Archos 605 WiFi review

The 605 WiFi is Archos's latest Portable Media Player (PMP).

Although many modern MP3 players can play video, they're often picky about the file formats they support, and it's hard to immerse yourself in a film when it's playing on a 2in screen. A dedicated PMP is far better suited to films and TV programmes on the move.

Archos has steadily improved its interface, and the 605 WiFi is the company's easiest PMP to use so far. Much of this is down to the icon-driven touch screen interface. The touch screen is fine for most tasks, but using the onscreen scroll bars to scroll through long lists of audio files is tricky, and we found the hardware scroll buttons easier to use. Finding the media file you want is simple, though, as video files are represented by thumbnails, and you can sort music files by artist, album, title or genre.

Getting content on the 605 is also straightforward. You can set it to behave as an external hard disk or a Windows Media device when you plug in the USB cable. In hard disk mode, you can copy audio and video files into the relevant folders on the 605's internal 30GB hard disk. When you disconnect the cable the 605 scans for new files and adds them to its library, reading the audio files' ID3 tags to build up a database. In Windows Media Mode, the 605 synchronises your audio and video files with Windows Media Player 11, and automatically converts any music or video that is incompatible with the player to a supported format.

The 605 will play back WMV and MPEG4 video files, including DivX and XviD, as well as WAV, MP3 and WMA audio files. If you want to play MPEG1 or MPEG2 video or AAC audio, you'll need to buy an optional codec plug-in from Archos. The 605 supports video files at up to DVD resolution, and had no problems playing our very high-quality DivX and XviD test files. These looked superb on the bright, high-resolution 800x480 screen.

The 605 has built-in wireless networking. It can connect to UPnP devices plugged into your wireless network, and if your PC is running a media streaming program, such as Windows Media Connect or TwonkyVision, you can stream video directly from your PC.

You can also use the 605 WiFi to browse the web, but only if you spend an extra £20 on the optional Opera web browser.

Archos's 605 has a superb screen and is perfect for watching films on the move. Having to pay extra for MPEG playback and a web browser seems like poor value, though.