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: 30GB¹
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 format²
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 format²
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

¹1 GB = 1 billion bytes. Formatted capacity is less.

²files 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

This article was originally posted to http://www.pvp4u.com/archives/2005/01/archos_pma400_3.html

 

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