Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Love it!!, November 4, 2002
Just a fact before I begin, I am a MAC OSX user. That said, the reason why I'm giving 4 stars out of 5 is that the manual and video compatibility does not favor Mac users at all. All video files must be converted to a specific criteria which was so difficult to do on a Mac. It only accepts MPEG4, through Divx or AVI formats with specs of 352 x 288 at 30fps. And to get a quicktime mpeg or converted AVI to that spec took a LOT of net surfing. The manual only reccomends Virtualdub, a PC only program, great. Two programs, either Media Cleaner or FFmpeg work fine with Macs.
BUT, that said... the sound output on mp3s is amazing! I've never had such great sound control of a portable... anything! There's a loudness feature, bass booster, reg bass, treble, pitch and more that truly give you the most flexibility I've ever had. And with 20gb, there's really no collection that couldn't fit on this, and at a price which is so much less than the ipod, you can't go wrong. VIDEO: Once I was able to convert or download proper video files, I was amazed that while on the subway or park bench, that watching a tiny screen isn't all that bad. I did have some gripe with the very reflective screen covering which, once you find a good angle to watch the LCD, you could end up with a light reflection that is very distracting. But, generally fine. While in the play mode you can jump ahead in incriments or speed through the files. BATTERY: So far I haven't run into a problem with the battery life. I charge it at night while I'm downloading or just leave it plugged in for an hour or so and it's been fine. DURABILITY: the one difference you'll see right away between this and the ipod is that this item was made to be used, carried, and tossed around a bit. The ipod is sexy and sleek, but you handle it like it's made of glass... not user friendly. As far as "skip protection?" Again, these are digital files played back through the hard drive. I've never encountered a skipping problem if there is such a thing with this format. DOWNLOADING: With mac, you plug in the usb (firewire and usb 2.1 are not yet ready to ship) and a hard drive icon comes up on your desktop. No drivers, no special programs.. you either create a folder as you would on your normal drive and drag and drop. That's it. Done. Then eject the icon, wait for the red letters on the units screen to go yellow, and you're good to go. SUMMARY: I would just love the unit to accept standard Quicktime movies or mpegs that don't need to be converted, and I would love Archos to get someone with MAC knowhow to write a section in the manual specifically for them. But generally, it makes me just want to cry with happiness.:-)
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Chameleon, December 9, 2002
Image viewer, MPEG-4 movie player, tv output, MP3 recording and playing, still/video camera optional module, storage of any file type, the Archos Jukebox Multimedia is the ultimate portable storage chameleon. As revolutionary as the original Archos Jukebox was when it first came out, the AJM is up to high quality standards of Archos. The output is rich and clear, there are many EQ settings (which you will want to adjust if you use the included headphones) and battery life is more than acceptable at around 7 hours. I found the 1.5 inch color LCD screen too small for extended viewing such as an entire movie, even though the image quality is surprisingly good. If you want to watch movies on the go, a laptop is a better choice. The AJM's best use of the LCD screen would be for short video clips, previewing camera snapshots or other still images. Better still is sending the video signal to a TV. Navigation takes some getting used to simply because there are so many features, and USB 2.0 is only available as an upgrade. The only thing the AJM can't do is record video from a TV signal, and even that that will be available as an optional module. Taking the Arhos Jukebox Multimedia around will certainly get you noticed (I had fun displaying some recently downloaded DivX flicks ;-) and once the headphones are on you're in for a completely new experience.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good sound, cheaply made., January 19, 2003
The reasons that I bought the Archos Jukebox Multimedia are: image storage from my digital camera, to use as a portable hard drive, and less importantly, mp3 playing. I didn't care about the ability to watch movies because I can think of many things I would rather do than watch movies on a 1 1/2" screen.The first thing I noticed after taking it out of the box was how unbelievably cheap the thing looked. The plastic around the video display has those little burrs on the edges from where they broke it off the plastic mold, and the type on the front is slightly crooked too. In addition, the black rubber bumpers aren't flush where they meet the silver body of the unit. It just looks like a toy. So as my expectations rapidly declined, I decided to turn it on and see how it works.
It boots up in about 5 seconds, and I am greeted with a simple file system, folders for music, pictures, and video. But there is a problem, on the edges of everything on the tiny screen the pixels are kind of 'shimmering', or blinking on and off. Ok, that is extremely annoying...lets load up some music and see how it sounds. Connecting it to my Windows XP computer is painless, as it is recognized without even having to install drivers, and I am transferring files to and fro. It takes about 2 minutes to transfer an album with a USB connection. I connect my Koss headphones (not the included ones) fire up a tune and it sounds pretty darn good. Noticeably better than listening to the same tune with headphones on my PC.
Next I tested the image storage capabilities by plugging in a Compactflash card into the included adapter, and plugging the adapter into the Archos unit. I turn the unit back on and in a few steps have my images on the Archos ready to be viewed if I so desire. If you just want to listen to mp3s, I would definitely not recommend the Archos, but for my needs the Archos does pretty good.
So, to review: extremely poor 'build quality', easy computer set-up, good sound, relatively easy to transfer images from storage card.
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