You know, it’s not a requirement to have a smartphone to play movies and music — I just thought I’d mention that, since there’s such a mad rush to buy those phones nowadays. But cheaper options do exist, and they can be much cheaper and offer quality that’s as good as, or better than, their smartphone counterparts.

Case in point: the Archos 605 media player. While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of an iPhone or Palm Pre for example, it does what it does very well, and with no monthly service contract. It’s not trying to be a phone: it knows what it is, and is comfortable with that. I like gadgets without an inferiority complex.

The Archos can be had for as little as $120.  For that you get a 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen with a resolution of 800×480. Compare that to the iPhone’s resolution of 480×320, and you can see that the Archos provides a better experience for viewing movies and videos.

The MP3 player plays all the standard music formats, and the Archos has a built-in external speaker. That helps if you don’t have headphones handy (although you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time listening to music or movies on that tiny speaker).

The Archos also includes wi-fi capability, and you can buy an Opera Web browser plug-in for the unit. That allows you to surf through the Archos portal for entertainment to download. One nice touch offered by the gadget is a fold-out kickstand, which allows you to sit the player upright for watching video. That’s a thoughtful addition, and something more media player manufacturers should do.

The Archos has been out for several years now, meaning it lacks that “Wow” factor that some folks just have to have. If you can live without that, and just need a good, basic media player, this may be your thing.