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Entertainment functions of PDA Archos PMA430

Package:

Archos PMA430
Headphones
USB-cable
USB Host adapter
External IrDA
Remote controller
Batteries АА x2
Leather case
RCA-SCART two adapters
Cradle with audio- and video-cables
Network charger
Manual

While personal video and audio recorders keep on their successful track, the company of Archos goes on widening its model line. And recently a long waited for new device of the "personal media helpers" line has appeared in Russia. It is called Archos PMA430. In fact the new device is a PDA, though it is completely different from al the known models for today. The PMA430 is based on AV series, models of which come equipped with a large colourful LCD and an integrated hard drive of 20-100 GB with wide digital video and audio recording and playback capabilities. When creating a "personal media helper" all the best of the AV-series including a hard drive was integrated with a 150MHz processor Texas Instruments OMAP 5910 and Qtopia operating system based on Linux. Besides, you will find 64MB of RAM and a sensory liquid crystal screen. Also we'd like to mention a Wi-Fi module (802.11b).

We think this multifunctional device deserves plenty of attention, and so we are publishing two reviews devoted t it. The first one is to describe all entertainment functions including audio, video, text, images, and gaming capabilities. The second review will be devoted to the operating system, general performance of the device, applications, network capabilities and other PDA functions.

Body and design

Since the PMA 430 is based on the AV-series, and particularly, the AV420 with a removable battery. The appearances coincide with the Archos AV400 in the smallest details.

The "helper" is designed as a rectangular metallic box with plastic insertions, which implement decoration and protective functions. The insertions are on the corners and both top and bottom panels. The colours are rather strict and stylish, which completely corresponds with the product's price, this device is mainly oriented on "adult" users. Silvery control elements and lighting indicators really enliven the appearance, In general, the design is thoroughly though over. The ergonomics is also good; you fingers will lie exactly on the buttons not closing the loudspeaker's gas. The body is felt line a single unit due to good assembly and well fit details. It doesn't scratch and has no backlash. All the gaps between the panels have the similar thickness, which is very little.

The right side panel holds USB, network adapter/charging connector and a multifunctional connector combined with a minijack 3.5 mm socket. Besides, a USB Host is also there.

The design seems very successful, the makers managed to endow the AV420 and later the PMA 430 with some conservativeness and solidity, keeping a stylish and modern appearance.

Control

The PMA 430 inherited a plain and easy to understand control scheme checked on various Archos devices. A 4D button with a round confirm button is to the right of the display. It helps moving along the menu, switching tracks, video clips and photos, as well as scrolling. A small oblong button responsible for canceling a process, getting an upper menu layer or switching the phone off is near it. Three functional keys are below, two of them are joint into a small swing. They act depending on the process being performed. They also serve for calling and closing various screen menus, switching of playback speed, and to start and stop recording. And finally, a button for transmitting a signal from the integrated screen to the external one and back is on the right side. The right top corner features two lighting indicators - one of them signifies hard drive work, the second one tells about the device on/off function. The third indicator is under the 4D button and lights only at charging

And don't forget about the touchscreen - the majority of the manipulations falls on it. A detailed review of the control specifics will be given in a corresponding section. The control of the PMA 430 really deserves praise. Working with the device is comfortable, all the keys are where they should be, and pressures are clearly fixed, wrongs pressures are within the limits.

Screen

The РМА430 features a 3.5" colour sensory screen. The resolution forms 320x320 pixels, and the max shown colours reach 262K. The quality indicators are as high as the ones for company video recorders. The display matrixes are most likely identical, and only the РМА430 has a touchscreen. The image is bright and contrast, you can also adjust the contrast using a long scale. Unfortunately, brightness and other image parameters are not adjustable - the only things you can set are brightness and display focusing. The last setting is called LCD Stability and allows correct some trembling of the vertical pixel lines manually. And by the way, a user can select one of 200 values, which indicates a serious level of video controller. The screen sensitivity is average, and using stylus makes no troubles. A detailed passage devoted to this aspect is in the second part of the review.

Cradle and remote controller

A special cradle is shipped with the РМА430. It allows connecting to external sources and signal receivers. Six cables with RCA slots for incoming and outgoing audio and video signals are integrated just into the cradle, as well as S-Video cable. The cradle itself is connected to the РМА430 using a universal connector, which contains a battery slot besides contacts for audio and video transmission. Also a cradle features connectors for a keypad and an external IrDA receiver. And finally, an integrated receiver for infra-red remote controller.

The РМА430's cradle completely copies the one of the predecessor AV420. It has a classical ergonomic form and lies well in a hand. The controller's body is of silvery plastic, the assembly is well-done and corresponds with the general level of the device. All the buttons are duplicated on the controller and some extra ones are present: from 9 number ones to mute. The presence of the remote controller really lightens viewing films on an external display.

Power supply and connection to PC

High speed USB 2.0 bus connects the device to a computer. Theoretically, the max data transmission speed forms 480 Mbit/s and is really restricted with the integrated hard drive operating speed of the РМА430. The hard drive is produced by Hitachi, and a stick on the back tells about this.

The hard drive model is HTC42603 OG7AT00, the system detects it this way. The operating speed was not measured, since everything fully depends on the performed operation, though big files are copied with the speed of 4-5 MB/s. Video files heavy of several thousand megabytes are opened within 5-7 seconds, data writing speed when transmitting from the memory bus or a write buffer also rouses no cavils. So, we consider the phone's operating speed when working with audio and video files acceptable. The hard drive of the РМА430 works almost silently and only heard when starting for the first time or when opening a big file. The phone has a corporate ARClibrary control system realized. At every start the device scans for new files, after finding them all the information is indexed for easier search. The scanning and indexing procedure takes about several seconds and causes no problems. The main advantage of the system is you can create folders, rename them, move and edit files using a PC.

The device is powered by a removable Li-Ion battery. Its capacity remains unknown. The device consumes much energy, and the battery capacity is so that the device is to be charged from power grid. There is no USB charging. The manufacturer claims video playback for 4 hours. And audio for about 9.5 hours. Real values are very close to the announced.

Video

The device allows viewing video on the internal and external screens with the resolution of 704x480 pixels and frequency of 30 fps. The most often image looks the best way on the integrated screen its correspondence with the resolution of the majority of videofiles. Working with video is similar to the AV-series. Video is played back full-screen or in a window, scroll bar is present, indicators or shown and remained time. The 4D navi pad and the stylus help in navigation along the audio files, the first variant is slower, though is more comfortable.

The РМА430's processor easily decodes video stream with the resolution of 640 x 480 with a bit rate of 1500 KB/s, and the hardest scenes are played with no slow down.

Unfortunately, the best functions of the AV-series were not passed to the РМА430 fully, and even with the latest software version the device is very fastidious in file playback, when the files are encoded with various settings. Officially, the РМА430 supports only MPEG 4 SP (Simple Profile) and doesn't support other settings for files. Most likely the problem will be solved by third party makers (remember the operating system is open, and SDK is present) or by software updates by the manufacturer.

Video is recorded from any source using the cradle in the kit. We'll remind it has seven connectors - three RCAs for video and two stereochannels for video and audio records and playback, besides there is a composite connector for recording high quality video - so, we see recording multichannel sound is

Record settings include geometric video format (16:9, 4:3, 2,35), video stream width (500-2500 KB/s), TV format (PAL or NTSC), resolution (320 x 240 or 512 x 386 pixels) and audio sample frequency (32 or 48 KHz). Separately, you can adjust brightness, contrast, colour rendering. When recording from qualitative sources, the result is very good, no complaints. All the characteristics of the AV-series recorders are kept and also the functionality is widened, this is an evident plus. According to the test units in the network, the video is encoded by Micronas VPX3226 chip. Unfortunately, we couldn't open the body and prove it.

Audio

The products by Archos are well known for good sound, and audio playback is an integral function of the РМА430. This device doesn't demean the company - the sound is quite good and by heart is similar to the one of video devices by the company. Music and sound tracks to films are played back with perfect quality in the whole frequency range, strange noises are absent and no distortions are heard at the max volume. A user can set sound parameters by five bands or select of the five genre presets. Generally, it helps setting the necessary sounding corresponding with your taste very fast. The audio player interface is designed considering the use of the stylus, a large display allows showing much. While play back, you can switch repetition modes, adjust equalizer and use full navigation within the disk. A multitask operating system, which deserves a special review, allows listening to the music and work with other applications with no performance loss.

Audio signal is recorded from an integrated microphone. The audio files recorded have the WAV (PCM or ADPCM) format. Sampling frequency can vary from 16 to 48 KHz. The integrated microphone is very sensitive and may record in a distance of 10 m.

Photo and text

The device has applications for viewing JPEG, PNG, GIF and BMP graphical files, as well as text ones such as TXT and PDF. In some cases you can view DOC without formatting. All the attached applications are supported as for PDF. The image quality is explained with the general picture quality and is very high. Full-screen image and slide show are supported.

Games

In the presence of a powerful processor and video subsystem a thought of adding game functionality suggests itself. The РМА430 is equipped with several preinstalled games and supports Mophun. The games you find in the device are mainly logical and do not gladden with much action. Though, many Mophun games are 3D and more dynamical. The РМА430 offers several demo versions of the games, which you can buy at the maker's site. The game control scheme is perfect for games, and a 4D button resembles a gaming "cross-pieces". Unfortunately, you can control the events only with your one hand, which prevents from using several functions at the same time. Game makers take this fact into account, however, for instance, one of the most interesting games Rally Contest is not very comfortable to play, wince you have to control the car and press an "accelerator treadle".

Conclusions and impressions

As for the entertainment, this Archos' "personal media helper" almost completely copies its successful predecessors, the AV-series. The more powerful processor allowed increasing the maximum video resolution and expanding game functionality significantly, support for 3D graphics was added. Applications for working with PDF files allow reading e-books of the corresponding format. The main changes concern the interface, a standard one used in the majority of Archos' devices was replaced by Linux Qtopia. And the second part а the review will tell about its implementation in Archos PMA430, and the first one is to sum up a short prospection. It's quite possible the РМА430 is the first sign of the future devices of the new class combining a capacious hard drive, wide audio and video capabilities, and PDA functions. Probably, in some years such devices will follow ordinary users of PDAs, personal audioplayers and stationary videorecorders. So, the РМА430 descendants with higher resolution are likely to combine PDA, Tablet PC and micronotebooks considering wireless capabilities and a touchscreen.

Technical specifications Archos PMA430:

HDD: 30 GB
BUS: USB 2.0
Video playback: MPEG-4 SP with MP3 or ADPCM stereo sound, close to DVD quality, the resolution of up to 704x480 @ 30 fps. (MTSC), 720x576 @ 25 fps (PAL), AVI.
Video recording: MPEG-4 SP, MP3 sound, the resolution of up to 512 x 384 pixels, up to 30 fps.
Audio playback: formats MP3, WMA, WAV, bit rate 32-320 Kb/s, changeable bit rate.
Audio recording: via an integrated microphone or a linear input to formats WAV (PCM/ADPCM)
Image formats: JPEG, BMP
Screen: touchscreen, the resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, up to 262000 colours, 3,5" diagonal
Dimensions: 125 x 78 x 20 mm
Weight: 280 g