So you always wanted to buy the Archos Video Player but never really gave it a spin because of its price? Well, there's now a free, ad supported version of the app available in the Google Play Store.

The free version of the Archos media player is supported by ads. Besides offering  the excellent feature set as that of its premium cousin worth $4.99, the free version includes hardware accelerated video decoding support for most devices and video formats, and also the ability to play content from any computer/network storage in your local network (SMB and UPnP) or from an external USB storage device. It also features automatic online retrieval of movie and TV show information with poster and backdrop for both local and network content.

Archos earlier launched its acclaimed media player to the Google Play Store in December last year but it disappointed many users as they were asking $4.99 for the application. Some still believe it be the most capable video player for Android so the news should only bring smiles to faces for all those looking for an excellent media and video player (obviously free) for Android.

Interestingly, it allows you to test out the full version of the app without dropping down any green first. Yes, the app does work on both smartphones and tablets, but it will require Android 4.x to run.

Interested users can visit the Google Play store to download the app for their device.