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: