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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: Could be good, but not for me
Review: Had one. Took it back. User support and documentation was non existent. User interface on the jukebox HORRID. Not intuitive, limited real estate on screen, hard to determine especially as you're driving in the car. Returned it and got a Rio Riot. Exactly what I was looking for. Have given a Rio as a gift, and now have a friend for life, :-).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cool little device!
Review: This is a solid product, once you get through the hassle of learning to work it. "HD Error" will occur if 1) you try running with the jukebox, subjecting it to high impact, or 2) the battery levels are low. I thought I was going loco a few times, for I ran Norton AntiVirus whenever this happened. This didn't rectify it. You only find out what the HD errors indicate after hours of pulling your hair in agony.

One thing: if you experience some skipping while playing your MP3s, reconvert the files to 192kbps or lower. For whatever reason, this device cannot smoothly play MP3 files at rates higher than 192 (i.e., 224, 256, or 320kbps). And if you're not satisfied with the sound quality, try altering the bass and treble levels. Both should be above "0" for optimum sound.

In summation, this is a cool toy, giving you the ability to carry well over 200 full-length albums wherever you go. But as has been re-hashed time and again throughout these reviews, Archos' tech support is useless. Don't waste your time with them. Learn from these reviews, various newsgroups, or anywhere else featuring customer feedback. Best of luck!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't buy this product!!!
Review: The only good thing about this product is that it doubles up as a portable hard drive. Other than that, I received Disk errors right away and reformatted it at least twice. The Tech support and Customer Service was just horrendous. I had an email thread (because there is no 800 number either) trying to work it out with tech support spanning over 3 months.
Forget about running with this thing on the trail. Even while i was on the treadmill at the gym wasn't even holding it (it was stationary on a holder), the hard disk flaked.
The user interface is a beast, and to scan through only 3 GB of music was a time investment.
On top of that, the $50 rebate never came either. Boooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better than the Ipod? I think so!
Review: Let's face it: In our world it takes a person who has been living in a cave in the last couple of years to not to listen to music. I am a 14 year old who constantly listens to music EVERYWHERE I go. Now, when MP3 players were beginning, I jumped on right away buying a Rio which had 64 mb of storage. At first, I thought it was awesome. But I knew I wanted to keep more songs on, yet, keep the size mostly the same. Then came MP3-CD players. I thought these were awesome at first, but blew my second concept away: These things are as big as CD players and those were what I was trying to stay away from. The Nomad Jukebox had been around for a while but I tried to steer away from it because of its size. Along came the Archos, and I was impressed right away. Here is something that does everything most of the other MP3 players do, is at a resonable price, and has TONS of storage. I got it and have loved it ever since. I think this is the best MP3 player on the market hands down. Now, i know what your thinkin: where does the Ipod stand? Well I'll tell ya, I think Ipod is one of the coolest lookin things ever, but one of the most overpriced too. You can get this Archos with 20 GB for much cheaper than a 10 GB Ipod. Main difference? Weight. But to be honest, i really dont care. I keep it in my pocket and have no prbs whatsover. Another great thing about it is that you can use it as a portable external hard drive. This is extremely useful and I totally love this feature. Bottem line: Get this right away! You won't regret it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: free offers
Review: send me a free 1 and i'll think about a review ! .

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Piece of...
Review: Bring it home. Spend two hours loading it up with songs and all you get is "HD ERROR" on the display. Taking it back.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Needs better tech support, don't buy it!
Review: First I had a Nomad Jukebox, but it was almost full, and I was playing with things nad wound up breaking it because of a firmware upgrade. So I went out and bought an Neo Jukebox which went right back to the store due to poor audio capability. Then I bought an Archos which I have had for the last 6 or 7 months.

The sound quality is decent, but not as good as the Nomads. I like the ability to use it as a portable hard drive, and the fact that I can make my own folder structure, but making playlists is a pain in the [rear].

Recently I have been having a lot of issues with it hanging in the middle of playing a song. It will ususally hang at 1 minute and 47 seconds (or a multiple of it IE 3:24) on virutally any song. I call up tech support and he seeemed like someone that had no clue how the device even worked, and didn't pay that much attention to what I was telling him. He told me to try fixes that obviously had no bearing on my problem. Its a good thing the new Nomad Jukebox 3 is out because soon I will toss this thing in the garbage and pick that up.

The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of one is because the option of using it as a stand alone HD is nice, and even after I stop using it as an MP3 player, I might keep it around just for that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Still my fave device after 6 months..
Review: You have to know why you bought it - and I bought it to be my 'mothership' for tunes and files. I was told to leave work 'in a hurry' right after Christmas 2001 - I knew it was coming, but the main stomach acid was being churned by the possible loss of my 750+ mp3 songs I'd collected (over a nice fat LAN) at work

Enter the 20GB Archos Juke - and problem was solved. I loaded it with 5-6 GB of files and tunes.. and shortly after was 'released' from my job (blessed day). I played that thing 10 hours a day for months! One problem - one of the 4 rechargable batteries went 'bad' (I could see the leak). Turns out the Archos won't work at all without 'good' CHARGED batteries. You get 'disk error' or 'clicks and whirs' from the thing.

I replaced the single battery that had gone bad (from the 4 spare rechargables Archos provided), and it's been smooth ever since

We have 3 computers at home (2 laptops and a desk moored one) and find it a godsend to be able to use the Archos 'Mothership' to ferry mp3's files, and lately - my digital pictures among the laptops.

The ability to 'double store' my digital pictures on a second drive (and a separate device) keeps me from having to keep buying those expen$sive 128MB smart media cards for my camera - one card is all I need, cause I can keep backups on the Archos, as well as my laptop.. only a fool would keep precious files on a single device - no matter HOW large!!

So my 'Mothership' does all that I wanted - and more! I didn't have a digital camera when I bought the Archos, but the Archos Mother ship still has many GB after adding all my mp3's and months of pics

I've since bought 7 mp3 players.. ranging from the 'antique' (like the DLink 32 MB DMP-100) to the state of the art (the 128 MB MPIO DMK) {ok, ok - maybe that's a tad excessive? lol :} The 'Mother ship' loads them all, and is there for refueling when the little playlists of the small pods get boring..one I can run a 'line out' to PC speakers and play hour after hour without headphones or earbuds..

I'm still in love with the Archos!!

And - oh, by the way.. the Archos is the only

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great player for a great value.....not for everyone though
Review: ...

Now that thats out of the way..The Archos 20 player has many pros, and a few cons. Among all, is the ease of transfering your cd collection to the machine. Just load up the software provided, direct it do the new player (which will show up as a new harddrive on your pc) and press the record button. Within 4-5 minutes you have your cd already placed in its own folder ready for playing. Play-lists are easy, just use the software, its pretty simple. The sound is great, dont listen to people that say its bad, all you gotta do is play with the bass and treble. The controlls on the machine are a bit wierd, but within 5 min. I was flying around, navigating all my cds and the tracks within. I organize it by band name/cd/track/title. Lastly, dont mix and match and move things around alot, because just like a normal harddrive, it will get cluttered and errors will start to occur. And if you have a problem, also like a HD, just run scan disc and fix the errors. Thats all, e-mail at coolsk8two@aol.com for questions.

The only reason it does not get 5 stars, is i feel that unless you know alot about computers, how they work, and can figure gizmos out for your self (the instructions are worthless) than this might not be the player for you. But if you are all of the above, than I highly recomend the Archos JukeBox 20.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So Far So Good
Review: Received the Recorder 20 a week ago. Easy to rip MP3's (MusicMatch Jukebox is great - 5 stars!). You can rip a 60-70 minute album in under 5 minutes. Easy to transfer files to the Archos unit. I transferred 9 full albums the other day in about 15 minutes. Unit itself is easy to navigate and figure out (just throw out the manual and use the force, Luke!).

Only problems I've had: I bought this to use on my motorcycle on long trips, and it doesn't perform well at all. Sometimes songs just completely stop and don't come back, sometimes they start over again and stop in another place, but it sure puts a damper on things. When I did pull over and check the unit during a problem period, the unit still showed the artist and song name and then said 'Error'. The hard drive was spinning errantly at this point. Problem could be 1) vibration, or 2) heat. Well, I left the unit out in the sun and played a couple of albums, no problems there. So, it must be vibration. Still working on a mounting solution so I can bring this on trips. If I can't solve the problem, I'll go to an entirely memory based solution and scrap the high-storage hard drive units (at least for the bike...this unit is great, though, for a car!).

Otherwise, the unit is great (so far-there's always tomorrow)! For car or plane trips, it should perform just fine. Use Windows disk tools if you have problems with the hard drive. Archos is tough to get hold of. Oh, and I am looking forward to using the [new] remote control unit!

I recommend this unit if you are fairly technical and good at problem solving, and are using it in a relatively vibration- and heat-free environment. Good luck!


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