Rating: 
Summary: Teaches through Frustration
Review: All I wanted was a mp3 player that I could listen to while riding my motorcycle. This unit gave all the promise of being just what I needed: large memory, easy to download through window explorer (drag and drop), easy to make playlists (I use Winamp). The addition of a "Rockbox" download makes managing the playlists better (I'm able to put up to 20,000 songs in a playlist while the Archos program only allows 999 songs per playlists; I wanted all 4600 of my songs in one playlist). The problem, as almost everyone stated, is that it locks up a whole bunch with any steady vibration, most times not playing more that a minute or so. After trying many tricks and bad words, I stumbled upon a setting called "Disc Spindown". It was defaulted to 5 secs. I raised it up to 40 seconds and the locking up ceased. The bad side to this is that the increased time will eat up the battery. Sooo, even though I not very pleased with this product, I think I can make it work for me. When I'm home and the player is not moving, I set the spindown to 10 seconds. When I'm on the road, I set it for 40 seconds (actually, I still trying to find a sweet spot) and plug the player into a DC power adapter. Note: the increased spindown time will result in some buzzing coming across the speakers or headphones. There's a whole bunch of other things I learned about it that the book didn't point out, but I let you learn those for yourself. Consider it a "learning experience".
Rating: 
Summary: top notch player with minor quirks
Review: as you are going through these reviews trying to figure out whether or not this player is actually good let me clear some misconceptions. first of all tech support IS not reliable, but this does not relate to the player itself. second of all this player DOES have a pretty good battery life, some people have been exaggerating how short it is, the battery will easily run for at least 5-6 hours; the thing that misleads people is the battery display icon which is frequently wrong, so don't rely on it much. thirdly the sound quality is well above par no complaints here, the FM quality is good enough to listen to raido undisterbed most of the time, the recording features (voice and auido) are outstanding although the hard disk buzz is a little annoying, it coming on every 3 minutes or so, but its not really loud at all just a subtle little sound. lastly know what you are buying, a bigger than ipod player with fm, voice and auido recording capabilities that has a few minor, quirks. so basically if you're lookin for 20 gigs, the best sound quality and functionality in a small packag along with outstanding support for an mp3 ([PLAYER]) then go buy an ipod. i go with archos because its got everything that an ipod has plus functionality at a much smaller pricetag. oh and one last thing the firmware on the player isn't much, but it's saving grace is the feature to upgrade the firmware (not necessarily through archos). i suggest using rockbox as it is much better, offering more auido, visal, playlist, labeling and ordering options. its much faster, provides an ACCURATE battery display, does NOT freeze up, offers good tech support, it allows you to keep your EXACT spot on the song you were left off at when you turn off the player, a text reader is also included allowing you to read text documents (good for online books!), and finally my favorite feature GAMES! on the rockbox firmware you can play 8 games, sweet! and they're not that bad at all. pretty fun to play while you listen to your tunes and kill time.
Rating: 
Summary: Dont do business with JR Music World
Review: Don't do business with JR Music World, they sent me a crap product. Ear out input did not work!
Rating: 
Summary: Have to get another!
Review: Everyone in the house keeps taking it. I have been looking for an MP3 player for a long time. I wanted at least a 20G unit. When I saw that coupled with an FM Radio/recorder, I couldn't wait to get it. Biggest gripe with this unit was getting it out of the plastic box it came in. Talk about tough plastic! It connects via USB, completely painless. Simply drag and drop files and you are done. The printed documentation is limited but the included CR-ROM and the web site has complete instructions. But after a few minutes with it you pretty much can figure out how to operate it. I'm amazed at the FM recordings. I have recorded music and long format talk shows with ease. The included headphones are junk. But that should be expected. I'd estimate the battery lasts close to 7 hours. I am constantly playing around with the screens and keeping the backlight on, so if I were to just let it play un interrupted, it would probably last longer. The voice recorder works fine. The sound is great. And you can not beat the price. So glad I did not get an IPOD.
Rating: 
Summary: New product that still needs a lot of work
Review: First off, the battery life is horrible... 3-4 hours on a charge. Second, it tends to lock up from time to time, and the only way to get it back to normal is to pop the battery hatch... but if you do that or run the batteries down all the way, it loses all of the radio station presets you've stored. In addition, it only properly recognizes 128 kbps MP3s... if they are recorded at any other bit rate, it can still play them, but the info (length timeplayed, time remaining, etc.) is all wrong. It also takes some learning, as the user guide does not match the product... for example, to make a new directory or delete a file, you have to do an entirely different set of actions than the instruction manual states. This has the potential to be a good product, if Archos fixes a lot of these problems. Most of them can (and probably will) be fixed via firmware updates. But the battery life is a major issue with this player.
Rating:
Summary: Recording Through Archos Can Be Very Damaging
Review: Hello, I bought my Archos 3 days ago. It's great for listening to MP3s downloaded from the computer or the radio. I was looking for an MP3 Recorder that could record over 30 hours of audio through the radio. So I chose the Archos FM Jukebox. I bought The Archos because it had everything I needed. Recording with the Archos can be very damaging if you don't do it right the first time. When I started recording through the Archos's Built-In radio it was very disapointing. About every 45 seconds the Hard Drive would spin and create a interference and I would get static for about 5 seconds and it did this over and over and over again. So that was very irritating. Then I tried recording through the Internal Mike and every 45 seconds it would pick up the the annoying sound of the Hard Drive spinning. It was very Irritating. AND HERE'S THE WORST PART OF IT ALL THAT CAN BE VERY DAMAGING TO RECORDINGS. I had to learn the hard way. And Archos does not mention this problem anywhere. When I started recording through the radio it created a file called "New Song00 pt1" then when I clicked NEXT it created a brand new file of the audio I was recording called "New Song00 pt2" clicked next again I got "New Song00 pt3". So I recorded through the radio and created these 3 recordings and then I clicked "STOP". They were IN THE FOLDER I created called Speeches. They were very important audio files. So an hour goes by and I have to record 3 more Audio files through the radio. So I'm Still IN THE FOLDER called Speeches and start to Record again and divide the Audio recordings into 3 new files. And here's what Archos FAILED TO ANNOUNCE and can be very damaging: when I went back to the FOLDER I created called Speeches there were only 3 files in it and I had made 6 files. I listened to the files and it turns out THE NEW 3 FILES I had Created HAD ERASED THE 3 OLDER FILES I CREATED FIRST. And those very important 3 files I created first were OVERWRITTEN & ERASED by the new recordings I made. THE ARCHOS REPLACES OLD RECORDINGS WITH NEW ONES IF THEY'RE IN THE SAME FOLDER. With no warning I was very very Disappointed. I'm telling this so no one has to go through the same thing I went through of loosing valuable Audio. So if your buying this thing for recording Audio I wouldn't recommend the Archos go for Nomad or Minidisc Instead. Hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: Worst piece of equipment I ever had....
Review: Horrible... Pros:
1. Sometimes it worked. Cons:
1. Terrible battery life. I needed to be charged everyday.
2. Horrible Tech support. Email response took 2 days.
3. Screws were loose on my device.
4. It would randomly turn itself off even on a full battery.
5. FM radio was terrible.
6. Crystal display is small.
7. Menus are VERY hard to navigate too. I will never buy and Archos again. NEVER!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Product
Review: I bought the Archos FM 20 in March and have had a great experience with it. It is not the the most attactive player, but it holds 20gigs, is extremely sturdy, and has a very good battery life. It is much simpler to organzie than is competition the iPod. Its easy to customize through windows explorer, no extra software, and transfer speeds are extremely fast through a USB 2 connection. I would definitly recomend this product to any person interested in buying a hard drive MP3 player.
Rating:
Summary: Good in Theory, Bad in Practice
Review: I bought the Jukebok FM recorder last August, and since then I have sent the unit out four times to Archos repair. The first time, the unit was freezing up all the time at random, and this continued even after re-formatting the unit, as instructed by Archos support. The next two times I had the same problem, and each time I was given a different unit. The last was working ok until the F2 button broke (after normal use) . Archos support (the man who answerd spoke very poor English and I could barely understand what he was saying) told me they would upgrade my unit to the Jukebox Multimedia, but both he and his supervisor refused to renew the "non-negotiable" warranty for the new unit.
The FM Recorder did not by any means measure up to what was advertised, and proved very un-reliable. I know of two other units owned by friends of mine which have had similar problems. All of us use it for business purposes, and all of us have lost precious time and money due to "minor glitches" in the unit. The theory behind the unit and all it is supposed to be able to do is nice, but from what we can tell, the battery is not powerful enough to handle the load of spinning up the disk whle playing or recording. Archos has instructed us to try keeping the unit plugged in, but then what is the point of having it battery operated?? I would recommend buying a slightly more expensive IPod or something else. You might spend a little more up-front, but it will prevent you from having to spend a lot more money in the future. When I asked Archos what would happen to the new unit if something happened, the man replied that I would only have to pay the "low repair cost (not including parts) of $69.99" and it would get fixed. What rotten service!
Rating:
Summary: Great...if you ignore the instruction booklet
Review: I definitly recommend this jukebox only to people who atleast some experience with electronics. The instructions that I received explaining how to install onto my computer were crap (I have windows ME). I ended up ignoring them almost entirely. I just plugged it in and dragged and dropped my songs into the new drive, no problem. What some people have been saying about the nomad zen is that it is the only jukebox that you can create playlists on without connecting to your pc. Well, they're wrong. You can create playlists just on the mp3 player without any help from external software. The radio was better than I expected, I actually get better reception with this than I do with my small boom box radio. It takes a little practice to get totally used to the way you navigate on this thing, but after about thirty minutes I had it down. It was smaller than I thought it would be! It's kinda heavy (since it's a hard drive) but it still fits in the back pocket of my jeans. I like the look of the FM recorder better than the other archos jukeboxes. Overall I am very happy with it. Less expensive than the ipod and just as good! I recommend it!
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