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Archos Jukebox Studio 20 GB MP3 Player/Hard Drive 500204

Archos Jukebox Studio 20 GB MP3 Player/Hard Drive 500204

List Price: $269.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not user friendly
Review: First off, the software's version that comes with player is out dated. It caused me to loose the 7.5 version of MUSICMATCH JUKEBOX; in return for a 6.0 version. Second, once you do install the software, it takes an eternity to figure that you need more downloading to convert WAV music to MP3 music. The craftmanship and layout of the player indicates that it will probably not withstand the test of time. You must jog through a menu to just adjust the volume. Don't even think about playing the player before the recommended 8 hours recharging time. I let my player recharge for 24 hours, while I attempted to download music. It still didn't play after that. Lastly, the instruction manual is useless at best. It doesn't help you what so ever in downloading music to the portable devise. Afer 36 hours of playing around with it, to no avail., I finally sent it back. It's really not worth the time and effort put into it. Maybe, it's a better hard drive back up?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Takes some getting used to...
Review: In the world of smaller and smaller, this product seems to have missed the boat. A little smaller than a casette player and is heavier than my old mp3 player and cellphone combined.
However, one cannot overlook the huge storage. I already have 991 files on it, and still have 70% space left.
HOWEVER- it does have some drawbacks. You can only go through windows explorer to go through the files (a hassle to some...) and you really can't organize them and put them into folders because if you like a shuffled playlist, it does NOT go between folders. So you must either keep it one big mess or constantly keep moving files.
It takes some getting used to, but i'm not really complaining. It sufficiently fits my needs, and what more can you really ask for?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great For The Price
Review: Like many other consumers, I ignored the other reviews posted on amazon.com and bought the jukebox anyway. The idea of my whole CD collection on one player was just too good to pass up. I'm glad I did~ it's been great so far!
I am by no means a techie-type of person. I am awful with computers, and have no interest in using them for anything but convenience. Yet I finally figured out how to work this gadget on my Mac.... and if I can do that, anybody can.
First of all, the user manual is horrible. It hardly tells you anything. Go to archos.com to find out a little more about the player, though even the site leaves out a few little "details". One thing included on the site but not on the manual is that you must eject the player from your desktop before unplugging the USB, or serious damage to both player and computer may ensue.
The only problem that I have with the player is its poor display. It stores up to 3000 songs, but only shows one at time! This means flipping through all of them if there is one specific one you want to hear. However, songs can be stored in seperate folders. I put songs from one cd (or group) in each folder. This makes it a little more organized, but still not hassle-free.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Archos Jukebox Studio 20 GB Player/ 50024
Review: Bought two of these little guys, The kids love them. Very simple to use and the quality is excellent. Well worth the money, no more CD burning. sweet!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nice product, recorder is nicER !
Review: The player is nice, especially with the ROCKBOX
alternate firmware.
With that firmware, the recorder should be even better as
the display allows more than two lines, while two lines is
the most you get with the player.

20 GB is enough for hours of playback. Software is capable
of extracting and indexing my CDs.
Batteries cover is a little cheap, aluminium would have been
nice, we only get plastic with shiny paint !
Comes with nice neoprene padded pouch.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great For The Price
Review: I bought this product after looking at the Creative Nomand, Ipod, and The Rio Riot. I mainly bought this product because the Ipod was way too expensive(Im only 12 geez!) and the Nomand was too big and I didnt like thr Rio Riot because it was big too, and looked [wierd]. I recieved this product from a seller here called r.e.t.u.r.n. b.u.y(some things in this article are encrypted so there not censored) He sold it to me for o.n.e.h.u.n.d.r.e.d. a.n.d. s.e.v.e.n.d.y. d.o.l.l.a.r.s(hope this works) anyway, It came with all the things I needed and showed no appearedt damage. I later realized(after a while of fooling around to actually figure out how it works(for me, I had to hold the on button till it says Jukebox 5.08 or something, then I release it, then It said update: 5.07a and and 2 seconds later said Jukebox Studio 20. Sometimes it reverts right to the menue, or I had to push On really hard after that.)I then installed the usb driver on my computer(Windows ME) and Tryed to get the computer to recognized it. After a hour of fruitless trying, I went to bed. The Next day after school, I went home and uninstalled the driver, plugged it in, and IT WORKED! it took about a minute for it to install, and just so you other users know, It is hot swappable! anyway, I loaded a few albums on it in less than a minute. I dont like musicmatch so I dont use it. I noticed that the fast forward button(+) is stuck foward, so I have to press the back(-) button hard for a while to relieve it for about 20 seconds. It reverts to fast foward at the slightest touch of that button during a song, so I put hold on immediatly. Im about to update the firmware so wish me luck. The browsing is not all that great, because it only shous 1 song(or album/user/genre) w/out having to browse(I was hoping at least 5) I have no problem w/the sound quality, and the headphones are good enough for me. THE UNIT IS EXTREMELY INTUITIVE. The transfer rate is a bit slow for me, but I can handle that. The AC adapter is great(amazingly small) and the USB cable is a bit short for my liking. The case is handy but the blue color is dorky. The colors on the player arent bad, but I wish I had the black version. The volume control on the headphones is handy, because its hard to adjust the volume with that bogus 2 key pattern thing....The volume is a bit low, but its OK. I used pre-charged batteries, becase I couldnt wait to charge. So, The only thing I dont like is the messed up button(maybe ill fix that somehow(the screws are opened by that star screwdriver that we dont have)). Anyway, Ill recomend this product as the best mp3 player you can get for my price. Oh, I havent had the HD error thing,, but I presume thats from not having the AC adapter on when your file loading.

For all you low income people who want their whole music library in the palm of their hand, THIS IS FOR YOU!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: VERY BAD PRODUCT AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
Review: Customer support does not have a free 1800 #. Everytime I call I get voice mail or told they are in a meeting. I cannot turn on or off unless it is connected to the power supply. When I turn it off the LCD remains lit. I am trying to return this product.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Take It With You
Review: The Archos Jukebox is a fantastic portable hard drive with an earphone jack! If you travel, wear it on your belt, it's much smaller than a cd/mp3 player, and you can carry your files between computers and just plug in the USB to transfer. While on the go use the earphone jack. Get a good pair of earphones, at least 18-20,000 frequency to get exceptional clarity in midrange and high frequency and deep base tones. Make your playlists on your desktop from the jukebox files using your desktop mp3 player, then drag the saved playlist to the jukebox. Shows up like another harddrive in "my computer". File your mp3's in folders by catagory or by album. Next up for me is the Archos audio/video player. Does the same with video to boot. I've got the equivalent of 400 albums on my jukebox and 8 gigs left for random files, any kind that's on your pc. It's got the price and capacity and looks cool besides!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: good idea, poor execution, dismal tech support
Review: As a small doorstop, the unit performs marginally well. As an MP3 player or hard drive its own lack of quality is rivaled only by abominable technical support. Where once there was a reasonable FAQ list, now there is but marketing drivel.

Like other reviewers, I have now gone through two units in six months, and am opening a dialog that I hope will end in a refund rather than a third chance at misery. Both units ended their days by charging until the LCD said "HD Error," at which point the unit would not work as an MP3 player either on battery or on A/C.

Mysteriously, the USB connection still functions, allowing the unit to continue "functioning" as a hard drive. While ergonomically simple -- Windows Explorer copying gets files to your drive -- the elapsed time is "same day delivery." If you use a USB hub, there are frequent I/O errors. If you follow the advice of the erstwhile FAQ list and use a USB port on the chassis, you just get frequent write failures.

And tech support. "We'll get back to you within 48 hours" clearly refers to hours on Saturn or some other distant planet. Without the FAQ list, I guess they're just overwhelmed. As an owner of a unit, I'm not.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Archos Jukebox! BUY IT!!!
Review: 20GBs worth of data in this little hard drive huh? Sadly enough, that's bigger than my hard drive on my computer. What am I to do with all this space you ask? Well, instead of 128kbs mp3 files, why not 192kbs instead? The quality of the music will be THAT much better! :-)

I was looking at the iPod of course but it's twice the cost of the archos. It's slimmer, but you'd have to get a firewire card, something I don't have on my ancient PC and I'm not about to shell out any extra moolah to get one. USB is perfectly fine for me. I was able to transfer 1 GB worth of mp3s in about 15 mins. I can't even imagine how much faster a firewire transfer would be, but for the price of the archos, 15 mins is perfectly acceptable.

So down to the nitty gritty. The headphones, like many others have attested to, are complete garbage, totally incapable of withstanding any bass whatsoever. So please do yourself a favor and just toss them to the wayside and get a decent pair of earbuds, head phones, anything. The clarity and crispness the sound is absolutely brilliant with the proper headphones. I have hooked it up to the speakers in my car using the line out. Sound quality is that of the original CD. Just keep in mind to disregard the recommendation that the instruction booklet tells you about encoding it at a bitrate of 128kbs. That's not good enough. Go for at least 192kbs. With this much disk space, just do it. Don't ask questions. :-)

The instructions say to charge up the unit for 8-10 hours before the first use and that's something you should really follow. It took me a good 11 hours to fully charge that thing up. I couldn't wait so I played with it at 8 hours charge and while transferring files, it looked as though everything worked fine, but when I played them back, the player froze. This is also another reason why you should plug in the AC adaptor while transferring files. After that I was ready to go. Again, make sure you plug in the AC adaptor while you're transferring files just to make sure you don't get any errors. Better safe than sorry. When you're done, don't just unplug it. Instead, make sure you eject the jukebox properly. In my case, I'm using XP, so I just right click on the icon and stop it.

Navigation: pretty intuitive. Depending on how you set up your directories, you should be able to find your files very easily. The only reason why I didn't give it a full 5 is because you don't have a separate volume button. The only way to change the volume is to go through the menu, but it's not that big a deal, two clicks and you're there. It would still be nice to have a separate button for the volume, but for this price, I can live with it.

What more can I say? I love my Jukebox and think I've made a great choice in buying this unit. Best bang for your buck!


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