Rating: 
Summary: Nice, but flaky
Review: Many things about the Archos Jukebox are terrific. It's cheap, the USB hard drive approach makes it easy to load music on the thing, and the sheer concept of a hard drive based MP3 player is great. But the Archos units are flaky, and consumers should definitely look at other brands.The biggest problem is the Jukebox has a habit of randomly losing all its data, forcing the user to reformat the hard drive. This happens to a lot of people and it's unacceptable. Other problems: the buttons are cheaply made, playlist support is poor, playback randomly skips, etc. For more info, see the archives of the AJB6000 mailing list.. Overall, I like my Archos MP3 player, but mostly because this product category is so great. I wish I'd bought some other brand that wasn't so flaky.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent
Review: I spent ages looking for an MP3 HD player and decided on the Archos in the end due to its size, the creative is too big. excellent prod - software easy to install - only problem is that the buttons do not lock so you can end up changing tracks without wanting to if it bangs againist anything. I would definatly recommend it and I see it is only $... now - WOW!
Rating: 
Summary: It lasted three days, and sounded terrible from day one.
Review: I chose carefully. The Archos was perfect? Best battery life for the price, flexible, small. But... 1) When ever the battery charger was plugged in, this thing was HOT. 2) Sound was not good. Came with latest firmware release (as of July 2001). Unit has NO low end bass. And when you do turn up the sound with bass up, it turns to mush. My ancient hardware MP3 players trounce the Archos, soundwise. Sound STINKS. 3) Well, I could put up with a lot of stuff for the size and price and battery life. But on the third day the hard drive failed. It went back, and I did not replace it. NOT RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: Recurrent hard drive issues
Review: Although the Archos Jukebox offers much in the way of concept, I have experienced severe and recurrent hard drive issues on 2 separate units. The first allowed music to be loaded easily enough through the well-designed interface. I was able to play music on it for only one day, however. The next day I turned it on and received a generic "hard disk" error. All the music that had been loaded on the Archos was either gone or unrecognizable. Additional attempts at reloading the unit resulted in the same problem and I exchanged it at Best Buy for another unit. The exact same errors occurred although all the recommendations for charging and operating the unit were followed. While I appreciate some of the design features of the Archos, specifically it's truly portable size, I would not recommend this product based on its apparent lack of quality. Two separate units manifesting such a severe error doesn't seem coincidental. I purchased a Nomad Jukebox and have had no complaints or problems. Wish I could say the same for the Archos.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant when it works...
Review: I have had mine for a few weeks, and will be returning it, as I don't have enough time to keep formatting and re-loading it. When I first got it, I loaded about 6 CDs into it, sat down, listened to 2 songs, and the hard drive crashed. I ran FDISK in a DOS window, then re-formatted the drive (also within Windows). It then worked for a week or so, before the folder names became gibberish on the display, and the drive quit being recognized by Windows. I formatted it again, ran Scandisk in thorough mode (which found no errors), then spent hours re-loading all my music. This morning I fired it up, selected a playlist, it started loading the songs, then displayed "Auto Power Off" and died. Pros: Great sound, large capacity, easy to use, good battery life, small size. Cons: Unreliable, audio out is way too low for aux inputs (you really have to crank the car stereo with a cassette adapter too), lousy documentation. I think I'll wait about a year until several companies have second or third generation units available.
Rating:
Summary: Very User Friendly
Review: I don't know why the "computer tech" from Intel couldn't figure this thing out. It's really quite simple. Perhaps he had a problem with it because Intel has their own (goofy) MP3 player - hmm? ;-) I set up several folders, each with dozens of songs and it was a breeze. I also use mine for moving large files from my laptop to other computers. Awesome product and very versitile!
Rating:
Summary: Few Quibbles
Review: The Archos is a fine unit. I've had mine for several months and have put it through some paces. I use it in my car with one of those (lame) cassette adapters, thus giving myself an instant automobile "jukebox". My primary quibble would be that the display -- which only displays about 12 characters per line for an album or song title, makes it a bit cumbersome to read. Also, I think the battery rating of 8 hours is probably over-optimistic, although this is just my sense from using the device, not from any quantitative testing. The fact that this device doubles as a general-purpose hard-drive makes it hard to beat for overall value. I was able to toss hundreds of hi-res digital camera photos and tons of Word documents and other business-related files, like my 500 MB Outlook file, onto the device when I lost my job and had to quickly remove all my personal stuff from my work laptop -- all that, and still room for 50 music CD's! That's hard to beat.
Rating:
Summary: I am a Computer Tech. and I still could not figure this out
Review: I am a Computer Tech for Intel and I own an mp3 player. Yet this is very un user friendly and confusing. There is no customer support and if you can't understand the instructions sorry you'll just have to put it in your living room during parties because it looks cool. I must say that when I finally was able to contact Archos and figure it out the set up was awful and sound was horrible. But if all you care about is how it looks on your coffee table then hey its pretty but a cruddy product.
Rating:
Summary: A month later (DOA, successful CPR ...)
Review: after using the AJB for a month, i have to say i am quite happy with it, i do not keep my fingers crossed anymore, and, if the new firmware release actually fixes the (lack of) resume functionality, i would dare say it deserves to by a four star gadget! during the past month i bacame aware of two new issues, and a new 'plus' - 1. the AJB, using the original installed firmware does not support play resume at power on, a standard feature in 99% of all consumer CD and MD players. archos claims this has been fixed in their latest firmware update already available for download. (read more at the bottom of the review) 2. battery life, and battery gauge inconsistency - i have not scientificly tested it, nevertheless, my feeling is that the battery gauge is non-linear as well as inconsistent (over time), as a result it is really hard to tell when it will need to be recharged, and you could find youself with a mute player in the middle of the day if you do not keep the batteries almost fully charged when leaving home. since archos warns you from over-charging the batteries, and since the supplied charger is not a smart charger (see original review below), this is an even more annoying problem. 3. (+) the AJB neatly maps to windows explorer as a new hard drive (standard removable storage device class), copying songs *and other files* to and *from* the ajb is as simple as with any hard/floppy disk in your system. in Creative nomad, by comparison, the jukebox is *read protected*, and you cannot copy songs from the jukebox back to your desktop/notebook system. also, the following URL (not mine) includes some usefull explanations about batteries installation i briefly described in my original review: ... I am writing this three days after the unit has arrived. As the title suggests, it arrived non-functional - when I tried to turn the Jukebox 6000 on after a couple of hours of initial battery charge, what I got was a blinking backlight, and on-off spinning HD (I'd guess this could be what others on the net have referred to as 'damaged hard drive'). To be sure this was not a result of low battery voltage, I turned the jukebox off, and tried again after 6 hours - no change. To be extra-sure, I decided to remove the batteries and check their voltage - voltage was fine. After a couple of more battery removal / re-insertion cycles, the machine started to work, it turn out this was a loose contact issue. Troubles aren't over yet - after listening to the pre-loaded music, I hooked the Jukebox to my PC, SW installation went smooth. Successful loading of few David Bowie albums, then - Huh! *blue screen* and 'Write error on drive E:' ... It now works (after re-formatting the jukebox disk), I am still keeping my fingers crossed. ---------- Batteries: The AJB6K came with (what turned out to be) a set of spare NiMH batteries in the box. That's nice, but why couldn't the manual say so ? I had to fight the battery doors, almost breaking them, just to find out that one set of batteries was already installed. Now to how these doors work - after you release the 'latch' as explained in the manual, you have to *pull* the covers towards you, a fine screwdriver is necessary. the manual does not explain this, and one may easily think that the doors hinge sideways - the force needed to break it isn't that great. I have not tried to run it 8 hours straight yet, from how it baheved so far though, I see no reason to suspect it won't. ----------- Pros, and cons: (+) Great concept, does work after all. (+) Compact. (+) Good PC software suit. (-) Flimsy construction, especially battery compartment. (-) Awkward charging limitation: Archos warns you not to start chanring before batteries are completely discharged. Combined with the fact that batteries cannot be changed w/o a screwdriver, and, that normal alkaline batteries are prohibited, this is a big minus. (-) Outdated, sparse documentation. (*) Resume on power on: with most personal CD and MD players today, once powered off and on again, the player continues playing from the point is has reached when powered off last time. Not so in (my version - 4.53g) AJB. When powered on, the AJB song navigation always starts from the root directory, although quite annoying at times, Archos say that this is fixed in their latest firmware upate (5.01) which I have downloaded but not tried yet, Kudos to them if it works! (the ability to update firmware by simple USB connection is a considerable 'plus' by itself)
Rating:
Summary: Great Product -- Poor Customer Support
Review: Great product with one exception (see below) -- I've found my batteries run out a little sooner than other reviewers (mine typically last around 4.5 hours). The ability to drag & drop files (to and from the Jukebox) via your file system is obviously a very smart, non-proprietary user interface. I used the standard headphones for about 10 seconds before putting them in a drawer (uncomfortable & unimpressive sound). A replacement pair of Koss plugs did the trick. I do get crackle w/ the bass maxed out (using incl software to rip CD's @ 128K sampling rate) but that's not crucial. Overall, the product (for the price) is very impressive. I have one gripe, however, and that is with their customer support. After a week's worth of back-and-forth emails, I finally broke through the double-speak to determine that they can't/won't sell you an additional AC adapter, and they will void your warranty if you use a non-Archos power supply. Since I simply wanted to charge my batteries in the office between commutes, this translated into a simple aggravation. If you lose your adapter, however, you are forced to either void your warranty or put your player on the shelf. Hopefully they will resolve this loophole in their policy soon. Overall: Good Product, Great Price, Customer Support Policies Need Improving.
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