Archos vs. PSP

It's time of the year when kids go back to school and new models of consumer electronics come out.

We have the all new iPod Nano G3 which is shorter, wider, but with a beautiful 2" screen.
Then we have the 05 series of the Archos media player. Slimmer, bit lighter and improved screen.
Sony released PSP slim after a few years. The slim is thinner and lighter than the original. It also allows output to an external video source.

Some people sure dig the latest and greatest, it's actually a good time to buy quality products at a better price. The easiest way to clear out old stock is to discount them. The G2 Nanos were cleared out in Costco and BestBuy within 2 days. PSP "Phat" was $150 at Wal-mart and Archos 604 Wi-fi was 250 at BestBuy.

I always want to get a portable media player that I can watch video on the road. I tried the new Nano 8GB, PSP, and Archos 04.

Nano 8GB
Pros: a nice little unit. It's really light, slim, and ultra portable. The price is lower than last years model and yet a bit more to offer. User interface is well designed and extremely easy to use. Battery life is reasonably good for that size. Sound quality is good. It even comes with games!

Cons: The battery is built-in and not replaceable by user. I don't like the playlist concept. I am too lazy to create a playlist. The screen is way too small to watch anything more than 5 minutes. The battery life for video playing is around 3 hours -not 5. Creating your own video for the iPod is not the easiest thing to do. iPod is very picky on its MP4 format.

Archos 404/ 604
Pros: Archos 404 is not the latest model, but both 404 and 604 basic model comes with 30 GB hard drive. 404 is a 4:3 screen and 405 16:9. The battery life is ok, around 4 hours of video and 15+ hrs of mp3 music. I threw a bunch of video on the devices and they seemed rather capable to handle most of them. It's also a PVR and is expandable to become a camcorder. 604 has a built-in web browser. Comes with pdf reader.

Cons: Accessories and additional features are expensive. You need to pay for additional codec for playing vob files directly. The devices does not come with a decent case, and you have to pay extra for a case that fits. To use the PVR features, you will need to buy an additional dock. Rendering of web pages is rather slow and is not compatible with some pages.

PSP "Phat"
Pros: It's a game machine, and it's also multi-media player. It's so popular that accessories are cheap and widely available. Battery is replaceable. Battery life is quite good. UMD movies can be found in some stores even not very popular. Games demo for free download. The screen is as good as the 604. It also has a built-in wi-fi and web browser, which is more usable than the Archos. It's a portable computer.

Cons: Doesn't come with internal memory, I bought a 4GB memory stick for $55. It's picky on it's MP4 format as well. It has the biggest size and the heaviest of all 3.

For the price and features, I think PSP "Phat" is the best choice for me.