Girlfriend wants an Archos because she saw it shown on QVC ... I wonder if we'd be better off with a powerful Netbook? We're on hols soon and we want to take a load of movies with us and hook up whichever device to the AV sockets on the LCD in the hotel room ... it needs to play AVI, MPG, MP4, MOV and HD video formats. Any ideas?
I looked at getting something like the archos or a cowon. I think that they are good at what they do. But I would rather have a laptop (netbook, notebook, whatever). Laptop can play any video codec. Just download it if you dont have it. It can also web surf, check your mail, etc. so much more versatility than a little personal media player. they do cost a bit more, and are larger. But to me having the ability to do more is worth it.
Netbook. Ideally you could wait a few months for the Lenovo S12 with NVIDIA Ion. It'll contain that extra juice for video and multimedia in general. If not, an MSI Wind or just an EEE would work.
Samsung NC10 netbook. My girlfriend bought one after we researched the hell out of them (netbooks) and she loves the thing. I am rather jealous of it too. She watches movies, listens to music and does her uni work. She has even played multiplayer Empire earth 2 with me albeit on the minimum settings. The wireless is very good, which is something i point out because wireless is one of the bigger issues with netbooks (from what i've seen on netbook forums). She streams movies and music from the net at virtually the same speed as i do on my PC. Her NC10 boots up faster than most of my friends laptops. The draw backs are that there is no CD/DVD drive and the battery life does decline quite noticeably after the first year of use. It’s gone from around 8 hours nominal use to 6 hours or 5/6 hours heavy use (movies/music/resource hog programs) to 4 hours. Also, it comes with XP-Home. But you can just install XP-pro after the warranty has expired so long as you use those dirty pirate cut down methods for the XP-Pro install. I say netbooks all the way. If you do research the NC10 and see the NC20 or even the NC310 make sure the price is right before you buy those newer ones (you can get one on amazon, new, with free delivery for £296.01). You may even find a better deal in a different netbook.
Cheers all, great advice. I've been researching the latest Archos and the reviews are really bad and your advice points to netbooks so we've settled on a netbook. I'm thinking the holiday will be within 2 months so hopefully that new one with the Nvidia chip comes out ...
Got a 300GB Archos and it is absolutely awesome. Plug it into TVs when travelling, listen to music, watch films on train etc etc. Internet browser is good enough too.
