Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20GB MP3 Player

This device is a great idea, plays/captures video, ...

Strengths: See below

Weaknesses: See below

Summary: This device is a great idea, plays/captures video, images music. A portable media device that also serves as a usb hard drive(or firewire if you buy the cable). Overall it's a decent product but there are some things archos didn't work out with this model. Transfer rate with the usb1.1 cable is very slow, using the usb2.0 cable it will greatly improve uploads to the drive. Playing or switching between songs takes longer than a CD player would because of seek time, buffering and processing. Going to a local store to see the device in person will give you a better feel for the actual size of the device. The LCD screen is rather small, you can watch video with subtitles but it's somewhat difficult. Output to the TV due to the max resolution for the player and the standard resolutions on TVs will naturally not be perfect but are decent and a better than watching with the LCD. Battery life is usually enough to watch about 2 1/2hrs video and 4-5hrs music on average. Navigating through the archos when there are 30+ files in a folder can be a little slow and annoying. I recommend creating playlists through winamp or another music program on your computer, creating them through the archos takes a long time. Rendering video for the archos can be unreliable at times and result in unsupported formats, loss of sound, and decreased detail due to lower resolution. If your considering buying this you may want to look at their newer models they seem to have fixed some of the issues.

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If you like portabibilty of music, photos, and mo ...

Strengths: Excellent storage capacity. Ton of features. Very durable. Views movies great.

Weaknesses: Battery life is much less than specs state. Headphones are average.

Summary: If you like portabibilty of music, photos, and movies then this is for you. Hold buttloads of songs and all my digital photos. Play movie right on the monitor or hook it up to any TV with video/audio in jacks and play on your TV.

Heavy duty. I jog with it regularly with no misses or skips. Bulky in size, but a super multimedia device. Take it anywhere....

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This player is a total blast. Great mp3 playback, ...

Strengths: Simple controls, handsome unit, good looking screen, USB 2.0, versatility of add-on port, good price, no PC configuration required, SILENT

Weaknesses: Rather heavy for the size, firewire cables not included, lame headphones.

Summary: This player is a total blast. Great mp3 playback, good options for playback, and simple navigation. There is no built in microphone, which supports the gripes on the Jukebox Recorder model that the microphone is poor and picks up little outside of the hard drive noise. I expected this to vibrate wildly like the previous models and sound like my PC hard drives when booting or during playback. I was pleasantly suprised to only feel a slight jiggle when the disk gets up to speed and nothing more than that. Totally silent besides the whispering whirr it gives when booting.

Plug it into your USB port and Windows XP recognizes it and assigns it a drive letter immediately, allowing you to add files in Windows, instead of using a lame program like Musicmatch like competing players force you to do. This means its totally versatile. I took it to a computer at work also running XP and plugged it in and instantly had access to my MP3 library playing right off the USB port with no problems or hinderances.

The unit is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but is suprisingly heavy. I was a bit shocked at the weight of it, but like Gerraro says in Jurassic Park "Is it heavy?? Then it's expensive, put it down." Havent had any crashes or skips in playback yet.

The included video encoding software is rather easy to use. Headphones are poor, but I have others, so all good.

Quality product, full recommendation.

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Check out new model 320, screen is same size as wh ...

Strengths: Cool,wicked,awesome...etc...etc....

Weaknesses: battery technology behind this awesome concept

Summary: Check out new model 320, screen is same size as whole player! Picture on Archos web page. For all that it does, it does it great. If you just want an mp3 player buy Ipod or something else. If you want the coolest baddest piece of electronics buy the 320. New technology=new problems, but new technology also =high coolnest factor. Movie translation is cake figure 30mins for 2hr divx quality movie. Battery has issues but useable. Mainly I plug into wall or use power inverter in car. Archos is only maker of multimedia player, but I would imagine in 5 yrs these will sell like DVD players sell today. So many possiblities. Take for example: Player is same size as Hi-8 digital camcorder tape. Could replace your 90 mins of record time with 40hrs of portable harddrive space. (Thats a 20gig hd)(Already Ipod has a 50 gig drive and Archos has a 40 gig version of this.) IF anything is new consumer technology of next decade it will be this. Just needs backing like Tivo and Ipod- which this player can do jobs of both.

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Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20 adds MPEG-4/JPEG/BMP ...

Strengths: 20GB of storage; MPEG-4 and JPEG playback; optional modules; good value.

Weaknesses: Small LCD; processor occasionally lags; video sub-VHS quality.

Summary: Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20 adds MPEG-4/JPEG/BMP playback and to a player already stacked with features. It's a portable multimedia powerhouse with on-the-fly MP3 recording, a built-in mic, and 20GB of storage to use anyway you want. The user interface is awesome and features a simple file and folder tree system. Since the Jukebox shows up as a h/d on your computer, transferring files is an easy drag and drop. If you can’t stand the transfer speed of USB 1.1, get either a 2.0 module or a FireWire module, which go in the expansion port. The port is also compatible with SM & CF modules. I got a USB 2.0 module, so it didn't take long to transfer large video files on my USB2 PC. The color LCD is a bit small at 1.5 inches diagonal, but Archos includes an A/V cable that will let you watch video, view digital photos, and listen to music using a TV. But it's worth it. I encoded a couple two-hour movies (I still had room for about 20 more) and watched them on a big screen. Although rez suffered in downsizing the video, the movie was still very good. For those who work with compressed video files and digital photos, the Jukebox is a must. The Archos is useful and practical. There’s a little less than 10 hours of battery life. It's a great way to carry and share photos and MPEGs. I can't wait to see it evolve into a video recorder (although you can add an optional camera piece, I'd like to see a video in jack).

see the whole thing at techtv.com/freshgear/print/0,23102,3408632,00.html

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