Customer Reviews

Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20 GB Handheld Entertainment Center

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I'll try not to bore you with a monster paragraph of a review. Here is my summary:

I like these things:

* It's got a lot of space for music--20GB will hold at least 300 hours of music. An incredibly awesome way to carry around our music collection. My wife, kids and I can organize all our tunes in separate folders. We have created many playlists that allow us more flexibility than ever.
* Great price.
* No problems with attaching and recognizing the unit with Windows ME or XP. Can't speak for any other OS.
* We are also using this unit to transfer our digital pictures while on vacation using the smartmedia adapter. We take tons of pictures and this allows us to dump them and clear the card.
* You can, in fact, transfer ALL file types TO and FROM the jukebox. According to a family member who owns the Creative Nomad, the Nomad will not allow you to transfer mp3 files back to a PC, apparently to prevent piracy. I've got to say, I'm a big believer in taking my music anywhere--now I can bring my tunes and drop them off at my work PC easily.
* The lcd, although small, is very readable and clearly shows 8 lines of info: {Line 1, set of info icons at top; 2 current folder; 3-7 current songs/subfolders; 8 current setting of the 3 function keys.} There are a half dozen or so pleasant color schemes from which to choose.
* Regular firmware updates have been offered by Archos' website. A quick look through the version history shows some great improvements. Firmware is very easy to upgrade--drop one file in the root directory and then go to the setup menu. A lot of the problems noted in the negative reviews here have been resolved by recent firmware versions. I look forward to more updates!
* No, it's not as small and sleek as the Ipod, but it will fit in your pocket and the value is enormous.
* Sound quality is about what I expected--pretty good.
* You can create playlists on the fly--something even the ...Ipod can't do. I was surprised to find that this is a useful feature.
* You can queue up a song while the current one is playing. This is very handy.
* This uses the same USB plug as our Olympus camera. This is great because we have two computers and we don't have to drag the cable back and forth between the two.
* Speaking of cables, get the USB2.0 or firewire cable. Well worth the price in the speed upgrade. We were lucky enough to get a bundle deal that included the USB2.0 cable.

Things that annoy me:

* A small rubber cozy covers the modular port. As nature goes, I expect to lose this in the next 6 months. Smaller still are the tiny little bracket covers flanking the lcd (for the camera attachment). These things are really stupid. If you don't get the camera, don't ever mess with them.
* Unsaved playlist clears if the unit is powered off; auto-power-off occurs by default after a minute to save battery space. Save playlist right after you make it or change the power settings.
* Does not recognize winamp m3u playlists. In particular, winamp uses forward slashes and relative folder referencing. In general, as far as I can tell, playlists have to be made in Musicmatch, while connected to the unit as it will properly reference the correct paths to each tune.
* Battery life appears shorter than expected, but this is no surprise with the power-demanding lcd.
* The microphone embedded in the unit is pretty pathetic. It picks up the sound of pushing the buttons and not ambient voices.

It's very simple. All in all, the positives outweigh the negatives. I'm very satisfied.

I've owned an Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20GB now for about a month, and appreciate it more and more as time goes on.
The positives:
* For what it is, and compared with other MP3 players, this is a wonderfully versatile gadget.
* Great sound, especially with Sony MDRV300 headphones
* Very easy to download and organize MP3 files
* Makes a great portable hard drive
* With camera, takes reasonable photos and videos of brightly-lit scenes
* Internal microphone makes for a very inobtrusive digital sound recorder
* With the SmartMedia adapter, provides pocket-storage for digital camera photos without requiring the use of a host PC
* Rubber corner bumpers do an effective job of shielding unit from damage

However, there are some negatives:
* Peculiar construction and packaging is not as polished as Zen or iPod - lots of tabs, poorly finished holes, and flaps.
* Playback skips or stops when exercising vigorously and the Archos is belt-mounted
* Camera module is not "fast" enough to capture moderate- or low-light scenes
* Internal microphone picks up internal hard-drive noise
* Audio-In does not adequately pre-amplify some external microphones
* Battery life is not fabulous, though OK with LCD off.
* Some gaps in supplied software, particularly for DVD capture and conversion to displayable format on internal LCD
* Occasional "hangs" when using USB 1.1 cable; far fewer experienced when using available USB2 / Firewire cable.
* Sound suffers when connected to a component system, etc., using supplied audio/video cable

This thing is so cool. It is a portable movie player, mass storage device and music player all in one. It does other things if you buy the accessories, but by itself it's a marvel.

It works well with Windows 98 and Linux without having to download some annoying troublesome musical file software, and speaks to the computer like an external hard drive.

I have been putting hours and hours of mp3 music on mine and have barely made a dent in the 20GB hard drive.

One word of advice that echoes other reviews; forget the little pamphlet flyer guide that came with it. It is so sparse, it's useless in several languages.

Another thing, some reviewers have said you have to go through some convoluted menu button-pushing process just to adjust the volume. Not so! During play mode, the up and down keys below the screen perform this function, and the left and right keys navigate to the next higher or lower file.

I looked at iPod and several other devices. My friend travels a lot, and takes most of his entire music collection with him with his Archos. I give it a thumbs-up.

I've owned a few Archos products, and I still use the slim 20GB portable hard disk on a daily basis. But I cannot recommend Archos products, because, two years after they started selling here stateside, their quality control and customer support are still very, very poor.

While not a looker, the Jukebox Multimedia looks good on paper, with MPEG4/DiVX support (although you need to convert the files, a tedious process) and expandability. As you can tell from the picture it's quite bulky. What's interesting is, it's actually smaller than it looks, but heavier, too, the exact opposite of the RCA RD2840 40GB Personal Jukebox, which I recommend for its 40GB capacity, great price point, and good quality. I cannot recommend the Archos at all, read on.

First, the screen on this thing is really small. Tiny! Don't expect to watch video more than a couple times. Once the novelty factor wears off -- and it'll only take a few minutes -- you'll want to shun watching anything on the small screen, even JPEG pictures. (Sorry, Larry, no carry-anywhere porn viewer for you yet.) There are no details on the videos and pictures, and the LCD screen eats battery fast, very fast.

Second, Archos really, really, really needs to improve their quality. I bought my first unit on a Saturday, it broke the next day, I took it back for an exchange, then by Tuesday the second one would not turn on. I went back for another exchange, but the very next day the third unit developed a heavy vibration midway through a song. That's it, I returned the unit to store for a full refund.

All this time, I did not bother to call Archos tech support, because from my past experience I knew them to be rather useless. With my compact hard disk, for example, it came with an instruction sheet that had whole sections missing! When I contacted tech support, they asked me to refer to the missing information on the sheet! You should take a look at the support section of their website, and you'll see they are not very serious about keeping their customers happy. (Archos is a French company, FYI.) If their products were reliable this could be forgiven. But unfortunately the products are not high-quality at all.

So I think if you buy this product you are basically playing with Russian roulette. You might get a reliable unit; my Archos hard drive and one previous Studio jukebox work fine. But, then, if you take my advice and check out the RCA 40GB Jukebox, I think you'll save yourself lots of frustration over a not-cheap purchase.

I purchased MM 20GB and accessories primarily to store digital photos on a three week vacation in Europe (the MP3/multimedia features were in my view a bonus). The device failed ten days into the vacation (with more than 1,000 pictures on it). The display began to flicker after 8 days, and 2 days later was completely dead. From then on, the device would seem to boot up then turn itself off after about 20 seconds. Completely useless. Upon calling tech support after returning to the states, I was given the following choices: I could return the device for warranty repairs and if they were able to fix it, I would have a working device and my pictures. If they could not fix it they would replace it and ship the defective unit back to the factory, and I could forget about the pictures (I could request to have the defective unit shipped to me rather than having it replaced, but the tech advised against it, saying that there was always a risk that special instructions would be ignored or overlooked). Finally, I could open the unit myself, take out the hard drive, hook it up to my PC, and attempt to download the pictures myself. The catch: doing so would void the warranty. I ultimately decided on the downloading option (and it worked - whew!) because the memories were more important to me than the gadget. That's the good news. The bad news is that all the Archos bits of the MM 20GB are now sitting in the garbage after less than 90 days of use, and won't be replaced (I do have a functioning laptop 20GB hard drive after all this, but Archos didn't manufacture that piece). This was a VERY unsatisfactory experience. From now on, I will have my compact flash cards burned to CD at the local photo shop wherever I'm vacationing.

I have to admit, I've obsessed over this little thing for a little over a month before I bought it. I'm one of those guys that have to REALLY do research about a device before I actually shell out the cash....

I was up in Canada when I decided it was time to buy an MP3 Player. I was DYING to have something to do on the plane. So to the internet I went.....

I fell in love with ARCHOS. As so many other ppl have after seeing what it can do. It's not much more expensive than other MP3 players with similar storage (far less than ipod) and has MANY more features.

Now let me tell you.....reviews like this one have played a huge role in what device I'm going to buy. I read the horror stories and I've read the success stories. And from the best I could decipher is that this is a device for the more technical savvy person....not the average joe. So I am quite comfortable with that.

I was very disappointed when I found that Archos wasn't sold anywhere (that I could find) in Canada....so I bought my second choice...the Rio Riot. (I'm going to write a review on that one as well)

As soon as I returned to the states....I bought my JBMM.

What can I say? I LOVE IT! 5 minutes out of the box, and I'm watching the vids that came with it (I plugged it in of course.....)

Within the hour, I had most of my MP3 collection moved over (minus those that needed sorting) and had already learned how, and actually converted a DVD to watch.

I will admit that converting a DVD or any other MPEG/AVI file can be a bit tricky....but with the help of other websites out there that deal with these issues, I was able to stumble my way through it.....and now I'm a pro!

Regarding the device itself.....yes....very small. And with very small comes a very small screen. But I promise you, you will be SHOCKED at how clear it is! I can sit through an entire movie easily without straining my eyes. (something I was concerned about)

And when I connected the output AV to a television (62 inch projection RCA) the picture was VERY clear. FAR surpassing what I expected after reading some of the reviews. Yes, it's VCR quality, but if you ask me......that's just fine. I watched a ton of music vids I downloaded, as well as some home movies I had made with another camera, and converted....

I also tested out the SD Photo Module. Piece of cake. I had all the pics I've been avoiding moving to my PC from my camera downloaded within a minute. Can't complain about that in the least!

Now comes the Camera Module....I've read all the good and bad about the camera and knew exactly what to expect. Bad pictures in poor light....and good pictures in good light. Guess what.... Exactly that. I took a few pictures inside at about 1am when I first opened the device, and of course....they came out horrible. The next morning, I took pictures and a couple short vids of the kids as they woke up and they came out wonderfully! I REALLY hope to see a better cam module for this unit before the AV340 comes out.

Now regarding the user interface...yes....it's a bit difficult to get the hang of...but once you've grasped the general idea, it becomes second nature. I've adjusted from the menu system of my Rio, which is MUCH MUCH different.

All and all I give give Archos 4 stars....there are a few things I would like to see improved (aside from the many that has been improved through firmware updates already), but you can't beat the features of Archos for your buck!

The coolest gadget on the market right now. I bought mine and promptly downloaded ALL of my digital photos to it, (1000's of pictures), over 5 gigabytes of mp3's, over 5 gigabytes of movies and videos... and now I am never bored at any time, any where. I bootlegged a whole concert to MP3 format using its built in mic, (no one looks twice at it at the door, "Its my mp3 player, dude.")I also bought an I - Rock adapter at Radio Shack and now I can "beam" the music from the player to any stereo using radio waves, so I can bump my MP3s in the Honda, or any one elses car I happen to be in. It has upgradable firmware, which is a plus. You can attach it to your TV and use it like a VCR, and soon it will have an attachment available that will enable you to record TV, VCR movies or even DVD'S. I have ordered the camera module, and the dynamic powered microphone that Archos makes, and I am anxiously awaiting their arrival. FORGET THE I-POD, forget your MP3 cd players, forget digital cameras, etc. IT IS THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE OF DIGITAL MEDIA. And it is a portable 20 gig hard drive, all in a package not much bigger than a pack of smokes. The only, ONLY complaint I have with it is that the paint on the back side will start flaking off almost immediately, ther have been numerous reports of this happening, I guarantee it will happen until ARCHOS fixes the problem. What I did was just to buff all the paint off the back, because it was flaking off any ways, and it was beginning to be really messy. I used a Dremel tool with a buffer attachment, and took all the paint off the back. It is metal on the underside, and I polished it to a nearly chrome - like appearance. It looks great now, and it looks like it was supposed to be that way. ARCHOS, FIX THIS!!! Otherwise, it is the best thing out there, hands down. I am the envy of all my friends in the break room at work when I am watching "Fight Club" on my lunch break. I just can't emphasize how much more advanced this is than anything you have ever seen.

I've had my Archos Jukebox Multimedia (JBM 20) for two weeks now and I don't know how I survived without it! This thing does it all!! It holds an amazing amount of mp3, jpeg and .avi (video) files. The only drawback is that you can't feed live video into it, although the recently released JBM 120 can be bought with an attachment that allows "real time" video input from a camera, TV or other source.

Yes, it's true that it's heavier than an iPod and doesn't look quite as cool. However, when you can use this for literally everything (incl. backing up your most important data), I'll take it over the iPod any day! I can store hours of divx and other video on it and either watch on the screen or output to a TV with VCR or better quality.

The microphone serves its purpose well, too. It is sensitive and the data is stored in mp3 format. The video/digital camera attachment that came with it does an okay job, but, of course, there is no flash. The cool thing is that the same module works for both the video (avi) and the photo (jpeg). The card reader modules also works well and allows you to quickly download photos from your digital camera without processing it through a computer first.

One great idea is to buy this and the iRock Wireless Music Adpater for [dollar amount] to beam your audio to any FM radio in your car or house.

Wish List: 1) Ability to download real time video without conversion; 2) More cool modules and third party software/operating systems; 3) Ability to turn it into a basic PDA; 4) Cooler looking design with changeable color plates; 5) Ability to upgrade HD to 60, 80, 100 gig drives.

Buy this unit today!! It's cheaper and better than the iPod. The only thing better is the recently released JBM 120/140.

Man do I ever hate the archos company after buying this very shady product. After reading bad reviews about this product I decided to buy it anyway because of all the neato features it had. Boy was that ever a bad idea. I bought it four months ago and already i ahve gone threw 3 different units. None have them have worked right since i bought them. Trust me it would have been more then 3 if the costumer support wasnt so unorganized. They say you will only have to wait 7 days for a new unit when in reality it is a month. Plus everytime you do have a problem they dont have a 1-800 number so the majority of the people have to call long distance. If calling long distance isnt bad enough they onyl have 2 costumer relations people because every time I have called them (and it has been alot) I talk to the same to people. Only haveing 2 people on staff isnt bad if they could actually handle mass amounts of people. You usually have to wait at least an hour before getting threw to anyone. I bought this product 4 months ago and so far have sunk over 100 dollars between shipping back and forth and phone bills on a product that has never worked and probably will never work.

I love this little machine.
Some of the complaints that I read below almost convinced me to go with the I-Pod, but in the end I decided to take a chance and it has paid off immensely. I don't know if the team at Archos fixed all the problems that the other reviewers encountered, but I've had no problems at all. My only suggestion: do not read the manual that comes in the box because it is rather skimpy and does not cover all the features that this player possesses. Instead, go to archos.com and download the manual they have posted there. It'll show you what a wonderful little creation this baby is.