The first unit I bought lasted less than a week before the screen displayed "Hard Disk Error." Following the manual to recover from the error was useless. Luckily, I was able to exchange it at the store (Compusa) for the second unit.

The second unit lasted several months of on-again, off-again play before it also died the same way: in mid-song, no warning. Im not going to bother a third time. If all MP3 players function like this, Ill buy whichever offers 2 hours of music for the least money so I dont feel the pain of throwing it away when it, too, crashes.

With both units, the nebulous Hard Disk Error showed up not long after I uploaded a group of songs (last time, 90 files using MusicMatch Jukeboxs export feature). Also, I was playing the selected folder on random. After that error showed, nothing I did could revive the unit. It would start, but not go beyond the Jukebox Ver: 5.08 screen.

Now its an attractive-looking high tech paperweight.

I used both units exclusively at my desk. That is, I did not take them out while running, and I kept moving them while they were playing to a minimum.

The design of the case makes exchanging the batteries insanely difficult, which is frustrating as the unit goes through batteries fast.

If you are going to purchase one of these units, do not pay full price. If you do, buy the "extended warranty" or "product protection plan" from the store. That way you can have them replace again and again for less money.

It does not work as a portable mp3 player. You turn it on, it turns itself off 2 seconds later. It works fine when its connected to the computer, but if all I wanted was an external hard drive, I would have bought an external hard drive. This is a huge waste of money! Do yourself a favor, buy an iPod.

I have upgraded my jukebox with a new 60GB hard drive which went in without issues, 2100Mah batteries, and the "Rockbox" downloadable third party firmware. With these enhancements, the device is unbeatable.

Downsides:

The base firmware isnt that great, the most annoying thing is the lack of a "resume" feature that will pick up a song where you left off when you powered down.

The optional "remote control" unit just plain doesnt work

The headphones are weak, throw them out

No volume knob -- adjusting the volume is a two-button operation

Inadequate "line out". The line out jack is too quiet for most stereo equipment, you have to use the headphone jack and crank it up.

No "whole jukebox" random play -- random only works within a folder.

That being said, the fact that the device can be hacked and upgraded is a huge plus (like TIVO). The new hard drive was cheap and went in without a hitch, and the Rockbox software adds lots of great features. Sound quality is very good, and if the hard drive fails you can replace it yourself. Try doing that with your iPod!

The USB port and having the computer recognizing as an external hard drive w/drag and drop capabilities is great. So is the external jack that allows you to connect to other audio sources. But the batteries are quite expensive, drain quite quickly and dont have a long shelf life. This unit froze every time you looked at it.

For now, until I see an MP3 player with a five star rating (which I havent seen yet), Ill stick with MusicMatch on my computer, which is the most reliable MP3 player Im aware of and my trustworthy Marantz/Bose 901 stereo system.

Bring back the record album!!!

I also knew about *RockBox* : The (free) open source Firmware Upgrade for this, and other Archos players. http://rockbox.haxx.se/

Rockbox does better quality decompression of your MP3s, meaning no more hiss (which is not a preamp problem, it is the firmware), crackle and such, it also boosts the max volume output. According to the documentation it also increases battery life. Not to mention the excellent menus, with way more options than the original OS.

Slick options such as fading out when you pause and then fading back in when you un-pause are welcome additions.

Once you get RockBox installed you own a hardrive MP3 player comperable to the Ipod, for (less than) half the price!

The rechargable batteries ARE user replaceable, and are available cheap. Not the case of the iPod, you have to send that to apple to replace the batteries.

A few complaints though... There is no easy way to control the volume on the fly. You have to adjust the volume level in a sub menu (with the original firmware and RockBox). Fortunatly there is a volume knob on the cord of the included headphones (which are quite nice).
It is a bit larger than some of the other newer MP3 players.
Finally the operation still is not quite as good as an iPod, it only has 5 buttons, no jog wheel, etc.

All in all, you cant beat the price. If you are willing to live with a slightly clunky interface, the size and the lack of a volume knob, this player is for you.

Please be careful before you spent this much money.

a) Reliability/Stability
b) Ability to continue listening where you last were after turning it back on.

Let me explain myself. First off, if you drop this system your in some trouble. Just like you wouldnt toss your laptop through a plate glass window through a second story building, you dont wanna drop the Jukebox. Its got a hard disk, a real physical hard disk. If its in your backpack, purse, or whatever, and you hit something or drop it, you may be having to replace this guy. Other then that the system is mint.

Secondly, I like to hook it up in my car, and take it on my commute to work. Unfortunatly if I stop it, and power it off (to get gas, hit a few stores, etc.) then come back and turn it on the sucker starts back at the first Album on the disk (starting with A typically). I hate that. It should start where it left off, and Ive not seen any firmware upgrades to fix that just yet.

The system is big, yes, but not THAT big. It wont fit in your pocket comfortably, but it has a lot of disk storage! I also use it as my "floppy disk" to transfer files home from work when I work offline. Thats kinda neat.

Do not leave it in the car in the summer if it gets hot and then attempt to use it. Youll get hard disk read errors every now and again. It doesnt seem to cause harm to the system, but causes songs to pause for overly long periods of time.

My biggest suggestion to make this the "almost-perfect" mp3 player is to buy it, and get a service agreement with it. It will cost a little extra, but its worth it. My wifes has broken four times, and each time we got a new one for free (the first one we got sayed "HDD ERROR" when we first turned it on!). Mine is doing fine, and running without issue.

For the selection thats out there, this isnt bad for the $$$.

1) The NOMAD requires you to send the unit in to replace the batteries (a process I dont trust).

2) The ARCHOS acts like an external hard drive. You can drag and drop ANY type of file in Windows Explorer. Its essentially a hard drive with MP3 capabilities.

However, that being said....the user interface adequate at best. Songs display as folders that yor navigate to and then hit the "play" button. Like I said...adequate. Cant comment on the NOMAD interface, but reviews rate it higher. (However, NOMAD cannot store any type of file from what I can tell). Songs display the album name 1st, so the song title is off screen and many times cant be seen till you scroll to the song...my main beef about the ARCHOS.

In conclusion...batteries can be recharged outside the unit and replaced easily.....acts like an external hard drive for transporting or backing up ANY type of files....the price is right.

Pros: Ease, capacity, sound quality, looks, sturdy, Battery life
Cons: Headphones (but no one ever uses the headphones any electronic gives!)

All in all if u are like me and need something that is big enough to fit all ur songs and funky lookin so all ur friends "wow" at it then u and this device will go hand in hand.

* Linux recognized it - Debian (woody) recognized it as /dev/sda1, just plugged in the usb cable and mounted the drive.

* Very good bass

* Plugs into my car audio system

* Comes with sample mp3s - I liked this because it meant I got to try it out right away

* Has a built-in microphone - this means i can use it as a personal voice recorder and keep notes on it in .mp3 format

Dell Latitude CPx (laptop), 500MHz processor, 12GB HD, 128MB RAM, USB 1.1, Windows XP Professional OS.

~ My Archos Jukebox Studio 20 GB MP3 Player/Hard Drive 500204 Critique ~

(Positive)
1. The sound output is amazing! Im a die-hard metal-head and when Im playing tracks from bands like Machine Head or Mudvayne, the bass and treble feature of this player really crank out the power in the music!

2. Installing the driver(s) for this player was a breeze! I was downloading mp3s within 20 minutes after I opened the box!

3. Transferring mp3 files from my laptop to the player did not produce any "artifacts" in the mp3 files...such as pops, crackles, or scratches. Then again, I only transferred 20-30 mp3 files at a time...and waited a few seconds in between transfers. A friend told me that this is the way to go when you are using USB 1.1.

4. Very intuitive to operate the mode functions. You can learn w/o reading the manual.

5. The blue bumper-edges of the player protect the sensitive corners from damage. This also allows the player to not slide around on a smooth surface. You can also place the player on its back or face and not worry about buttons being accidentally pressed.

6. Despite what the other reviews here say about the charge life of the 4 NiMH batteries, they are great! They last 8-10 hours easy! But, lets see how long that lasts.

7. The player will automatically shut off when not in use. Always a great feature which saves power.

8. Fast-forward and rewind work great! No complaints.

9. I travel with my player a lot...and it never skips or shuts off! Very travel friendly!

(Neutral)
1. Housing for the batteries is very small and the batteries are tightly encased. In case you dont know...those two silver vertical "tubes" in between the blue-bumpers is where the batteries are housed (2 for each side). To remove the batteries requires a delicate hand, or you may crack the housing. But its almost unavoidable with such a small player design.

2. Despite what was written in the product description here on Amazon about the pause feature, there is a pause button; you can even see it in the expanded picture. And yes, the pause button works fine.

3. The so called "grinding" sound the HD makes is not very loud. Its more like a "clicking" sound.

4. The LCD display is fine; no complaints.

5. The carrying case and head-phones are a nice addition.

6. The 9V AC adapter is small...and boy, can it get hot when plugged in!

7. Something odd...when I opened the box, the carrying case and bumper-edges reeked like benzene, or some fuel like that. Weird...

(Negative)
1. I dont like the fact that Archos solely recommends the use of the NiMH batteries. By the way, these NiMH batteries are rechargeable and output 1.2V. Id much rather prefer that the unit was compliant with 1.5V batteries...which are much more affordable and available.

2. The owners manual (English version) has many grammatical errors and a few inconsistencies. It is poorly laid out, and takes a few readings to fully grasp what they are trying to say. It makes me think that it was written by someone whose native language is not English.

####

The easiest way Ive found to arrange music is to do it on the computer. Click on "My Computer" and the jukebox comes up as a drive. From there, you can make new folders (e.g. "Rock," "Country," etc.), create individual artist folders in those folders, and then put albums or songs in the artist folders. The results show up on the jukebox when its unplugged. It still takes some scrolling, but its organized. I havent found out how to randomize playing between folders, which is a drawback, but not a real concern to me.

Ive also found that if I want songs in any order other than alphabetical, I have to title them (again on the computer) with numbers (e.g. first song is 01, etc.). This is a hassle, but manageable. There may be a way for the player to read track listings and do it automatically, but I havent found it.

Biggest drawback is the horrible manual. Most of my learning was trial-and-error (including yanking the USB out without going through the appropriate steps), and a good user-friendly manual seems like a simple way to make things a lot easier. Great product, though.

Now to specifics. I purchased my Studio 20 two months ago. I have had absolutely no hardware issues whats so ever. I do agree that the documentation is the worse I have seen, and the onboard firmware programming leaves much to be desired. I have suffered many software lock-ups, poor sound, bad navigation, and everything else others have spoken about. However, I found a fix that changed all of that......

I located a Archos users group for both the recorders and players. This group of programmers numbering hundreds have rewritten the firmware code, and the result is the difference between night and day. No more lock-ups, sound issues fixed, navigation is awesome, and about 80 percent of everything people found so hateful about this unit is gone.

The best part, is they have full and complete information concerning their firmware from a software point of view. Immagine, an owners manual of 30 pages (Yes, all in english) listing everything to the smallest detail. This includes hundreds of experts you can IRC at anytime for questions. Best of all, this modification is free, easy to install, and doesnt violate the units warranty.

To locate the web-site, go here: http://rockbox.haxx.se/

I also recommend that you look at their daily builds. You see, each day, their programmers are developing new changes in the firmware which make it more powerful, capable, and user friendly. This is as much fun to see the changes as it is to use the unit.

At any rate, I fully understand the anger of those who have suffered hardware failures. This seems to concern those units built from post time to the mid 2002s. I also know the Archos people are about as easy to find as tax break. If you are willing to get past that, then the firmware change will make a believer out of you as it has me, and litterally the thousands of people like me who log onto their web-site daily!

Enjoy!

So the stock interface sucks, but luckily easily upgradable (think car seat covers). The drive is MONSTROUS....I have nearly every CD I own on it at medium-high or high quality and still store all sorts of data backup files.

Slow file transfer speed is an annoyance..agreed, but I consider it "workable" with a lil patience. The quality is an X factor if you read the other reviews, but I can only say mine has worked great for over a year now.

Also as a USB hard drive it installs fairly easily on windows, no experience on MAC, but I read its compatible, and I am listening to the Archos mp3 files on a Linux box as I type this.

Overall this HDMP3 player is worth every bit of penny and a lot of people got dissapointed because they never kept it for longer than couple of weeks or simply got a faulty one and never bothered to get the same replacement.Give it a try and you wont be dissapointed.

20 GB is enough for hours of playback. Software is capable
of extracting and indexing my CDs.
Batteries cover is a little cheap, aluminium would have been
nice, we only get plastic with shiny paint !
Comes with nice neoprene padded pouch.

For all you low income people who want their whole music library in the palm of their hand, THIS IS FOR YOU!

Like other reviewers, I have now gone through two units in six months, and am opening a dialog that I hope will end in a refund rather than a third chance at misery. Both units ended their days by charging until the LCD said "HD Error," at which point the unit would not work as an MP3 player either on battery or on A/C.

Mysteriously, the USB connection still functions, allowing the unit to continue "functioning" as a hard drive. While ergonomically simple -- Windows Explorer copying gets files to your drive -- the elapsed time is "same day delivery." If you use a USB hub, there are frequent I/O errors. If you follow the advice of the erstwhile FAQ list and use a USB port on the chassis, you just get frequent write failures.

And tech support. "Well get back to you within 48 hours" clearly refers to hours on Saturn or some other distant planet. Without the FAQ list, I guess theyre just overwhelmed. As an owner of a unit, Im not.

I was looking at the iPod of course but its twice the cost of the archos. Its slimmer, but youd have to get a firewire card, something I dont have on my ancient PC and Im not about to shell out any extra moolah to get one. USB is perfectly fine for me. I was able to transfer 1 GB worth of mp3s in about 15 mins. I cant even imagine how much faster a firewire transfer would be, but for the price of the archos, 15 mins is perfectly acceptable.

So down to the nitty gritty. The headphones, like many others have attested to, are complete garbage, totally incapable of withstanding any bass whatsoever. So please do yourself a favor and just toss them to the wayside and get a decent pair of earbuds, head phones, anything. The clarity and crispness the sound is absolutely brilliant with the proper headphones. I have hooked it up to the speakers in my car using the line out. Sound quality is that of the original CD. Just keep in mind to disregard the recommendation that the instruction booklet tells you about encoding it at a bitrate of 128kbs. Thats not good enough. Go for at least 192kbs. With this much disk space, just do it. Dont ask questions. :-)

The instructions say to charge up the unit for 8-10 hours before the first use and thats something you should really follow. It took me a good 11 hours to fully charge that thing up. I couldnt wait so I played with it at 8 hours charge and while transferring files, it looked as though everything worked fine, but when I played them back, the player froze. This is also another reason why you should plug in the AC adaptor while transferring files. After that I was ready to go. Again, make sure you plug in the AC adaptor while youre transferring files just to make sure you dont get any errors. Better safe than sorry. When youre done, dont just unplug it. Instead, make sure you eject the jukebox properly. In my case, Im using XP, so I just right click on the icon and stop it.

Navigation: pretty intuitive. Depending on how you set up your directories, you should be able to find your files very easily. The only reason why I didnt give it a full 5 is because you dont have a separate volume button. The only way to change the volume is to go through the menu, but its not that big a deal, two clicks and youre there. It would still be nice to have a separate button for the volume, but for this price, I can live with it.

What more can I say? I love my Jukebox and think Ive made a great choice in buying this unit. Best bang for your buck!

I finally looked at the manual before I wrote this review and I agree with others that it sucks. But, I didnt even use it. I am running WIN2K and loading the USB drivers is straight forward. Once done, it is now a hard drive accessed from Windows explorer. I simply copied the files over to it and it worked fine. I found the controls and the navigation straight forward. There needs to be a little more here in terms of a user guide however.

I agree with others that the headphones shipped with the product suck. I replaced them with the Koss Ear Buds. I spend a great deal of time on airplanes and these help with the external noise. I disagree with those who found fault with the sound the device puts out. With the Ear Bugs it is very good. Fit and finish are ok. The face plate on mine didnt fit perfectly and the battery cover on the left is off a bit. Other then that it seem quite rugged. Contrary to what others have said, I cant make it skip. I have used it with my inline skates and mountain bike. No problems.

I didnt use the MusicMatch Juke Box software that ships with the unit. I use Winamp and another product to rip tracks from CDs. I am sure it is a fine product. I just didnt want to figure out how to use it. Lazy I guess.

In summary, I am quite happy with the product. It may not have all the features that the Nomand has, but...it has the features I wanted. The Nomand is much more. I also like the fact that it uses AA NiMH Batteries. I hate proprietary batteries on any consumer electronic device. The batteries are quit easy to swap out by the way. Make sure you check out Archos website on how to do this before you try.

Brian........

I personally did not use the Musicmatch software ... Transfer took about 40 seconds per cd. Be aware that during the transfer the batteries are used up much much faster than during regular use.

I highly suggest organizing your collection into lots and lots of folders, because it is a little tough to navigate if you have a lot of stuff in a single directory ...P>Now I can carry all 260+ of my cds in a tiny player everywhere and use it in my car with one of those cassette adapters. Even better, I can transfer movies or files for school or anything without burning cds (takes longer) or floppies (no space). I havent had any HD Errors show up and sound quality has been excellent ... Also, this thing hasnt skipped on me a single time, but I havent ran with it, just walk with it in my pocket. Its not heavy by any means.

Only things I wish it had:
- random or shuffle.
- being able to browse other folders while playing ...
- volume button so you dont have to enter menu to change it.

Even with these things I give it a five, and wish I could give it higher. I love this thing:).

All said and done, Im willing to live with these cons as it allows me to keep all my music in the palm of my hand wherever I go!

Having said that, I decided to return the Jukebox Player. Why? Because I decided that I want its big brother, the Archos Jukebox *Recorder*. The Archos Jukebox *Player* was so good that it convenienced me that the HD is the format I want, and therefore I dont mind spending the extra [price] or so for the Recorder. For the extra [price], you get the following (in the order of importance to me):

1. Higher resolution display. The Player can display only one line of text (the name of the song) while you are browsing the song list and while the song is playing. This limits your capability to quickly move through the list. The Recorders higher resolution LCD screen can display about 8 lines of text, and lots more information about the MP3 file youre playing.

2. Recording capability - you can generate MP3 files by directly hooking up an audio source to the Recorder. However, the limitation is that it only records in VBR (Variable Bit Rate) and the sound quality (if you hook up analog) just isnt going to be as good as digital copies.

3. User interface and buttons. The Recorder has 4 more buttons (10 vs. 6) which makes the user interface a lot more intuitive. Gone is the two-key combination for volume control of the player, as well as other strange key combinations.

4. USB 2.0 interface - if you have a USB 2.0 interface on one of your computers, youll be able to access the Recorder drive (which is USB 2.0 compatible) at 480mbps, instead of 12mbps in the case of the Player (USB 1.1). The difference in speed is night-and-day.

Either way, with the Player or the Recorder, make sure you evaluate an open source firmware, "Rockbox". Believe it or not, it actually improves the sound quality over the original, Archos firmware!

The battery cover on the Archos is notorious for difficult to open. Here is a tip - use the cap of a BIC pen and insert the pointy protrusion (slanted side out) into the battery hole on either side of the LCD screen. This will slide the cover out slightly, then pull the battery cover up and out. Batteries on any electronic device should be much easier to get to, but with the BIC cap technique, you can remove the batteries in 5 seconds flat.

Note: the Player (#500204) is the play-only model, while the Recorder is the model that also records (#500277)

* Batteries charge fine now and display BATERIES CHARGED when topped off. The unit warms up slightly when charging but can stay on the charger when completed.

* Stopped by Headphone.com and picked up a pair of Grado SR60 headphones, an AirHead headphone amp, and their AirBag to hold it all. Im in portable music heaven. I never thought you could get such good sounds from a portable. Do your self a big favor and do the same.

This item works great. I have loaded appox. 60 CDs in the first couple of days. I wasnt sure at the time of purchase whether it was worth purchasing a different unit that was USB 2.0 compatible. Since using the player, I have found the limitation is the upload time from CD to computer (appox. 3-5 min.). The actual transfer from computer to player is relatively fast (<1 min.. I originally used the add in available from Musicmatch to download to the player. This takes a long time and you end up naming folders on the player. The easiest way is to drag and drop from My Music folder found in the My Documents folder. I strongly recommend that the albums are organized by genre, that is I have file folders on the player for Rock, Pop, Metal, etc. The albums recorded by Musicmatch are then dropped into the appropriate folder. All information (Artist, albums, songs)is transferred from one folder to the next which makes it easy to navigate and find the music.

I went to the Archos website and it has many useful tidbits of information including firmware updates. The version installed currently is 5.08 which is later than the ones posted on their website (5.07a).

Again, I am extremely happy that I have purchassed this product. It will be very useful on those long flights and I will also finally have music as I am driving a rental in the desolate parts of our great country.

P.S. Clean CDs before recording. A skip on the computer will be a skip on the player.

* The headphones are junk! Throw them to your neighbors dog. Maybe one day a company will spend a few bucks more and supply their player with a good, not excellent (read $$), pair of headphones. That way people wont be complaining about the sound quality of their new player when its really the fault of the 12 cent headphones supplied with it. Nuff said.

* No real input about the manual as I really didnt use it. Obviously written in China by someone who felt they had a handle on the English language. If you cant figure the Jukebox out by messing with it, maybe you shouldnt have it. (This does not apply to creating Play-Lists on the Jukebox. Im still confused. I create them with MusicMatch and copy the .m3u files to the root directory on the Jukebox. Im one for the easy route.)

* Battery compartment. Stay out! I had the grandiose idea of having two sets of batteries that I would swap back and forth between player and charger. I do this with my Nomad. After opening the battery compartment once, I could see this was not a good idea. I use it during the day and charge at night. Works for me so far but I have not been on the road with it as of yet. Dont tell Archos but I have swapped out the 1500 mAh with a set of 1800 mAh. Every bit counts. My Jukebox has yet to display BATTERIES CHARGED. Hour after hour is say BATTERIES CHARGING... and never stops. After eight to ten hours the batteries have warmed up and I take it off charge. The web page states that version 5.07a fixed the overcharge problem. Maybe version 5.08 un-fixed it?? (Contrary to popular belief, NiMH batteries can loose capacity if they are not discharged each time. Not as susceptible as NiCads, but its still a good idea to cycle them.)

* User Interface. Works ok for me but I have all my music organized in sub directories by Genre, then artist, then album. I have an Assorted folder in each Genre sub directory for, duh, Assorted music. If you do not have good organization as you load you music, your dead meat! I have a server with all my music loaded on it. My player is loaded the same way. If my player freaks, I dont. I just copy my entire music collection from my server back to my Jukebox. Takes quite a while but is relatively painless.

* Firmware. My Jukebox came with version 5.08 loaded with a date of Feb 15, 2002. The Archos web page has version 5.07a with a date of Jan 29, 2002. Not sure why after six months they have not posted version 5.08. Stay Tooned!

* Sensitivity. None so far? The Jukebox contains a Hitachi DK23DA-20 hard drive. Read up here: [URL] . Hitachi clams the drive can withstand a non-operational bump of 800G/1ms and an operational bump of 180G/1ms. I have bumped it a few times with no affect on playing. The player has a good sized buffer so the drive does not spend too much time running. I dont think Ill go for the 800G test right now...

All in all I like the Jukebox Studio 20. They loose one star for the headphones. Also, I think they should push out the spin down time on the hard drive a little longer. If you wait more than a few seconds scanning songs, the drive spins down and you have to wait for it to spin up. It takes more battery power starting and stopping the drive that it would leaving it running for, lets say , ten seconds. I have been in possession of it for a few weeks and Im problem free. (Knock on wood!) If you dont see flaming, seething, poison postings in the future, you can assume all is well.

And last - the screen (11 or 12 characters wide) makes reading filenames kinda hard. Keep your track names short or else you will have a heck of a time browsing your library!
All in all Im in love with it and, as I said, it comes with me everywhere!

One thing: if you experience some skipping while playing your MP3s, reconvert the files to 192kbps or lower. For whatever reason, this device cannot smoothly play MP3 files at rates higher than 192 (i.e., 224, 256, or 320kbps). And if youre not satisfied with the sound quality, try altering the bass and treble levels. Both should be above "0" for optimum sound.

In summation, this is a cool toy, giving you the ability to carry well over 200 full-length albums wherever you go. But as has been re-hashed time and again throughout these reviews, Archos tech support is useless. Dont waste your time with them. Learn from these reviews, various newsgroups, or anywhere else featuring customer feedback. Best of luck!

The sound quality is decent, but not as good as the Nomads. I like the ability to use it as a portable hard drive, and the fact that I can make my own folder structure, but making playlists is a pain in the [rear].

Recently I have been having a lot of issues with it hanging in the middle of playing a song. It will ususally hang at 1 minute and 47 seconds (or a multiple of it IE 3:24) on virutally any song. I call up tech support and he seeemed like someone that had no clue how the device even worked, and didnt pay that much attention to what I was telling him. He told me to try fixes that obviously had no bearing on my problem. Its a good thing the new Nomad Jukebox 3 is out because soon I will toss this thing in the garbage and pick that up.

The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of one is because the option of using it as a stand alone HD is nice, and even after I stop using it as an MP3 player, I might keep it around just for that.

Enter the 20GB Archos Juke - and problem was solved. I loaded it with 5-6 GB of files and tunes.. and shortly after was released from my job (blessed day). I played that thing 10 hours a day for months! One problem - one of the 4 rechargable batteries went bad (I could see the leak). Turns out the Archos wont work at all without good CHARGED batteries. You get disk error or clicks and whirs from the thing.

I replaced the single battery that had gone bad (from the 4 spare rechargables Archos provided), and its been smooth ever since

We have 3 computers at home (2 laptops and a desk moored one) and find it a godsend to be able to use the Archos Mothership to ferry mp3s files, and lately - my digital pictures among the laptops.

The ability to double store my digital pictures on a second drive (and a separate device) keeps me from having to keep buying those expen$sive 128MB smart media cards for my camera - one card is all I need, cause I can keep backups on the Archos, as well as my laptop.. only a fool would keep precious files on a single device - no matter HOW large!!

So my Mothership does all that I wanted - and more! I didnt have a digital camera when I bought the Archos, but the Archos Mother ship still has many GB after adding all my mp3s and months of pics

Ive since bought 7 mp3 players.. ranging from the antique (like the DLink 32 MB DMP-100) to the state of the art (the 128 MB MPIO DMK) {ok, ok - maybe thats a tad excessive? lol :} The Mother ship loads them all, and is there for refueling when the little playlists of the small pods get boring..one I can run a line out to PC speakers and play hour after hour without headphones or earbuds..

Im still in love with the Archos!!

And - oh, by the way.. the Archos is the only

Now that thats out of the way..The Archos 20 player has many pros, and a few cons. Among all, is the ease of transfering your cd collection to the machine. Just load up the software provided, direct it do the new player (which will show up as a new harddrive on your pc) and press the record button. Within 4-5 minutes you have your cd already placed in its own folder ready for playing. Play-lists are easy, just use the software, its pretty simple. The sound is great, dont listen to people that say its bad, all you gotta do is play with the bass and treble. The controlls on the machine are a bit wierd, but within 5 min. I was flying around, navigating all my cds and the tracks within. I organize it by band name/cd/track/title. Lastly, dont mix and match and move things around alot, because just like a normal harddrive, it will get cluttered and errors will start to occur. And if you have a problem, also like a HD, just run scan disc and fix the errors. Thats all, e-mail at coolsk8two@aol.com for questions.

The only reason it does not get 5 stars, is i feel that unless you know alot about computers, how they work, and can figure gizmos out for your self (the instructions are worthless) than this might not be the player for you. But if you are all of the above, than I highly recomend the Archos JukeBox 20.

Only problems Ive had: I bought this to use on my motorcycle on long trips, and it doesnt perform well at all. Sometimes songs just completely stop and dont come back, sometimes they start over again and stop in another place, but it sure puts a damper on things. When I did pull over and check the unit during a problem period, the unit still showed the artist and song name and then said Error. The hard drive was spinning errantly at this point. Problem could be 1) vibration, or 2) heat. Well, I left the unit out in the sun and played a couple of albums, no problems there. So, it must be vibration. Still working on a mounting solution so I can bring this on trips. If I cant solve the problem, Ill go to an entirely memory based solution and scrap the high-storage hard drive units (at least for the bike...this unit is great, though, for a car!).

Otherwise, the unit is great (so far-theres always tomorrow)! For car or plane trips, it should perform just fine. Use Windows disk tools if you have problems with the hard drive. Archos is tough to get hold of. Oh, and I am looking forward to using the [new] remote control unit!

I recommend this unit if you are fairly technical and good at problem solving, and are using it in a relatively vibration- and heat-free environment. Good luck!

The Archos Jukebox 20 Player with Musicmatch Jukebox Plus 7.1 (I upgraded) is the best purchase Ive made in years. It is nearly perfect; almost every criticism regarding this marvel of electronic delight is due to a terrible user manual and less than intuitive controls. Once you understand how to use it you will never be without it.

I am sitting at my computer writing this with my entire CD collection (over 250 CDs) in my pocket and I still have room for at least another 100 or more. The sound is absolutely incredible and now that I have mastered the `playlist function I have organized my pocket hard disk to play exactly the songs I want to hear in a variety of sequences that I want to hear them. The batteries last about 6 hours with continuous play. It takes about 60 seconds to swap out the 4 Ni_Mh batteries. I dont bother to use the supplied charger and use my fast Ni-Mh battery charger that I use for all my gadgets.

The manual advises: Only use the supplied ARCHOS power adapter and the supplied batteries. One of the reasons I bought the Archos was because it uses Ni-Mh batteries. I comes with 4 AA 1.2V - 1500 mAh batteries installed. I didnt want to wait to charge the unit so I ignored the warning and installed 4 1.2V - 1600 mAh rechargeable batteries. These are standard batteries that power my Olympus D-40 digital camera, Garmin GPS and sundry other electronic gizmos. ... you will find yourself using them for every thing that uses regular batteries.

The unit comes with a fairly nice headset with volume control. The headset is fairly good but if you really want to enjoy the Jukebox you need a better headset. I use an adjustable "in the ear" set made by Bang & Olfusen ... I realize that this is an expensive combination but if you have 300 CDs ... this is a small price to pay to listen to everything, anywhere, anytime. With the supplied headset I found that I needed the volume near maximum all the time. With the B&O I have it set at mid volume and the music is perfect.

The two most confusing things about using the jukebox are (1) navigating the directory structure and (2) creating playlists.

There are only three buttons on the Jukebox.
(1) On - Used only to turn the unit on.
(2) Menu - Brings up the 8 Menus: Volume, Sound, Play Mode, Playlist, Hard Disk, Diagnose, Firmware, External, and Settings.
(3) Center Control with - Play/Pause/Select, Next (+), Stop/Off/Cancel and Backwards (-)

The manual is terrible and it will take a lot of trial and error to figure this out but once you do it is so simple to use you will wonder why it took so long. I can control this beauty by feel without taking it out of my pocket. It really is quite simple once you understand the nested menu organization.

I wont try to explain what each menu does but I will tell you that the manual does a poor job of explaining the simple functions. You can enter the Menu mode at any time. By pressing the Menu button you will see an arrow to the left of Volume. If you press the Play/Pause button on the top of the center wheel you will enter the Volume Menu. If you press the + button on the right you will move down to the Sound menu etc. Minus will move back up the menu list. But if you enter a master menu you must press the Menu key to move out of the sub-menu.

The easiest way to manage MP3 files is to do all the maintenance on your computer using the Music Match Jukebox software. I recommend that you set up a directory on your computer and use the same convention on the Jukebox. For example I used a directory (folder for you kids) called MP3. I set the Jukebox settings to use that as my default directory for all files. I then loaded every CD I had into Jukebox using the CCDB database online to create the folder and song names. This is a very tedious process best done when you have something else to do near the computer. The storage directory is very important because you will have to edit every playlist file to change the location from C:\\MP3\\ to ..\\MP3. The jukebox does not have a letter in the file location. Therefore if you use the same directories on the Jukebox that you do on your computer you can create all your playlists in jukebox using your master collection and then edit them with a text editor to search and replace all the C:\\ to ..\\ It is a pain but doable. The manual does not explain playlist editing. But playlists are worth the effort. I have 13 Jack Hardy CDs stored in 13 sub-directories of Jack Hardy. It was a simple task to drag all 13 CDs to the playlist on the Musicmatch Jukebox and create a playlist with 115 songs. The options with playlist are endless.

There is so much more to say but I think you get the idea that I believe this is one great product. Like all great things my wife has to have one so I just ordered the new Jukebox 20 Recorder with USB 2.0 as my next gadget. My wife will get mine with our music collection pre-loaded.

One final note. If you have a great stereo system it is a simple matter to use the Jukebox 20 as a stereo component. Just use a mini pin to stereo RCA cable and hook it up to the line out of the Jukebox and the RCA in to your stereo system and voila you have all your CDs and playlists at your fingertip. You can get rid of your 300 carousel CD player.

The interface is not very useful and making playlists is very labor intensive. I returned it for Apples ipod which I am VERY happy with. It is worth the extra money and makes the Archos with its cheap plastic buttons, poor design and inferior sound feel dated.

Perhaps these are Mac owners. There is an issue when you use the Archos 20 with the Mac. It converts the file system, and instant HD Error. The unit is not clearly marked to state this is an issue. Not sure if that is what these people are doing, but I have read posts in newsgroups, and on the Archos FAQ about this.

I have seen other posts about skipping, and pauses. I have not had this problem at all. Could be the sampling rate, or perhaps the battery was low.

For me this unit has performed great. I have over 15GB of music on it. Over 200 CDs so far. I use this unit every day, and it works great. Its great for moving large files between computers too. Sound is excellent. The line level output allows you to use it in your car, and through a stereo system.

Pros: HUGE storage space. I expect to fit all of my 350+ CDs on it with room to spare at 128k. Line Output is useful. Backlit display nice for using in dark rooms. Easy to install, and transfer files.

Cons: The controls are not that great. Easy to use, but they feel cheap. Have had trouble trying to back up the data from the unit to my PC. MS Backup seems to have trouble doing this. Since it is a hard drive, I am worried that all my music will someday go bye bye. Battery life can be an issue. It specifies 8 hrs, but its really more like 4-6 if used constantly. 8-10 if used more sparingly.

All in all I am very pleased with my purchase. As I said before I use it every day. My CDs collect dust now as I have burned most of them, and have them in my pocket.

My wife wanted to try another one, so we bought another unit. AGAIN, I plugged the new unit in, spent a few hours copying files over, and waited for it to finish charging. When it finally finished charging, the display read "HD Error" and the unit refused to do anything.

I have never had something not work out of the box before

Do you want to risk these problems?

Update: Nov 21, Player is still the best thing I got. I have as of now filled it to almost 10GB of mp3s, I have no hope of listening to them all in a reasonable time.

My only complaint is with play lists. if you want to rip your albums to play on it, do what I do, and have the ripper tack on the track number in-front of the name of the file. (it is that when it finishes with the list it bails out and you have to go back to the list and reload it, I usually keep all the m3u files in their own directory)

also with the earphones, I have not found them bad, of course i can not tell the between a 128Kbps and a 192Kbps mp3 too.

It also works great under Linux (use the usb-storage mod)

I have put all my mp3s on it, deleted them off of the computers hard drive to save space there, and when I want the computer to play mp3s, I just mount the device on /mnt/jukebox and point xmms to it to play them.

Finally, no need to carry a CD player, and a handful of discs. For travel, on vacation or work, this is a great machine.

It is no bigger than the transistor radios those of us in the mid forties can recall. It holds hundreds (yes HUNDREDS) of hours of music.

They get there easily, after loading a Cd into any computer which then installs the MP-3 enabling program. Then, it is as simple as loading an audio disc, clicking onto the selections to be reproduced. Click and drag then transfers the selections onto the MP-3 unit itself.

The neat thing about it is that then the music is in two places: On the computer and the player. The controls, while small, are easy to use.

The greatest toy smaller than an Aston-Martin.