Archos JukeBox Studio (6 GB) MP3 Player
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- Number of Songs: 1500
- Usage: Music Recording
- Interface: USB
- Main Storage Type: Hard Drive
- Storage Capacity: 6 GB
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Best of the bunch but needs more work
Pros
Good price, small size, easy to use, can be used as a portable hard drive.
Cons
Bugs, playlist limitations, sketchy and inaccurate manual & website.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
A very good product if the bugs get fixed. It's very easy to use and very flexible. It's small size is a nice bonus.
The good:
- Cheaper than other hard-drive based MP3 players
- Smaller than other hard-drive based MP3 players (about the size of a casette walkman)
- Very easy to install
- Very easy to copy files to it (it's basically a portable hard drive, you don't need any special software, just drag & drop)
- Easy (in theory) to operate
- Starts up quickly and runs quietly
- Easy to navigate through music
- Since it is basically a portable hard drive with an MP3 playing capability, it can be used to back up all your PC files, move them from home to work, etc.
- Comes with a full version of MusicMatch jukebox (supposedly to create playlists for the unit, but the unit doesn't require playlists and other software is better at creating/managing playlists)
The bad:
- Very buggy. Examples: Even with the most recent firmware update (4.53f), the shuffle command didn't work right (it would skip into the middle of songs, repeat before playing all songs).
- Twice the firmware update itself disappeared (it's just a file on the unit's disk and sometimes for some reason it forgot to load it), reintroducing even more bugs. The play command sometimes would not play all the songs in a directory.
- Capacity limitations - although this thing has 6GB capacity (theoretically thousands of MP3s), playlists can't have more than 300 songs (according to manual, but in my experience the limit was somewhere below that), directories can't have more than 472 songs.
- Unit never would show the battery as fully charged even after charging over 12 hours
- Very hard to remove batteries (though they don't have to be removed often)
- Manual and website sketchy and sometimes inaccurate
- Firmware update installer instructions and software incorrect and buggy
Compared to Creative Jukebox:
- Cheaper
- Faster operation (faster response to button presses, etc.)
- Quieter operation (less mechanical noise)
- Faster boot-up
- MUCH easier user interface on the device
- Much easier to transfer files to the Archos (the Archos looks like a hard drive to your PC whereas the Creative requires you to use their app)
- Navigation is based on file and folder names, whereas the Creative goes by ID3 tags, requiring them to be accurate. Some users may prefer the ID3-centric Creative, but I preferred the Archos in this respect
- Doesn't have Creative's EAX sound environment features, but I didn't consider these to be particularly useful
Please note: ignore my battery life rating, I was unable to test the battery life. Epinions should allow N/A for some of these details.
- Cheaper than other hard-drive based MP3 players
- Smaller than other hard-drive based MP3 players (about the size of a casette walkman)
- Very easy to install
- Very easy to copy files to it (it's basically a portable hard drive, you don't need any special software, just drag & drop)
- Easy (in theory) to operate
- Starts up quickly and runs quietly
- Easy to navigate through music
- Since it is basically a portable hard drive with an MP3 playing capability, it can be used to back up all your PC files, move them from home to work, etc.
- Comes with a full version of MusicMatch jukebox (supposedly to create playlists for the unit, but the unit doesn't require playlists and other software is better at creating/managing playlists)
The bad:
- Very buggy. Examples: Even with the most recent firmware update (4.53f), the shuffle command didn't work right (it would skip into the middle of songs, repeat before playing all songs).
- Twice the firmware update itself disappeared (it's just a file on the unit's disk and sometimes for some reason it forgot to load it), reintroducing even more bugs. The play command sometimes would not play all the songs in a directory.
- Capacity limitations - although this thing has 6GB capacity (theoretically thousands of MP3s), playlists can't have more than 300 songs (according to manual, but in my experience the limit was somewhere below that), directories can't have more than 472 songs.
- Unit never would show the battery as fully charged even after charging over 12 hours
- Very hard to remove batteries (though they don't have to be removed often)
- Manual and website sketchy and sometimes inaccurate
- Firmware update installer instructions and software incorrect and buggy
Compared to Creative Jukebox:
- Cheaper
- Faster operation (faster response to button presses, etc.)
- Quieter operation (less mechanical noise)
- Faster boot-up
- MUCH easier user interface on the device
- Much easier to transfer files to the Archos (the Archos looks like a hard drive to your PC whereas the Creative requires you to use their app)
- Navigation is based on file and folder names, whereas the Creative goes by ID3 tags, requiring them to be accurate. Some users may prefer the ID3-centric Creative, but I preferred the Archos in this respect
- Doesn't have Creative's EAX sound environment features, but I didn't consider these to be particularly useful
Please note: ignore my battery life rating, I was unable to test the battery life. Epinions should allow N/A for some of these details.
