Is the Archos phone on the way?

Archos' MD of Northern Europe has not ruled out the possibility of an Archos phone in the future, but believes there's still a massive market for standalone PMPs for a while yet.

"There is convergence [in mobile devices], and we both support and like it," says Tony Limrick.

"But when it comes to compromise, although many phones could do some of the things [an Archos can], we choose not to do that, as things like the quality of the screen is not good enough, not up to the experience level found on an Archos."

"I'm not saying the Archos phone won't happen, if we were to deliver an Archos 5 with phone functionality that would appeal to some people, though I haven't seen any prototypes."

New content

The new Archos Internet Media Tablets have been designed to keep the company one step ahead of new devices like the Apple iPod Touch, and as such have had to find new ways of attracting consumers.

The new series has downloadable content from content partners, such as Paramount, and Archos is in talks with other providers to expand this range.

"We're looking at anything we think is engaging to the end user," says Matthew Knight, marketing executive for Archos. "For instance in France we have a partnership with a German news provider, so (the next step) could be music, news, travel info, weather info. We're basically more about a holistic range of services.

"There are other things we're going to do on content that I can't really go into that are going to expand our range."

With the success of the App store and iTunes for Apple, Archos fans everywhere will be looking for their device to offer more than just the ability to record Match of the Day, so the more content the French company can pack in, the better the PMP wars will be for the consumer.