I know on my old Archos it could also be recognized as a portable hard drive, it this not the case with the Archos 5?

 

I probably should have worded that a little better. I actually used my Archos to make my last post and was running low on battery, so I was rushing. Anyway, yes, it is the same. I can set it to either Windows Media Player mode or portable hard drive (with or without auto sync, or whatever its called). But either way, if I want to connect my Archos to a USB host, I cannot navigate through the Archos' menus because a message saying "USB connection" remains on the screen until I unplug it. That's the one advantage of an iPod over an Archos. While it too does not allow menu surfing while connected to a USB host, many accessories such as the iHome and these proprietary car jacks allow you to navigate through music files by genre, arist, album, etc. just like you would on the iPod itself. The Archos has no such accessory, so I am probably better off using a 3.5mm jack.