Archos Jukebox Multimedia Photo

A suck product. Although I am still quite new to it, I am quite good at using it and I cant find any advantage if it other that it's capability to store 20Gb of files. All it's camera mdule, photo module are suck. If possible, dun buy this or u will regret.

No

A lot.

This product is a great concept not followed through. I bought the combo with camera, USB2.0 cable and flash card adaptors. It does store photos OK, but the adaptor is ill-fitting to my compact flash cards, and the adaptor won't go on without excessive force. The camcorder function is an absolute waste of time, forget the fact the microphone is on the other side to the camera, so unless you want to provide running commentary yourself, the audio won't be of much use. The case has gaps all over it - I can't see the thing lasting very long once dirt, dust and humidity get throughout the insides of it. It has a dinky little rubber cover for the centronics connector, which will get lost the first couple of months you own the thing. The menu system is clunky, and the buttons used to navigate it are awkward - why they didn't put a shuffle dial on the thing, I'll never know. The audio it records via the inbuilt microphone is pathetic - there are all kinds of digital noise imposed upon it, and when the hard drive writes to the disk, that gets recorded in sensaround. If you want to view your photos, the interface to do that is a pain. Despite the fact it takes 2 to three seconds to display a photo of 2MP anyway, the awkward menu system makes it a chore to do any housekeeping. They might as well not have supplied the junk headphones with the unit, as if you want any better than AM radio fidelity, you'll get a pair of Sennheisers. I have been ignored by their customer support, funny since they claim to strive for complete customer satisfation. Even if their support system was as good as they claim (or even existed, for that matter), supporting a lemon would probably put them out of business quite rapidly. So Caveat Emptor. All this being said, it does do one thing, and one thing only well. That is, a MP3 jukebox. As long as you plan your playlists and directories well (on the PC) - it will give you satisfaction in this area. The audio controls such as bass boost, treble etc. are good, and with a good pair of 'phones - are well matched. I would heartily steer any person considering this unit seriously, to forget it. Even if you consider the lemon laws, and the protection they give you, you just don't need the grief.

MP3 Jukebox

Everything else it claims to do...

Ipod

Absolutely non-existent

I received one of the first 20 GB models back in August. As usual, I could have saved about 20% if I'd waited a few months, which would have made it a good value. I did have some trouble with corrupted SmartMedia files, but this was corrected in a firmware update last month. Otherwise performance has been great, although occasionally I have to try several times before it recognizes a CF or SM card. I've heard that IBM MicroDrives at present will not be recognized if they have over 600 files on them, but this may be corrected in another firmware update. SD/MMC and Memory Stick adapters should be available in a few months. Downloading a 128 MB SM card takes less than 2 minutes, while downloading 5+ GB of MP3 files from a PC took 4.5 hours using USB 1.1 A USB 2.0 cable is now supposed to be standard, and Firewire is optional. The MMJB will also play videos or slideshows on a TV, either American NTSC or European PAL. Only MPEG4 Simple Profile up to 352x288 resolution and 30 fps is currently supported, but the tiny 1.5" LCD screen displays it clearly. A two hour movie takes about 1 GB. I bought this primarily as a MP3 player which could hold my 5 GB of music (1600 songs) with room to spare, and it has been splendid at this although the headphones don't come up to the quality of the player. Fortunately good ones can be had for as little as $20. MP3 files at up to 320 kbps can be played. The Multimedia Jukebox also functions perfectly as a compact portable hard drive, recognized by Windows XP and 2000 without installing drivers. I haven't tried the recording function as yet, but the built-in monaural mic reportedly is fine for lectures while a stereo mic with pre-amp can be bought at www.hotmp3gear.com for $50. Recordings can be encoded at up to 160 kbps.

The Combination of Multi-Media functions is what makes the Archos MMJB unique. Archos also has a history of continually posting firmware upgrades to improve performance and add new features suggested by users. It's a fine little device now, and should continue to get even better. There's also an active user's group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archosmultimedia

The problem with reading SmartMedia cards and its prompt solution is a good example of both the faults and strengths of Archos. Hopefully they will improve AVI and DVD support to allow higher resolution playback on a monitor, and more formats. The CF and SmartMedia modules only function as readers: you can't write to the card, and they warn you not to connect to a PC until you remove the memory card. The new camera module seems to be worthless junk, particularly as a video camcorder, and it only has 2x digital zoom in the still camera mode. Fortunately the stainless-steel back of the base unit has a nice shiny appearance when the paint comes off after a few hours of being held in your hot sweaty hand. Better quality paint and priming/ pretreatment of the stainless steel would have helped.

MPman F-35 MP3 player

firmware updates are posted at www.archos.com

This MMJB worked well to offload many gigs of photos during a recent trip to Italy. Battery life was excellent and its recognition by Windows machines was immediate once I returned home. It displayed photo thumbnails quickly and sharply.

-Ease of use -Battery life -Flawless reading from Compact Flash cards

-Failure to correctly save data from Smartmedia cards, resulting in loss of data.

Digital Wallet

No experience