Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Product: ARCHOS TV+
Price: 250GB for $349
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros:Tons of features, full of promise
Cons: Not a hook-it-up-and-go solution
Overall: A nice piece of hardware that needs some mainstreaming for US use

Out of the Box
I was extremely excited to get my hands on the ARCHOS TV+ after getting the demo at CES.  All of the promised features, gobs of storage, and low starting price had me really stoked to give it a go.  I’ll note there that during the demo @ CES, their WiFi network was down, so I missed the internet demo.  But more on that in a bit.

Out of the box you’ll see more connection options than any other player (at least that I’ve witnessed).  Hooking it up was pretty simple and there is a wizard to give you boost.  For me, the wizard didn’t pop up as should have been the case, but mine is a demo unit and I got to figure out how to start the wizard.

Off and running…kinda
Once the easy part of hooking it up was done, I picked up the remote and started to play with it.  The remote has two main navigation parts, the right up/down/left/right buttons for navigating the home screen and a mouse-like wheel with left and right buttons for navigating on the web.  It was a bit odd switching back and forth.  I set up my DirecTV for the program guide and started checking with it.

The guide download brought in two days of programming that allowed me to move around quickly day to day, hour to hour.  Selecting a program to record was easy, just one button click and you’ve got it scheduled.  For some reason, the guide did not automatically load for more days as my time with the unit passed, so I’d have to go in and download it again.  TiVo users and even basic DVR functions were missed here.  You can’t get into high level recording options like first-run and the like. I haven’t looked at a program guide in a while with my TiVo , I simply enter the title and Season Pass it, so using the ARCHOS was cumbersome.

How about a movie?
Settling down for a night in on the sofa, I thought I’d go online and watch the episode of House my TiVo messed up after the Super Bowl, so I cruised on over to the Fox site and couldn’t get on.  Seems the Fox site uses Flash 8 and the TV+ supports up to 7, so no go there.  So over to the CinemaNow content portal ARCHOS has partnered up with.  The choices were OK, but they didn’t have the new release movie I was searching for.  There did seem to be a lot of adult-content. 

WiFi
The WiFi connection worked well, but slow.  I compared surfing speeds accessing Gadgetell.com on the ARCHOS vs. a laptop running Windows XP and my iPod touch; definitely not apples to apples, but the experience for the average consumer should be.  The ARCHOS unit came in last place, confirming the lag I was feeling was real, not traffic on my network.  I was able to get to sites, but on my monster 27” screen, the web didn’t look good.  Surfing the web was OK, but using the remote was a little awkward.  Typing on the remote however, was great.  It basically is the bottom half of a QWERTY smartphone.  Sitting far from the TV made it tough to read text on some pages, ARCHOS realized this and added a zoom feature but it didn’t behave well.

I was able to access files and, music and photos pretty simply.  This worked very well.  There are some widgets you can hook up for weather and games and the like.

Extras
It should be noted that there are plug ins you will have to buy to get some functionality from the unit.  At $20 a pop, it should be taken into consideration when pricing a system out. 

The unit has a USB slot, so you can hook in your camera and upload straight to the ARCHOS hard drive and view images.  Using the TV+ with your ARCHOS player is a great combination, allowing you to take your media with you at the drop of a hat.  Transfer rate speeds are impressive.

Bottom Line
This unit has potential.  All the parts are there, great connectivity, options galore but what isn’t there is the piece to pull it all together in a neat little package.  No matter how much I wanted to fall in love with the unit, I found that I just didn’t want to play with it.  Whether it was incompatible plug ins, slow connection speeds, or a DVR that was less than what I am used to, it just didn’t work for me.  I get the feeling that this thing works very well in France, where it is designed and seems geared for.

With a better online content partner, some updates to the plug ins (which all ought to be included in my opinion, perhaps a TV+ Pro version where you don’t feel “nickeled and dimed” to get the functionality that draw you to the unit in the first place) TV+ would have been a huge hit for me.

I am hoping for an update, a better content partner (like Netflix perhaps?) and it will be something that we no longer want, but need.

Product page [ARCHOS]