It's only a matter of time before all-in-one personal entertainment devices that incorporate video as well as music are the standard. While many manufacturers are eyeing the new Microsoft Portable Media Center platform for future products, France's Archos, maker of the first portable media player with a colour display, has recently rolled out a whopper of a product.
The Archos AV320 supports recording and playback of MPEG-4 video as well as MP3 music. When combined with an optional add-on lens, it also becomes a digital still/video camera. Additional clip-on accessories are available for direct recording of TV programmes.
The 20GB storage capacity offers you plenty of room for storing movies and music - up to 60 hours of video, 5,000 songs or 200,000 photos.
But what makes the AV320 stand out is its 3.8-inch colour LCD monitor. For the first time, watching movies on a portable device is much less of a strain on your eyes. For improved playback, you can also plug the AV320 into standard TVs or stereo systems.
Its battery life is 10 hours for music playback, but only 3.5 hours for video.
The AV320 can also be used as a portable hard disk drive.