Combined AV Devices > 350 GBP and more Combined AV Devices

Advantages: Record from TV/DVD, Excellent for watching movies, has many features
Disadvantages: Expensive upgrades, poor inbuilt speaker, limited for gamers

The Archos 605 WiFi has many features such as the option to record from the television, to surf the internet, it even has the ability to be used as a GPS. One downside is a lot of these features require additional money to be spent. If you're a gamer then you might be a little disappointed by the fact that the with the Archos 605 you will be limited to only playing flash games. The Archos 605 basically just isn't a gaming device. If gaming is your ...
...I did notice about the Archos 605 is that the sound quality of the inbuilt speaker is pretty poor, that being said this isn't totally uncommon with this type of device. When listening to music via the headphones though the quality of the sound is pretty decent. Now for what makes the Archos 605 truly special, it's ability to flawlessly play movies. No conversion, no fuss. Simply plug the Archos 605 to your PC via USB, drag and drop the movie/s of ... Read review

Advantages: Easy to use, good idea in practice
Disadvantages: Poor signal reception, loses recordings, stops working, crashes overnight...

This box has an amazing long list of features but it also has an amazingly long list of problems as well. I first bought the box in early 2005 and it worked well. For a week. Then it stopped working and I got a replacement one. It changed the way I watched the TV, pausing live TV, recording is very simple and playback quality is very high. It can record from two channels at the same time, which is always useful because you wait all wait for something ...
...compete with each other. But with this you can record both! Then one day, I went to play a recording back. No recordings. Unfortunately, any error detected in a recorded can lead the unit to think your hard disk is faulty and it therefore formats it, losing all recordings. There are errors in recordings because my central heating system seems to interfere with the TV signals. The recordings often miss the first or last minute of a program (the ... Read review

Advantages: Low cost
Disadvantages: Dodgy menus, very disk fussy, lousy DVD burner that will fail.

...eventually replaced the DVD burner in mine with a Liteon 20X unit for about £16. This solved the problem, and for the moment, it's been working perfectly. Fitting a replacement burner is straightforward enough, though getting it to neatly fit into the existing front fascia is a bit more challenging. ... Read review

Advantages: Looks, sound, originality
Disadvantages: battery life, loudness of speakers

The Samsung YP K5 mp3 player is immediately striking. Its sleek design and black finish would seamlessly fit into Batman's arsenal of gadgets. When I first bought the product it was immediately noticed by friends and strangers and as an aid to 'street rep' it works wonders. I was at first dubious of the sound of the speakers - I bought it over the internet and so had no way of trying out the player to check the sound capacity. However, my worries ... Read review

Advantages: The media center interface, decent codec support, HD movies stream really well.
Disadvantages: The DVD player is terrible.

Okay, the big pull of this DVD player is the built in Media Center Extender software, which once set up runs really well. You need to have vista installed on a PC (which needs to be on for it to work) and you also need a good network connection between the two. I have tried both a 200mbps powerline ethernet network and a wireless N network and for me the wireless network performed better for HD movies, but this will differ for most people so just ...
...wifi connection. The built in DVD play is poor to say the least, it doesn't scale DVD's out to widescreen it simply takes the DVD's basic resolution and outputs it to the middle of the screen. I tried watching an old cracker and had to stop as it was displayed as a 640x480 picture in the middle of my 720p HDTV, believe me this looks terrible. Its worth it for the media center as it works seemlessly and is a lot easier to access than the XBOX 360 ... Read review