Digital Home Thoughts: New Archos Video Players

"Could it be that Archos is going to release some products that aren’t ugly? We’re already pretty big fans of the work they do, but it’s been hard to press the recommendations to people who flinch at their knobby designs. These three upcoming products in this roundup, however, look slick—and they have a lot of function. The Archos AV402 [left] is a case update to the AV400 series, which is one of the (if not the) best portable video players around. GenerationMP3 is reporting it’s on sale in the US already, but that’s not the case (the 400 series certainly is, but not the AV402). The AV700 is Archos’s first move into the large-format PVP space, with a 7-inch screen and a 60GB hard drive. Archos will be adding satellite and DVB tuners in a future model that will ship later in the year."



The unofficial photos on the new Archos makes me think that this is certainly a step towards the right direction, at least on the design side of Archos. The specs on the Archos AV700 sure sounds interesting, especially the satellite and DVB tuner feature. I wonder how the tuner will work with the Archos player but I guess we will all have to wait for the official details on this one.