While they've never been sleekly designed on the outside, Archos' media players are always jam-packed with succulent fillings, and the AV500 is no different.

It features a beautiful four inch 480 x 272 16:9 screen that's on a par with the great LCD display of a Sony PSP, a healthy-sized 30GB hard drive (a 100GB version is also available) and a user-interface that's blindingly simple to navigate through.

Even more impressive is the player's dual functionality as a PVR. Using the AV connections – Scart or composite video in and outputs, plus analogue stereo audio – you can hook it up to a TV or set-top-box and record directly to the hard drive in MPEG4 form (MP3 for audio). There's even a remote control port to hook it up directly to the video source, so you can control channel switching from the unit. You can then play the footage back on your television (at a maximum resolution of 640 x 480) or just watch it on the fly. And this is only one of a myriad of functions for the AV500.

Existing content can be transferred to the player through a USB 2.0 connection, and the machine recognises a number of different formats, including most types of MPEG4 fi les (although DivX 3.11 or 6.0 are not supported), JPEGs and BMP picture fi les, and MP3, WMA and WAV audio files.

It's also worth pointing out that the music player mode has support for cover art, much like the iPod.

Unfortunately, on the down side, the player only has a mono loudspeaker, so you'll need to use the included stereo headphones if you want anything more than a tinny drawl, but at least the sound-scape created is comparable to a decent MP3 player. Battery life is decent too, with four-and-a-half hours of playback time for video (15hrs for audio), which should be more than enough for most journeys.

It may just be a brushed metal slap with little going for it in the looks department, but Archos' AV500 is a wonderful performer.

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Archos AV500 | $880 |  | www.itechinternational.com
For: Superb screen; functions as a PVR too
Against: Not the prettiest machine
Verdict: A wonderful performer, despite its looks