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January 17, 2005

Archos PMA400 30GB Advanced Portable Video Player

Archos announced the new Archos PMA400 at the CES 2005. I4U has a PMA400 video report from the show floor showing the new Archos in detail.

Archos offers the PMA400 for pre-order on their site for a whopping 799.99 Euros. The new player ships on January 31st.

Archos describes the PMA400 with:
"The Pocket Media Assistant PMA400 is the the first Linux®-based 30GB HDD device allowing you to record directly from TV, listen to music, browse the Internet and stay connected, for entertainment or productivity anytime, anywhere. A new generation of ARCHOS smart portable devices, the PMA400 combines full audio and video capabilities, WiFi connectivity and a personal information manager in one slim, pocket-sized device."

In some ways that is very competitive to the Sharp Linux PDAs especially because Archos also offers a SDK. See the Archos PMA400 specification below.


Archos PMA400 Specification:

Capacity:	30GB
Interfaces:	High-speed USB 2.0, compatible USB 1.1, PC & Mac USB Host port compatible Mass Storage Device Built-in WiFi connection (802.11b technology) IRDA 115 kb/s port
Operating system:	Linux Qtopia™ with embedded ARCHOS multimedia applications
Video playback:	MPEG-4 SP with MP3 or ADPCM stereo sound, near DVD quality up to 704x480 @ 30 f/s (MTSC), 720x576 @ 25 f/s (PAL), AVI file format
Video recording:	MPEG-4 SP with MP3 stereo sound, near SVCD quality (optimised resolution for standard TV through composite video line-in) with up to 512x384 @ 30 f/s, in AVI format
Music playback:	Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 kb/s CBR & VBR, WMA (including Microsoft® PD DRM protected files), WAV
Music recording:	From any analog source into MP3 or WAV (PCM) format Voice recording with built-in microphone
Photo viewer:	JPEG , PNG, GIF or BMP
PIM functionalities:	Qtopia™ software to manage your address book, agenda, calendar, calculator. PDF viewer
Games:	Qtopia™ embedded games and Mophun™ game engine to play games downloadable from Archos web-site
Display:	3.5" TFT transflective touch screen (QVGA) 320x240 pixels, 262,000 colors and TV output
AV connections:	Composite Video/ E Earphone/Line Out jack. Built-in microphone and speaker. TV cradle to connect to TV with analog audio/video In & Out to RCA jacks, S-video In, and IR receiver for remote and IR emitter for tuner control, SCART In & Out for European version. Travel audio-video kit in option to record audio and video analog source on the move
Battery life:	Up to 4 hours* for video playback or 9.5 hours* for music Removable battery; additional battery available as an option
Scalability:	Download firmware updates from www.archos.com
Power source:	Internal: rechargeable Li-Ion batteries External: AC charger/adapter
Dimensions:	Approx. 125 x 78 x 20 mm (4.9" x 3.1" x 0.8")
Weight:	280 g (9.9 oz)
System requirements:	PC: Pentium® III 800 MHz or higher, Windows 98 SE (with driver downloaded from ARCHOS web-site), ME, 2000 or XP. 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended) with USB port and CD-ROM drive Mac: 9.2 or X (10.2.4) USB Manager version 1.2 or higher with USB port and CD-ROM drive
	1 GB = 1 billion bytes. Formatted capacity is less.   files compatible with MPEG4-SP AVI only; MPEG-4: ISO/IEC standard by Moving Picture Experts Group; AVI: audio/video file container by Microsoft.   *On average

More details on Archos' site. Find the best PVPs on Sale.

Posted by i4u at January 17, 2005 6:06 AM