Product: ARCHOS TV+Price: 250GB for $349Rating: 6 out of 10Pros:Tons of features, full of promiseCons: Not a hook-it-up-and-go solutionOverall: A nice piece of hardware that needs some mainstreaming for US use

Out of the BoxI was extremely excited to get my hands on the ARCHOS TV+ after getting the demo at CES. All of the promised features, gobs of storage, and low starting price had me really stoked to give it a go. I’ll note there that during the demo @ CES, their WiFi network was down, so I missed the internet demo. But more on that in a bit.

ARCHOS TV+, you might recall I named to my list of unsung heroes at CES. Well, time to put that task and get some quality review time with the unit that could just change my life. You can’t say I don’t have high hopes.

At CES I got a chance to sit down with Larry Smith, COO ARCHOS, and talk about his ARCHOS TV+. To say he was passionate about this device would be a gross understatement; he was downright giddy about it. Since then, Apple has re-intro’d their Apple TV so I thought I’d get Larry’s response to it. In short, he still isn’t impressed.

Why? Well the biggest difference is TV+s ability to be your DVR. Oh yeah, and a WiFi DVR. That combination seems to me like a knock out punch, but throw in more memory for the price Apple is charging and you’ve got a compelling value proposition. Here is is the interview:

I have the patience of a four year old. I don’t want to know about things available in six months, I want it now. OK, really I wanted it five minutes ago, but you get my drift. CES is all about the future and that is fine, but what about things you can take away now? Here is my list of cool things I took away:

SimulScribe - I’ve been waffling back and forth on giving this a shot. This service takes over your voicemail from your carrier and then emails/sms you the transcribed version along with a wav file. That sounds scary at first, but it is simple and completely reversible, not unlike a vasectomy. The result is you don’t need to stand there listening to voicemail (which is a complete waste of time). Instead of playing the message and listening to callers stumble over their ideas, you cut right to the chase and speed-read their message.