The PMA400 is much like the AV400 series the preceded it, but it's much more than just a portable PVR now. It's still has all of the play and record features that we've come to love about the Archos media devices (as opposed to just about everything else that just plays). This allows anyone to get their own content on it that they legally acquired without the hassle of ripping, converting, copying, etc. Just record that DVD and go. And it happens in realtime, which is great compared to the 8x time to generate video for a phone.

Anyway...the PMA400 also features WiFi, IRDA, ethernet, games, PIM, and the ability to "Personalize your PMA400 with third-party software" and "Develop your own applications." What's that really mean? It means it's one of the most powerful Linux PDA platforms available. So powerful, it can record video in real time. Basically, this time around, they didn't bother keeping it a device only. It's a full PDA with a first function of a portable PVR.

It comes with Opera, an email client, and various other PIM software. You can browse the web by connecting via IRDA to a cell phone, WiFi, or Ethernet. So it has an ethernet port? Well, no. Actually, it has something even better: USB Host! You can connect any ol' USB ethernet adapter you have laying around. And, of course, that means you can connect it to just about any other USB device that you can find a driver for Linux for. Naturally, it'll work out of the box with USB drives, which include memory keys, external hard drives, digital cameras, MP3 players, memory card readers, and other things all via USB 1.1. Yeah, that's right. The host mode is only available via USB 1.1. But it has two USB ports, so something else (a host, of course) can be connected to the USB 2.0 port. And it even has a removable battery so when you're done charging your cell phone while copying stuff to it off the USB port, you can feed it another battery. And they ditched the Archos standard 20GB drive for a 30GB drive. Excellent. And a decent QVGA display will keep it ahead of many media players, though not many Linux PDAs.

As with all new Archos AV devices... I want one. And now. Of course, I haven't gotten one since the Multimedia 020. I skipped the Multimedia 120, the AV300, the AV400, and the Gmini 400.

What am I waiting for?! Well, for one, it's not actually available yet. And for two, it's expected to cost USD$800 That's rather quite expensive. Doh.

ARCHOS

Also read about it at Linux Devices.

Posted by Shane on January 9, 2005 9:19 AM | Permalink