Product Reviews

The 405 is Archos's latest portable media player, and it replaces the company's 404. The 405 is significantly cheaper than the 605 WiFi, but it has 2GB of flash memory instead of a 30GB hard disk and no touch screen.

It feels tough, and is compact and lightweight at under 150g. The menu system is more responsive than the 605's, since flash memory is far faster than a hard disk. Even though it doesn't have a touch screen, it's easier to use than the 404 it replaces. The 404's buttons had different functions depending on what you were doing with the player, but the 405's always do the same thing. We're happy to see that there's now a dedicated volume control.

As 2GB is a rather meagre amount of space, you can add more storage via an SD card slot. The slot supports SDHC cards, which are currently available in capacities up to 16GB. These cost around £100, but should come down in price over the next few months.

There are three ways to put media files on to the 405. You can copy them straight to a memory card, set the player to behave like a hard disk and drop

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files on to it in Windows Explorer, or set it up as a Windows Media device and synchronise video and audio files with your PC. Even if you just drop files straight on to the player, the 405 automatically scans its memory after you disconnect the player and builds an index of the files.

The 405's audio player is easy to use. It supports ID3 tags, so you can sort music by artist, album, genre or year. The supplied headphones aren't great - they are tinny and distort bass - but you can plug your own into the standard 3.5mm headphone socket.

The 405 also works well as a video player. It can play DivX and XviD video files, as well as WMVs. There's no support for MPEG1 or MPEG2 files unless you buy the optional plug-in, which costs €20 (approximately £14). The plug-in supports .vob files, though, so you can drop files straight on to the player from a non-copy-protected DVD. The 3in screen is bright and clear but it has a normal, rather than widescreen, aspect ratio. This means films are heavily letterboxed, although in automatic mode the player zooms in so video fills the screen as much as possible.

You can also use the 405 to record television programmes using the optional DVR Station, which costs £50. It doesn't have a TV tuner, but you can record from a digital TV tuner's composite or S-video output. It's fiddlier to use than a dedicated Freeview recorder box, but it's the easiest way to get TV programmes on to the 405 to watch on the commute to work.

Archos's 405 is easy to use and fairly good value, but storage space is limited. It's easily expandable, though, and will become better value as SDHC cards drop in price.