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Archos Portable Media Assistant PMA430
Hot News for PMA430!
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Pointlisse.com says "For a retailer, DataMind provides a great PMA resource with links, reviews, comparisons, FAQs and more. This was a particularly useful site for me when deciding to purchase my own PMA430. I consider the information provided to be fair and unbiased, so I encourage you to check it out for yourself."
Buy || Pricing & Bugs || Hardware || Specs || PMA430 v AV400 || Pictures || PMA430 v other Archos || Reviews || Qtopia / SDK/ Zaurus || Video presentation || Larger Hard Disk? || Opera / Wifi || e-book reader
Download: PMA430: Press Release || Frequently Asked Questions || User Manual
The pma430 can screen and record movies from TV, DVD, and VCR. You can also connect the PMA430 to wireless networks via its integrated Wi-Fi radio. In addition, the compact player displays digital pictures and runs Linux OS, which means later, open-source software expansion is possible.
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Pricing & Bugs - When should you buy PMA430?
From:
israfelli [mailto:israfelli@yahoo.com] Sent: 17 February 2005 15:29
In the past I've jumped on the gotta-have-it-now bandwagon. This
time, I'm going to take a different stategy. The PMA400 is a complex unit with a LOT
to it, and the price is very high. So I'm going to let it ride for a few
months, let the initial bugs be found and
fixed. Let them up-rev the internals
and respond to feedback. Also let the price
come down a bit. I know it wont
come down much, but they are already squawking in other forums that it has
come down $40 on some websites. Given the complexity and price of this unit,
I dont want to be a beta tester. I can make do with my other archoses for
a few months while this incredible looking unit is perfected.
Israfelli, your strategy is correct as far as pricing is concerned, IMHO. In the UK during March & April PMA430 will be available from only a few companies. Most prices will be at full retail price during this period because the supply will be limited and the number of competing companies will be quite small. During May more companies will have stocks … and the price may reduce, perhaps significantly. Chris Street, DataMind, 17th February 2004
Click pictures for a larger view.
| Capacity: | 30GB |
| 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 format |
| 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 format |
| 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 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 |
PMA430 has following key feature differences to AV420. If you don't own an AV4x0 series check out its features. The PMA430 incorporates all the same popular multimedia functionalities of the AV400, but adds exciting new features such as wireless connectivity, an Internet browser, Linux platform for customizing applications, PDA features, and an office suite.
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PMA430 v ALL Archos Multimedia
Compare ALL features PMA430 with ALL other Archos devices viz. AV400, AV300, AV100, Gmini400. This is a comprehensive comparison - details all features side by side.
Click pictures for a larger view.
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Pictures courtesy Archos |
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TV cradle |
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Connected to PC |
Front, flap closed |
icons |
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movie |
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TV Recording |
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<< Stuff mag (mar-05) || Yannik || Kevin Boone || soca_nice_guy
Qtopia / SDK / Sharp Zaurus software
Trolltech
develop Qtopia software for PMA430. The same software is in Sharp
Zaurus SL-C3000. PMA430 will run all the Qtopia (and as a consequence Zaurus)
software - 'provided it is not too closely tied to the hardware'.
So numerous pieces of software should run but that there will be problems
in some cases. We will list all software that run Qtopia
software on PMA430. More info....
Remi Durand, Product Manager, Archos, France gave a 15 minute presentation to Charbax of www.archosfans.com at the Linux Developers Conference on 2nd February 2005.
Windows Movie Video (plays on
Windows Media Player)
Made by Charbax at
www.archofans.com: Download
video (wmv, 65MB)*
New information imparted about PMA430 includes:
The question about hard disk size comes in three flavours.
Q1) If I buy the PMA430
(30GB hard disk) will I be able to upgrade to a larger hard disk later?
A) The 30GB in PMA430 has a 1.8" diameter, 7mm high Hitachi hard disk (70 X 60 X7mm) model series: C4K60 /
HTC426030G7AT00. It is thought that currently
(January 2006) no larger capacity disks of these dimensions are available from any manufacturer. Thanks to Jack Shutzman (January 2006) for further info.
Q2)
Will Archos introduce an 80GB version in the PMA400 series as they did
for the av400 series?
A) We just dont the answer for sure. They might use the av480 shell for a
PMA480. However it is less likely they will produce a PMA480 because the
PMA400 has a USB Host port (see Q3). The av400 series has no USB Host.
Q3) Can I link a larger external
hard disk to PMA430?
A) Yes you can!
Simply connect any universal mass storage external hard disk to the PMA430 USB
Host. You can store movies on the external hard drive and they will play
on the PMA430. So you PMA430 connected to a 100GB external hard disk
becomes a 130GB Portable Media Player!
Opera Web Brower, email & WiFi
Yannick says:
'I've at last tested the Wi-Fi and Internet
browser on the PMA 400...
What I found out is that the Wi-Fi sniffer works, that the Internet
access is very responsive, and that the Opera
browser rocks, even though it doesn't
support flash...
It can zoom in and out from 20% to 400% size, and the pages I saw were globally
displayed correctly.
If they weren't, or if you wanted to have the whole page in one column only
(so that you don't have to scroll tiresomely left and right), Opera will
take care of that. It works really well and makes web pages very readable.
When you have more than one browsing window opened, you can switch between
windows with a simple click. It really works like tabbed browsing, and it's
very efficient. The e-mail
software worked well and that's what I want it to do.'
Yannick, Feb
10th 2005 archos_pma400@yahoogroups.com
Yannick says '
I've tried to install e-books reading software:
opie-reader and justreader. Opie-reader won't
work, and that doesn't surprise me in the least, since it names tells me it
needs libraries the Archos doesn't have. justreader works
with a very small modification. But I haven't been able to test e-books on
it, as I really don't have any e-books for it.'
Yannick, Feb 10th 2005 archos_pma400@yahoogroups.com
