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Archos Jukebox 20 GB Digital Audio Player/Recorder/Hard Drive 500277

Archos Jukebox 20 GB Digital Audio Player/Recorder/Hard Drive 500277

List Price: $299.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent mp3 device for the price
Review: I bought this device three months ago, and based on reading previous reviews, I gave it some time before I wrote in my review. Overall, I have been extremely happy!

The Pros: Sound Quality is great, my entire CD collection is on this device (~200 cd's) with less than 1/2 the capacity used (I played with various mp3 quality levels - all are good - I use near cd quality), unit is very intuitive to use (manual is poor, as noted by other reviewers), battery life with batteries provided has been at least 8-10 hours, and the head phones supplied have been just fine. I use the unit doing yard work, hooked up to my stereo, in the car (any tape/cd converter will work ...), and at work. I use Roxio cd creator to convert cd's onto the Archos player, and I use windows explorer to drag and drop to manage the files.

Cons: Unit shipped with wrong color (black), manual is poor, haven't figured out playlists yet (I just create a folder of songs and move on), and the volume must be adjusted by going into the screen menus (however, the headphones with the unit have a volume control, so that work's for me).

I haven't used the recorder yet, but I have used it to transfer extremely large files with success. This is the first mp3 player I have bought, and did a fair amount of research on what's out there, and this appeared to be the best bang for the buck, and I have not been disappointed at all!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: archos recorder
Review: this unit does not record well with a mic under loud live recording situations. mini discs are better. instructions are completely useless. you can hear the hard drive on live recording play back even when file is down loaded onto pc and played back. good concept but needs improvement. built in mic does not provide good quality. you here the drive zipping away. back to the drawing board and listening room frenchy. if you build and sell the unit make sure it is supposed to do what you say it does. i am dissapointed!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Quirky - but not bad.
Review: Ok, first the bad news.

1) 20 gig capacity - not quite, more like 17. Quite a bit but not what the label says.

2)Contrary to some reviews, the documentations isn't all that bad. I wouldn't call it well written or well organized but the information is there - it just takes some digging and patience.

3) 10 hour battery life - not hardly. More like 2-3 if you're transfering a lot of files to or from your computer. Use that AC adapter.

4) When you plug in the AC adapter, the player goes into battery charging mode and you can't use the player until it has charged for at least an hour. It's not a funtion of battery power. You can fully charge the batteries for the 15 hours Archos recommends, disconnect and instantly reconnect the adapter and the 1 hour timer kicks in again.

5) Most of the accessories are useless or worse. The case is a cruel joke (needs more protection for the unit and storage for headphones and USB cable). The head phones are slightly useful thanks to their in-line volume control but you can easily buy better ones from other sources. The AC adapter and the USB cable are the only ones you really you need.

6) It would be nice if it came with a DC adapter so you can use and charge it from your car. You can buy one from them or go to Radio Shack and get one for half the price.

The good news.
1) It's not that hard to use. It's fairly intuitive and the on screen menus are easy to navigate once you get the hang of it.

2) Great sound quality and enormous capactiy.

I'm glad I got this player because it is a good way to transfer large files between my computers, but, my CD based MP3 players will still handle the lion's share of my portable music needs.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Trash...but...
Review: I have just finished with my third piece, and am now going for an Ipod instead.

I must admit I loved this thing while it worked - what a quantum leap from what we were using in the 80's and 90's- remember when auto reverse arrived?!

The build quality just destroys it. This one simply stopped working while I was walking around. As with the other sufferers...a hard disk error. I tried repartioning etc etc and now give up. The tech support folk are useless french monkeys (I can say that cos I'm half part stinky french man). This is a disgraceful product.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: hell yeah
Review: just think about having pretty much any cd you'd want to listen to in your pocket. stop drooling on yourself and read on.

this thing is great. simple interface, batteries that you can recharge without taking out of it, removable batteries, a HELL OF A LOT OF STORAGE FOR [THE PRICE]!

some drawbacks: random is not so good. you have to have everything in one file. further, you cant delete files without plugging it in to the computer. the recorder has serious limitations if you're going directly from analog. unless you're recording through your computer, it names every file the same thing ("new song") so you have to disconnect the little [thing]and plug it back into the computer to rename the song before proceeding.

still, for this price I CANT IMAGINE NOT HAVING ONE. actually, im going to be buying a second (i have a lot of CDs and records, and i'd like my living room back. all the uncompressed media is going into the closet for storage.)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: great deal for the money-though BURN your manual.
Review: I love my little jukebox, so I recommend it to lots of people on a daily basis.
However, I tell people to just BURN the manual the minute they open the box.
What a waste of a tree.
This is probably the worst documentation I have ever seen. I am technical writer and I am ashamed to be associated with the travesty that this manual represents.
Other than that, love, love, love having most of my music with me at all times (and the capability of recording more on the fly.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Dont believe the hype!
Review: Unless you are some brain dead creaton who struggles, repeatedly, with such technological challenges as a blinking VCR clock, this is the product for you. Granted, the instructions are virtually useless, but if you charge the unit for a minimum of 6 HOURS BEFORE USING (I know its hard, but if you dont wait, the battery life will be lousy) you should avoid any of the aforementioned problems. I have had my unit over 6 problem free months, I have over 2,000 different songs, from more than 250 different artists, arranged in 12 distinct categories, and the drive is not quite yet half full. Simple to use, but hard to fill, this is a Fantastic MP3 player.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent MP3 Player For The Money
Review: I have had my Jukebox 20 for over a year now and it still runs like new. With full sized professional headphones and MP3's made at 192Kbps (... encoder), the sound is wonderful! I have not noticed any difference from my original CDs. I am up to 2500 songs and still have 3+ Gbytes of room.

Being able to dump any files I want on the unit is a fantastic feature when business travelling.

I use playlists extensively. I build them while listening via Winamp and then save the list in the Jukebox 20. Having 100+ song playlists helps when asked to DJ a party on the spot. (Cables from Radio Shack make connecting the Jukebox to a big stero system a snap!) A full charge on the batteries will outlast the night during any party.

Still using the original rechargable batteries and have been using the unit 3+ days/week, 4-6 hours/day. Have only used the supplied AC adapter to charge the batteries. Still getting 5+ hours on a full charge with 192 Kbps.

Using standard AA NiMh rechargeble batteries is a very nice plus. I prefer standard batteries to exclusive "proprietary" overpriced ones. With the Jukebox 20, I don't have to worry about battery availability 5 years from now.

After a year of using the Jukebox 20, plenty of long bumpy road trips using a FM stero adapter, and many times through the airport X-ray machine, I have had no trouble with the internal hard drive. Even after a year, the Jukebox 20 doesn't skip while driving on bad roads. It has replaced listening to the radio!

For the size, features, capacity, ease of use, use of standard batteries, and long term perfomance, I cannot think of a better buy for the money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Love It
Review: I got this as a birthday present in January, and have been using it constantly ever since. 20 GB of space is a lot of space; I put approximately 500 mp3s in there so far, and I still have about 85% space left in it. I had absolutely no trouble hooking it up to the computer and uploading my songs into it. Another advantage is that you could put other files on it, you could use that to maybe transfer files from one computer to another. I like how it comes with a charger to recharge the batteries. I take mine everywhere - the gym, the train when I go home, the library, running...(it is big, about a little smaller than a standard walkman, but it's not hard to just hold it while jogging). I've dropped it a couple times too, but the padded corners prevents too much impact, so nothing happened - it still works as normally as before. One thing I have noticed is that if you press too many buttons at once, it freezes. Then you have to turn it off, and turn it back on...that's only happened to me a couple of times. All and all, I definitely recommend this product for the good price and all the use you can get out of it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Super Product
Review: I bought the Archos Jukebox 20 GB Digital Audio Player/Recorder/Hard Drive as a deal from the Amazon gold box. It was a impulse purchase and I am glad I did. It is very simple to use it, as long as you remember to remove it from your USB device list before unplugging it from the computer. I attached it to my car inplace of a regular CD player, and it works well there too.

It just behaves like a external USB storage when attached to a pa. While it works very well with Win2000, I suspect it probably has some driver related issue with Win ME. But I won't hold it against the jukebox.

I wish the manufacturers had built in 1. some antiskip/anitslip protection to make it more portable. 2. some kind of a ZIP/UNZIP circuitry to make it more effective for data/ music storage.


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