Archos 5 v. Cowon v. Other?

[theDreamer]

Quick background, had an EDGE iPhone then a 3G iPhone then an AT&T Fuze. Giving up the iPhone was easy, but the media/internet was much more fluid on the iPhone. I enjoy Opera a lot more than Safari, but the UI in WinMo is a bit lacking at times.

Been reading up on the Archos 5 and it looks like a really nice device, music, internet, video, picture, plus some other features. I have read all about some firmware issues, many to most seem resolved, also how many "features" are additional extras. Now I am just looking to see if getting the 60/120/250 is worth it, or if I should invest into something else.

The features of music, video, picture playback are great and support what I need. The screen size is perfect for doing minor video viewing, music, and showing off some pictures. The internet feature I know I would use, but not 100% how well implemented it is.
I have looked over at the Cowon, not as much as the Archos though, and my other thoughts was a netbook device. Though I like the layout of the Archos and the touchscreen input, if it works properly.

The Cowon seems just as nice, but unsure of how well it performs against the Archos. The Cowon does have a touchscreen, but also a stylus for input, which I would really like to avoid.

So after me blabbing for a minute, any user input, experiences with either? Pros/Cons

Thanks.

 

[Anchen]

Just curious, which Cowon are you looking at exactly? They have quite a variety. In general Cowon is gonna give you the best audio quality as the Archos is just average, but if you aren't too big an audiophile it's not that big a deal probably. I've used my friend's Archos 5 and I found the UI to be good enough although it wasn't as slick as an Ipod Touch/Iphone obviously in both the actual UI and the touchscreen wasn't quite as responsive (it might be a resistive touchscreen, haven't looked it up). Still for the size and the better browser I think it's probably the best choice, although I personally would probably just wait for some phone to do it all since I dislike carrying around more than one device, especially one as bulky as the Archos or a netbook.

 

[sdlvx]

My brother had an archos 605, now he has an iTouch. I have an Cowon A3.

The archos was nice, but it crashed a lot and the build quality was sub-par. Browsing on it was awesome, and the fact that you can access shared drives off of a network is great.

I think he was too dumb to upgrade the firmware which was the cause of his problems. Plus he's only 18 and he's pretty irresponsible and rough with stuff, so YMMV with the archos build quality.

Cowon A3 audio quality blows both away. Hands down, there's no comparison. Both can also hold nothing to the A3's format support. However, A3 has no features like wifi or browsing.

And the iTouch screen compared to the A3 is pretty appalling. There's really *no* competition between the two. The iTouch looks dim, washed-out, and like shit, while the A3 has great contrast and a much better backlight (the A3 on LCD brightness 1 is brigher than the iTouch, and the A3 goes all the way up to 10 for brightness).

You seem to want an all-in-one device, so I would recommend against the A3. The A3 is solely a media player, as most of Cowon's devices are like that (except for devices like the Q5W, which are expensive and run windows, which you said you didn't like).

I'd take the 605 over the iTouch, both have lousy sound quality, but the 605 has more functionality. Just remember that archos is going to nickle and dime you, so the price you buy the 605 for isn't the price you're going to walk away with. You'll need at least the opera plugin and the AC3 plugin, but iTouch format support blows, I'd rather pay the 15 dollars or whatever it is for the support than to not have it at all.

 

[SixtyWattMan]

Aside from it being a little slow, my Archos 604 has been pretty good after updating the firmware. Sound quality was shit before updating the firmware then it was up to par. The main thing I dig about it is that it takes no software on my computer to use it, even updating firmware is all taken care of on the device itself (aside from downloading on my PC).

 

[theDreamer]

Even though you probably do not own one, how could you compare the Archos 604 to the new Archos 5? Good improvement, meh?