We take a look at Archos' newest accessory for the capable Archos 605 Wi-Fi, and listen to some future plans.
At an event in New York City, Archos took the wraps off its latest accessory for the Archos 605 Wi-Fi device, the Archos GPS kit. From what we could gather, the GPS accessory is basically housed within a dashboard-mounted arm, so it's clearly meant to be an in-car device, rather than a pedestrian add-on. The device will use TeleAtlas maps, and features everything you'd expect from a standalone GPS. It makes sense, since the device already has a large touch screen and does everything else. Well, almost everything.
We asked Archos reps if there were any future plans for cellular radio or WAN built into their devices. They were fairly positive about the idea, saying that they were interested and currently looking into including HSDPA especially. This leads us to think that such a device would be making an appearance sooner, rather than later, as devices with a 2-year roadmap at this point are talking WiMAX and LTE for wireless, and not HSDPA, though there is no reason to expect HSDPA won't be a force for years to come.
In any case, Archos also added a few additional features to their product line, including a service they are calling TVPortation, but which the rest of the world will recognize as being a SlingBox clone. The interesting thing about Archos' service is that it works with existing devices. So, for an additional $50 fee, or for free if you have an Archos TV+ device, you can turn your device into a media streamer. Then, other Archos devices or Windows Mobile smartphones can access your stream and watch content either from your television broadcast or your Archos player's hard drive. Unfortunately, demos we saw were pretty buggy. In fact, we only saw a few frames before the video sputtered out. Immediately, one of the techs blamed low bandwidth problems, and looked for an open computer hogging the pipe.
The Archos GPS device will be available next month for $130. The Archos TVPortation is available as a $50 plug-in for Archos 605 and Archos 705 users, and as a free update for Archos TV+ owners.
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