Personal video recorders like TiVo make it easy to store hours and hours of television. The challenge is finding the time to watch it all. With Archos’ AV420, you can take up to 80 hours of your favorite shows, along with your music, pictures, voice recordings, and other important files, on the road. At $549, this all-in-one device is pricey, but you’ll stop thinking about the cost once you fire up an episode of CSI on your next flight, or watch the latest SportsCenter during your morning commute. This could be the best gadget of the year.

The AV420 improves upon first-generation portable media players in two important ways—you can plan your recordings ahead of time using the Scheduler feature, and, at 9.9 ounces and less than an inch thick, the device is more pocket-friendly than older PMPs. Its PDA-sized frame, however, prevents this device from being a workout companion.

A four-way control pad on the front of the device features a center button for turning the device on and making menu selections, while a connected X button backs out of screens and turns the device off. A set of three buttons beneath the control pad opens up the option menus.

Views the Qick Specs for the Archos AV420

The 3.5-inch display seems tiny compared to that of a portable DVD player, but its 262,000 colors make the video easy to watch. The battery life is rated at 3.5 hours, and expect up to 12 hours when you’re playing music only. The icon-based main menu is fairly easy to navigate, but lacks the intuitiveness of Microsoft’s upcoming Portable Media Center software.

To get video to the AV420, Archos includes a compact cradle with a bunch of cables hanging off the back. The yellow, red, and white composite-in cables go from the dock to your cable box or satellite tuner. A second set of composite-out cables enables users to hook the AV420 up to any TV.

If you plan on viewing your videos on the big screen, we recommend recording using the TV-quality setting, which looked incredibly smooth and vibrant when we cued up a Yankees-Red Sox game. For on-the-go watching, the lower-quality LCD setting is recommended, which still delivered fluid video and crisp audio.

To use the Scheduler feature, you can either enter the date, time, and channel manually—and then enter the show name manually using the clunky onscreen keyboard—or use Yahoo's TV listings and sync your weekly Yahoo calendar with the device over a USB 2.0 connection. Not only will the name of the show automatically appear on the AV420's screen, you can schedule programs up to ten days in advance. Still it’s a bit of a pain to have to save an HTML file to the device each and every time you want to add a new recording.

One thoughtful touch is that you don’t have to remember to flip to the right channel before recording begins. An IR emitter cable that goes from the docking station to the front of your cable box allows the Archos to tune to the right channel. The annoying part of this process is hunting for the infrared window on the cable box before removing the sticker on the emitter and affixing it.

The AV420 is a multitalented machine. As an MP3 player, the device syncs directly with MusicMatch (included on the installation CD) and even supports album cover art, but you’ll need to upgrade to the Plus version of MusicMatch ($19.99) to enjoy this perk. Otherwise, the sound quality of the AV420 is superb, especially if you use the line-in feature to record directly from a CD in WAV format.

The Archos also functions as a digital photo album. You can load pictures through either the USB 2.0 connection or the CompactFlash slot on the left side of the device. If your camera supports a different memory format, users will have to spring for the optional $39 four-in-one card reader adapter. While we like being able to rotate and zoom in on pictures, we wish the AV420 could play background music during a slideshow.

Despite its inability to multitask, the Archos AV420 does a lot of things very well. For those who like to keep their entertainment options open when they’re on the move, this is the VIP of PMPs.

View the quick specs for the Archos AV420 >>