Home > Consumer Reviews > Pocket Dish Archos AV500E 30GB Multimedia Player and DVR w/4" LCD Display

The PocketDish is an excellent product. The only problem is that Archos Has quite possibly the WORST customer service, I bought my Pocketdish in June of 2006 and in March of this year a few problems started to occur. 1)Battery would often not charge, nor would it run on AC power. 2) just touching the unit would freeze it up, 3) remote no longer works. These were not chronic problems, but could occur at anytime. I called Archos in early April and was told there would be no problem replacing the unit. Seeing as I use it every day, I opted for the Advance replacement option. I paid $19.95 by credit card and was told it would arrive in three to five days, Well 9 phone calls and 7 weeks later, I finally recieved my replacement. Not exactly quick service. I am using the new one every day now and it works great. I just hope I do not have to deal with Archos again. (There is a two year warranty) To summarize the product, deserves 4-5 stars but Archos deserves a negative rating.

I love this player. Don't let the small screen deter you from getting this. It has great picture quality and it meets my needs perfectly. It fits in my handbag with no problems so I pretty much take it anywhere. Think about this...you're in a long line & everybody is complaining. You can pull this out & watch anything that you want anywhere.
Love it!

After a few bugs, it works flawlessly. I transfer a lot of programs from Dishnetwork almost every night. Pocketdish is simple and easy to use. I've recorded some old cassette tapes and vhs tapes that I wanted to preserve and transfer to my pc and then to cd or dvd. Pocketdish has a beautiful display and sounds good. I listen using an iriver fm transmitter,stereo headphones and the built in speaker. I've also copied some of my mp3's to it. The bugs that I mentioned above are that some time programs recorded to a dishnetwork dvr get corrupted and even though they may play on the dvr, when transferred to pocketdish the file will not play. I updated the archos software and it was a breeze. Pocketdish will also copy unprotected dvds.

I travel lots and really wanted a boredom-killer. So I crossed my fingers and ordered the AV500e. I think lady luck was on my side.
First thing I noticed was the solid build and the screen just blew me away. Then I opened the goody box underneath:
o dual voltage power adapter, no usb charging! Replaceable battery too
o AV cables, voice recorder, little case/kickstand
o Doubles as a storage device, jacks into my dish dvr, perfection.
o Docking station and a REMOTE CONTROL!!!
o Plug and Play action. No, zero, nada programs to decipher, just drag and drop! It doesn't get any easier than this.

It could be no easier to load up and go, plus it comes with all the stuff you should get anyways. No need to drop another bundle on cables, cases, chargers, docks ...

Nothing's perfect though
o a little bulky for full time pocket duty, better off in a bag
o buttons are not as convenient or as bombproof as a click wheel/slider bar
o no fm radio (dang)

If you're looking for a full multimedia center, you've found it here. Especially if you have a Dish Network DVR already, it's a no brainer.

Because no local retailers had a model for examination, it was necessary to rely on the online blurbs on whether to buy this or not. I had expected something that looked and felt like a portable game player, but I took the plunge and ordered one. I was pleasantly surprised by the solid and professional look and feel of it. The case is metallic, not plastic. The picture is sharp and clear and the sound is excellent with headphones. The built-in speaker, being quite small, is not something that I'll use much, but it's nice to have it available.

The recording capacity is what Dish Network said, namely, a gigabyte per hour. Downloading from a Dish Network DVR requires about 6 1/2 minutes per hour, and is about as easy as it can be. Connecting the two via USB cable brings up a dialog on the DVR for downloading recorded programs, which is very user-friendly. Note that HD programs will not download. Programming can also be obtained in real time from any composite (RCA) video source. However, the player will not record from copy-protected media. That fact, though not surprising, has caused me to search my house for all video cassettes and DVD's that are not copy-protected. I use S-Video for this, but composite video is also an option. You should get significantly more than a gigabyte per hour if the original picture quality is not high.

I bought my player to have something decent to listen to during my commute to work, since there are no radio stations in my area (Salt Lake City) that I care to listen to, and I get tired of the same MP3's all the time. I have my DVR record Squawk Box on CNBC in the early morning, and before I leave for work, I download the program to the player. There is also the option of setting time record on the player to directly record Squawk Box in real time via the composite interface, but it takes only 11 minutes to download the hour and a half that I capture.

In the week that I have used the player, I have discovered that it gives me more freedom to watch or listen to shows anywhere in my house as I do my activities.

I have found only one problem with the player: it crashed and turned off when it reached a particular part in one of the programs.

I have not used the player to hold MP3's or photos because I already have an audio player for that, and I want to use the disk space on Pocket Dish just for videos.

The player is easy to use, and takes only about five seconds to power up. You can bookmark your place on each program so you can start from where you were, but you need to remember to set the bookmark before you get out of the program. There is a handy resume feature, though, that will start where you left off, if you exited the program by powering down the player.

The screen has a 16 X 9 aspect ratio, and if desired, you can stretch a 4 X 3 picture to fill the frame.

The battery charge lasts four hours, which I found adequate for a day's use.

The player has fully met my expectations and I am glad I got it.