I promised in a previous post that I would share some of the mobile entertainment devices I use to make my train commute less boring.

I begin this series with the iPod Touch, which has been the main savior of my train sanity since it was released. I watch a movie on it every train ride – half on the way to work, half on the way home, with maybe a couple podcasts or audiobooks to fill leftover time. I actually look forward to my train time with the Touch (as long as I have some good fresh content loaded).

However, the Touch is not the only portable media player out there, as you all know. Probably its most well-regarded competition is the Archos 605 WiFi – whom besides having up to 10X as much storage with a built-in hard drive, also has a larger, higher-resolution screen and supports a much wider variety of video formats…

Not being an Apple fanboy, I always want to give the competition the benefit of the doubt – so when the Archos 605 WiFi was released, I purchased it as well to compare the two. Well, after not too long, the Archos sat in its cradle and stayed there – a sentence I handed down in response to its inherent complexity and usability issues next to its Apple cousin.

Here is my list of reasons why I prefer the iPod Touch to the Archos 605 Wifi.

1. It is very responsive - this has been my #1 factor for mobile devices for quite a while now. Functionality barely even seems relevant anymore, usability is. While mobile, I have to be able to get things like browser sessions, movies and music up and running or switch between them with a minimum of effort. The Touch delivers. Startup, shutdown, sleep/wake, start/resume movie, wifi connections, application switching – I dont wait for anything to happen on the Touch – the Archos, however, is relatively slow on the draw, which is exaggerated by the nails-on-blackboard sound and vibration of the hard drive. Yes, the storage is awesome – however, the performance is not. The Touch is effortless and silent.
2. The Wifi works – Dont get me started on the Wifi performance of the Archos, because in my experience, its been awful. Nearby AP’s appear and dissapear – WEP and WPA passwords are forgotten – then remembered, and of course connections drop in and out – its infuriating. The Touch manages to work about as well as a standard laptop, as it should.
3. It doesn’t require a stylus – I know, there will be a lot of people who insist the Archos can be used without a stylus, and it can – but it can get *real* frustrating. Stylii are so 1999 anyway – I wouldnt be caught dead with one (before I lost it).
4. Its much more portable – For what it does, the Archos is indeed a marvel of miniturization, but its like carrying a laptop compared to the Touch (OK, I exaggerated a little). Still, its relatively klunky.
5. It has accessories – One of the major pluses for the entire iPod line is the value-add of the hundreds of third-party and apple accessories. Yes, the Archos has accessories, just not as many, and one of the ones I do have (the DVR dock), I still haven’t forced myself to setup.
6. It doesn’t have maintenance to do – in some modes, at certain times, the Archos will decide it needs to do a little housecleaning. The drive will spin up, and you cant do anything – something to do with library management I think. The Ipod doesnt do this.
7. The screen is brighter. Its true, the Archos has a higher resolution and a larger screen – but in my usage, I actually prefer the brightness of the Touch, especially for mobile use – the Archos is barely watchable on the train ride home when the setting sun illuminates the car, and in other similar situation where I actually use the device regularly. At home at my desk its fine, but I have a tv at home.
8. The ‘themes’ are kind of goofy looking. I tried all the options, dont like any of them.
9. The user interface is professional. The Archos interface works, but just barely, and there is almost universal agreement that the directional buttons on the side are poorly implemented and take too long to get adjusted to.
10. Resume. On the Touch, if you leave a movie, go do some stuff, then come back to it, it picks up where it left off, like a DVD. On the Archos, the resume functionality is manual and even when you use it half the time it doesnt do what you want it to do.