considering other potential uses around the house and at work).

Firstly, the Apple iPad. Apparently they’re quite popular. I had an iPad in my possession a few times (the shared Lotus team one) – it sat on my desk at home for two weeks gathering dust and quite frankly it was in the way. When someone told me they needed it for a demo I felt no angst in parting with it, and when they said they’d get it back to me I replied that it wasn’t mine and they could hang onto it until someone else needed it. Okay, whoever said that I would have felt more of an attachment to it if it had been my own was probably right. But I can’t deny that I’m just unexcited about the iPad. And there’s two other things to consider. Does it allow me to record from Sky Plus? Not as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong). And there will be a new iPad next year, and it’ll have one or possibly two cameras. Christmas comes at just the right time for Apple – they can clear the shelves ready for the new stock next year. I don’t want to be one of the people investing in the outgoing model.

What about Archos? Since the 605 Archos have released two versions of the Archos 5, the newer one based on Android and sold as an ‘internet tablet’. I looked at this a while back and was tempted, but then realised that the DVR station (which connects the device to the Sky Plus box and television) was different to the 605′s DVR station. Quite frankly this p!ssed me off – good for Apple for staying with the same dock connector – I’d have to buy a new one. The Archos 5 is now an outgoing model, and it’s natural replacement is the Archos 43 Internet Tablet. However, there’s a couple of problems with the 43 – one is the storage, 16 gb compared to my 605′s 30. But the bigger problem is the apparent lack of a recording function or DVR station – Archos seemed to have dropped this from their new offerings. I put this point up on an Archos discussion forum, and one of the replies stated an opinion that Archos’ direction for video would be more about live streaming. But I ask you – is live streaming any use on a train? It’s difficult enough holding a ten minute phone conversation on a train without it dropping. Why would I want to stream video when I could have it sitting on the device?

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook… looks nice. But it won’t be a Christmas present in 2010.

Finally, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab… if I had to put anything at the top of my Christmas wish-list this would be it. It doesn’t have a record function or Sky Plus connectivity, but I’d be willing to forgive it – I could turn the 605 into a recording slave and transfer the movies to the Galaxy Tab. The default storage is 16 gb but that can be hiked up to 32 gb with an SD card. I like the size – smaller than an iPad, it would fit nicely into my bag for trips on the Camberley Express. But it’s big enough to provide a decent web browser, e-mail, calendar and social networking experience.

So, what’s the drawbacks? Firstly, mixed reviews – reports of a sluggish browsing experience, Android applications which don’t scale up, and the opinion that Android is not designed with tablets in mind (yet). Secondly, the price – the cheapest I’ve seen it is £450, which I personally think is a lot of money for what it is.

So, the big question is not “which one do I get?” – rather “do I actually need one?”. On reflection it seems that the Adams fortune won’t be depleted by £450 and the Archos 605 will have to remain my faithful travel companion for another year. Mind you, it’s my birthday in January.

After a few days of teasing us, this afternoon Archos switched over to their new web site design, but more importantly unveiled some new devices. Not the 606 as many assumed but (as I sort-of correctly predicted) a range of ‘Internet Media Tablets’ – the Archos 5, the Archos 7 and the Archos 5g. Some initial observations…

• They make my 605 look like something Noah might have used as he waited for the floods to subside
• Archos had a quick look at an iPhone during their latest design process
• The Opera web browser is included for free, putting paid to one of the major whines about the 605
• The 60gb model is about the same size as a 30gb 605 but a bit slimmer… however, it weighs 60 grams more
• A 4.8 inch screen (as opposed to 4.3) making full use of the device’s dimensions
• It has an e-mail client
• The battery life states 4 hours of video playback… 1.5 hours less than the 605
• No removable battery (oh dear)
• No navigation buttons, it’s all touch-screen (cleaning cloth provided)
• It doesn’t appear that the 605′s DVR station will fit (oh dear, again)
• The Archos 5 will be available ‘early September’ and a 60gb device will be £279 (ouch)

So, there’s some negatives there. Firstly, I like the 605′s navigation buttons and don’t like having a mucky screen, so I’m not convinced that I’ll like a touch-screen only device. Less battery life? That surprises me, usually battery life gets better with newer devices – and without a removable battery that’s a double bummer. Weighs more? 60 grams is no big deal.

I think it’s a poor show that (as far as I can tell) the Archos 5 will need a new DVR station. Having invested in a DVR station and battery dock for the 605 if I move up to the new device I’ll have to buy completely new accessories. Archos, take note of what Apple have done… that connection slot on the iPods has remained consistent for years – the JBL ‘donut’ speaker I bought for the wife’s iPod Mini several years ago is still working with her iPod touch. That factor is not only good for consumers, but it’s also good for the third party accessory market, and ultimately good for Apple. Archos will suffer if manufacturers don’t have faith in them sticking to a connection format.

In summary… do I want one? Yes. Do I need one? No. Will I buy one? Undecided. We’ll see how generous Father Christmas is feeling.

“There are many things you can be sure of in this life. Death is one, but if you want to discuss something less morbid let’s talk about technology – the fact that if you purchase any item, as sure as night follows day, at some point in the not-to-distant future you will be disgruntled when the new / improved model is launched.”

That’s the third time I used that quote (my own quote) and the reason for using it again is that on their web site Archos are teasing their fanboys (me included) with a red curtain and the words “Coming up soon…”.

What this relates to is fairly obvious – the fabled Archos 606. But is that what they’re going to name it? A few months ago Archos published their annual statement on their web site and there were some rather telling points…

• The continued mention of an ‘Internet Tablet’
• The Internet Tablet would outsell the Generation 5 devices by two-to-one in 2008 (then it had better ship in time for Christmas, methinks)
• Sales of Generation 5 devices wouldn’t feature in 2009 sales at all
• Mentions of 3G
• Telcos would become a route-to-market in 2008, and rise from 10% to 25% of device delivery in 2009
• The ‘mobile Internet’ has stalled because of the disappointing experience of browsers on current mobile devices, stating that 3 inch screens are way too small and 4.3 inch screens (that’s the size of the Archos 605) are “a compromise” – pocket-sized devices should have a 5 inch screen
• And finally a diagram containing the words “Premium Smartphone” with an arrow pointing to those words, and “Q4 2008″ on the arrow – hmmm, what could they mean?

So there you have it… no announcement yet, they’re still teasing. It’ll be a ‘personal media player’ (PMP, but I don’t care for abbreviations) with a 3G phone, a 5 inch screen and a world-class web browsing experience. We’ll see how right I am soon(ish).

Personally I hope it doesn’t have a phone. I like the idea of a media player that also browses the web (uh, like the 605) but I don’t want a phone built in as well. Who wants to be watching a movie and then get interrupted and stick the thing against your ear? The Opera browser built into the 605 is excellent, but if they could get the BBC iPlayer working that would be a big bonus (it works on the wife’s iPod touch, but that was news to her).

Just pressed [F5] again… nothing.

Who said this…?

“There are many things you can be sure of in this life. Death is one, but if you want to discuss something less morbid let’s talk about technology – the fact that if you purchase any item, as sure as night follows day, at some point in the not-to-distant future you will be disgruntled when the new / improved model is launched.”

It was me, in August 2007. At the time I was trying to decide whether to buy an Archos 605 or wait to see what Apple announced. The iPod touch, nice as it is, didn’t meet my required specs – so Santa bought me the Archos. Apart from unit #1 dying after thirteen days, I haven’t regretted the decision (no, not even when the 32 gb iPod touch was announced). Right this moment the Archos is downstairs recording episodes of ‘Heroes’.

“…as sure as night follows day, at some point in the not-to-distant future you will be disgruntled when the new / improved model is launched.”

Go to Google, do a search on ‘Archos 606′ and have a look at some of the resulting pages. I’m sure the picture is a mock-up, but I reckon there’s a fair shout that Archos will be updating the look and feel and adding a few more desirable specifications. The iPhone and iPod touch are driving other companies to focus on the ‘I want one of those’ factor – rumours of the touch-screen BlackBerry and the already-released BlackBerry Bold surely confirm that.

The alternative to being disappointed by your choice of technology getting outdated is to not make a purchase in the first place… and where’s the fun in that?

I don’t believe I’m writing this. Less than two weeks after unwrapping my Christmas present it’s knackered. I set it up to record off Sky Plus, and a little later noticed that it wasn’t recording. I took it off the DVR Station and tried to turn it on – nothing. After a few more attempts at holding down the power button the boot-up screen appeared – “Archos – entertainment your way” – and then I saw “Recovery code 102 – system is damaged”. The device felt warmer than usual, an ominous sign.

I was provided with three options for recovering the system – ‘no’, ‘repair’ and ‘format disk’. Ah, clearly ‘repair’ was the best option. Unfortunately this just seemed to turn the device off, back on again and land me at the same screen. I tried it again… and again, and again. I pressed the reset thingy. I tried ‘repair’ again. I left it switched off to cool down. I tried again.

I then started searching the Archos forum and found (ominously) that several other people had suffered this problem but (ominously, there’s that word again) it seemed no-one had a solution. Someone suggested connecting to the computer via USB and doing a checkdisk, but unfortunately Windows wouldn’t even recognise it as a connected device (hardly suprising, during normal operation it asks you if you’d like to enable USB).

So, the last resort before I face the reality of sending it back or starting the battle to get a replacement – ‘format disk’. Obviously this was a last resort as it would render many hours worth of transferring content to the device pointless. But I took the plunge and pressed it… and… nothing. I just came back to the same three options.

As I’m typing I’m holding on to play.com’s customer service line – all of their agents are currently busy (but my call will be answered shortly… mind you, they said that 25 minutes ago).

What really annoys me is that I’ve invested in stuff to go with the Archos… a case, a screen protector, additional software, the DVR Station. I was going to take it to Lotusphere with me, and that’s now looking unlikely.

Number 1 – recorded from Sky Plus. I mentioned in an earlier post that most things concerned with Sky Plus are usually doomed to failure. Everyone in the house (even the hamster) is actually forbidden to physically touch the Sky Plus box on the grounds that “it’s working, don’t touch it”. So the thought of moving it to plug some extra cables in filled me with dread. However, after carefully plugging in said cables and attaching to the Archos’ DVR Station, recording was very easy. The quality of the results is excellent and – how cool is this? – the Archos is able to edit the results (chop off over-runs, remove the adverts, that sort of thing).

Number 2 – set up UPnP. Of course, you all know that UPnP stands for ‘Universal Plug and Play’. Not wanting to break the sacred covenant of IT people I didn’t read the manual, but it didn’t take long to add a UPnP service to the ThinkPad, share a folder, and then stream video and browse photos from that folder wirelessly to the Archos. I probably won’t use it that much, but it’s cool and important to get these things working. Mind you, having the DVR Station means that it is possible to stream movies or photos from the ‘Pad to the Archos and then to the television.

Number 3 – work in progress… content captured from Sky Plus converted into a format that will then work on the wife’s iPod touch. This project is extremely important for a) chick-flick ‘The Holiday’ and b) Take That live on New Year’s Eve. However, it’s not working… yet.

You’ll be pleased to know that the Archos 605 versus Apple iPod touch argument was resolved during the festive season. The wife very generously procured an Archos 605 plus DVR Station for me, while I furnished her with a tasty new iPod touch. This had the knock-on effect of a new-ish iPod for me, as she graciously passed on her iPod Video to me (to replace my faithful old 4th generation iPod). Lauren also got a new iPod (a blue nano), and this was welcomed by my older sibling Steve who is an Apple shareholder.

So, having played with the Archos 605 for a couple of days, was it the right decision? It’s a resounding ‘yes’. Now, the first thing you might say is “why have you got two devices Daz, an iPod and an Archos, when one iPod touch could have done the job?”. That was covered in an earlier blog post, but as a quick summary…

• The iPod touch’s top-of-the-range 16gb capacity isn’t enough for me (I have 9gb’s worth of music before I even start thinking about movies)
• I wouldn’t consider moving the music off the iTunes / iPod combination
• The Archos has a much better screen (larger and better resolution)

The first issue I came across with the Archos was getting DVD content onto the device, and after some experimentation and exchanges of opinion with Choddo, I went for DVD Ripper from Xilisoft (I already have another Xilisoft utility for getting movies onto iPods, but it wouldn’t work for the Archos – typical). Here lies one of the downsides of the Archos, that once you’ve bought the device you haven’t finished spending – I could actually have used iPod-ready movies but then I would have to have bought a plug-in to play them, so you have to spend either way.

Next, which format to rip to? Windows Media Video worked fine, but for some reason was very slow to rip… The Simpsons Movie would have taken (I estimated) about 10 hours. But I then discovered that the XviD AVI format worked on the device and was a lot quicker to rip.

The Archos 605 is WiFi-enabled so you can use it to browse the web… if you buy the Opera browser plugin (another £20). The case that comes in the box is rubbish (a flimsy pouch that offers about as much protection as a bus shelter in the event of a comet hitting the Earth) so chalk up another £20 for a decent case. So, there’s £60 gone on top of the cost of the device.

However, despite coughing up a few extra quid the overall experience is worth it. While the iPod touch wins for slimness and it’s user interface, the display on the Archos is beyond comparison (and you can also navigate using buttons if you want to avoid swiping your mucky digits all over the touch screen). The Opera browser is excellent (Opera are doing a good job, along with the browser on the Wii and OperaMini on the BlackBerry), there’s seven free ‘widgets’ available, the photos are crystal-clear, and the promise of being able to record from the Sky Plus box sounds great (despite my low expectation of anything to do with Sky).

Given the trouble promised at the UK airports in January (just in time for my trip to Lotusphere) I think the Archos 605 is going to be a godsend… perhaps I just need the battery extension pack.

Apple are quite smart really. I think they announced their new range of iPods just in time to capture the imagination of the Christmas market and ensure that they’re actually available (Nintendo take note). And yet again they’ve delivered something with the “I want one of those” factor. Actually, several devices with the “I want one of those” factor, addressing several market segments and budgets. Very few companies can do that. One the downside, they also served up a huge helping of device envy to their existing iPod owners (but as discussed here before, that’s part-and-parcel of investing in technology – life stinks, so hold your nose and get on with it).

An iPhone-lookalike iPod (the iPod touch) was expected, as was the re-vamped nano with added video. Less expected, from what I’d read, was the re-vamp of the more traditional iPod (now re-branded as the iPod classic). Nice new colours for the iPod shuffle, but I really couldn’t care less about that one.

Last week I debated whether to wait for the iPod announcements or get an Archos 605. In the end procrastination resulted in me waiting for the Apple announcements. And to be honest I’m still undecided. The iPod classic wouldn’t be of any benefit to me – personally I think the screen is too small for watching movies, so it would only be a music player, and my existing grey-screen 20 gb iPod is fine for that. So, the iPod touch with it’s 3.5 inch screen and integrated Wi-Fi is the most coveted. However, when you compare it to the Archos 605 the specifications are rather disappointing.

The iPod touch wins hands-down on look-and-feel, style, weight and ‘slim-ness’, and it looks like there’s a few more bits in the box. The Archos 605 wins on screen size (4 inch) and resolution (800 x 480, compared to the touch’s 480 x 320). Battery life for video is roughly equal.

Where the iPod touch falls down is on it’s storage capacity – it will be available in 8 gb and 16 gb models. Not including the 4 gb flash drive model, the Archos 605 starts at 30 gb and goes up to 160 gb. The small capacity, and the fact that storage is on a flash drive, gives the iPod touch that slim advantage. But let’s put this into perspective – currently I have around 9 gb of music on my current iPod, so that’s more than half of the 16 gb capacity gone. An average DVD ripped into the right format will be around 1 gb – ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ (a bum-numbing 2 hours 34 minutes) weighs in at 1.5 gb. ‘Team America’ (1 hour 33 minutes) is 928 mb. Therefore after the music goes on, the 16 gb iPod Touch would have room for 7 DVDs if I’m lucky. Not exactly a broad choice when you’re considering what takes your fancy when sitting in Manchester airport. On the other hand, the 40 gb Archos 605 should comfortably hold 30 DVDs.

Of course, despite all this thought process, I’m no nearer a decision. But if I hang on another year…

There are many things you can be sure of in this life. Death is one, but if you want to discuss something less morbid let’s talk about technology – the fact that if you purchase any item, as sure as night follows day, at some point in the not-to-distant future you will be disgruntled when the new / improved model is launched.

As it happens, I discussed this on the old dadams.co.uk web site when my iPod (the classic white model with the grey LCD screen) was superseded. That didn’t really bother me since it’s primary (indeed, only) function as far I was concerned is playing music. And it didn’t need a colour screen to do that.

However, in general, there’s probably no good time to buy technology. Buy too early and you’re likely to be the guinea pig who suffers the early teething problems. Buy too late and a severe case of device-envy could hit you even before you get home from the shop (or in this world of e-commerce, before the courier company finds your house).

So what’s with the Archos or iPod title? Well, I’ve been considering buying a portable movie player for a while. I have a few trips coming up, including one to South Africa – lots of time sitting around airports or on airplanes. And loads of DVDs and recorded t.v. programs that I’ve never watched (and probably never will). I’ve been pondering an Archos 604 for a while, but that’s now been superseded by the Archos 605. Seems to do all I require, plus it boasts built-in WiFi and can make use of the same software we purchased to enable the wife’s collection of chick-flick DVDs to be viewed on her iPod.

I was seconds away from hitting the purchase button when I entered into a conversation with Lakeland Steve (Florida resident and Apple share-holder). He informed me that the 5th of September was the day to watch out for the new product announcements from Apple, and the smart money is on a new large-screen touch-screen iPod (built along the lines of the iPhone). Let’s face it, Apple are pretty good at marketing and doing things at the right time, so they’d be mad not to update their product line before Christmas. However, this scuppered my Archos purchase – whether temporarily or permanently I don’t know. Of course, if I wait for the new iPod, it won’t be available in time for the South Africa trip.

So readers, what do you think? Archos now or iPod later?