Almost all of my songs (about 2,000: 9 gigs worth at average 2hundred something kbps) are recorded off of cds in variable bit rate, and the archos recognizes all their bit rates perfectly. The sound is awesome and you dont have to scroll through any menus menus to get to the features that you use most.

I dont know why people complain about battery life. ITS A HARD DRIVE! OF COURSE IT IS NOT GOING TO PLAY AS LONG AS A CD PLAYER ON A SINGLE CHARGE! Once I upgraded to the rockbox firmware, it worked for 13.5 hours playing continuously(which is comparable, if not more than the ipod). Just make sure to charge it completely before you use it for the first time.

My only gripe about this player is that the fm tuner sometimes is a little more static than a regular cd player and sometimes the player takes about a half a second to access the hard drive. (however this can be changed by adjusting spindown time; you can legnthen it, but it drains battery life.) However, the FM tuner works as well as you would expect it to in a portable device.

The hard drive can hold anything. I was in the process of switching to a new computer, and I backed up my entire hard drive onto the archos and it is recognized as a hard drive by any machine, so it is easy to transfer files.

Overall, I find the archos to be the best player out there for the money. If I had to do it all over again, given a choice between two of these or one Ipod(the ipod does not have an fm tuner and also has a smaller hard drive for twice the price), I would definitely go archos, wouldnt you?

I would suggest to any person whos been even a little bit discourage with the lack to performance with their ARCHOS to checkout the ROCKBOX website and see if what I have mentioned in my review corrects their problems.

I will say that I would give ARCHOSS help desk a B- grade as they were very friendly, quick response turn around time in getting email/verbal correspondence as well as quick return of my product. The only issue I had was that when I contacted them the second time with my problems, at the time, I had not had the item for more than 6 months and I asked for them to replace the item. They explained to me that their policy is repair 3 times, after this, then they replace. Im hoping I wont have to do this now.

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You do need some computer skills to use the player (the instruction manual is useless), but almost everything can be done through "drag and drop", really quite easy.

Overall, good player for the money.

When I use this a the gym I must strap it to the equipment to prevent it from shutting down. Both units act the same way. DO NOT BUY IF YOU WANT TO RUN with it on your belt. Even walking too roughly will cause it to shut down.

As a USB harddrive it works great. I can backup my files to it flawlessly. It has been recognized by about 5 different types of computers, no problem.

I have connected it to my home stereo and setup a playlist to last 6 hours to act as a virtual DJ. It worked great.

Connected it to my car, using a Generic FM transmitter, worked great. Battery lasted 4 hours. Ride was smooth enough that it did not shut down.

I know a few people that have iPods. They are more expensive but work well under all conditions. For now I am looking for a 128MB-256MB non-harddrive MP3 player for the gym.

Pros:
1. Sometimes it worked.

Cons:
1. Terrible battery life. I needed to be charged everyday.
2. Horrible Tech support. Email response took 2 days.
3. Screws were loose on my device.
4. It would randomly turn itself off even on a full battery.
5. FM radio was terrible.
6. Crystal display is small.
7. Menus are VERY hard to navigate too.

I will never buy and Archos again. NEVER!

No complaints. If you buy this, you are making an excellent choice.

oh and one last thing the firmware on the player isnt much, but its saving grace is the feature to upgrade the firmware (not necessarily through archos). i suggest using rockbox as it is much better, offering more auido, visal, playlist, labeling and ordering options. its much faster, provides an ACCURATE battery display, does NOT freeze up, offers good tech support, it allows you to keep your EXACT spot on the song you were left off at when you turn off the player, a text reader is also included allowing you to read text documents (good for online books!), and finally my favorite feature GAMES! on the rockbox firmware you can play 8 games, sweet! and theyre not that bad at all. pretty fun to play while you listen to your tunes and kill time.

First before you ever download music from your computer, charge the batteries on the device for at least six hours. The hard drive is easily corrupted as the battery power runs down during tranfers. Additionally, you should keep the recorder charging while you are transferring music as this will help prevent corruption. NEVER remove the device from your computer without going through the safely remove process for removing peripheral devices from your computer for Windows XP or 2000. This will corrupt the hard drive.

Finally a few tips. You can listen to music while you charge the device if you push the start button and hold for five seconds. To put music in a playlist go to the song you wish to safe and hold the play button for three seconds until the cross appears next to the song. Then go to the menu to save this in the playlist. If you wish to move from the radio to the Jukebox, you must turn off the radio by pushing stop on the device. You can change the volume while listening to a song by pushing the up and down buttons on the recorder while the song is playing.

Hope some of this helps. If you use this correctly, it is much more cost efficient and as good functionally (not asthetically) as the iPOD.

Functions are great but it runs of juice unbeleivably quickly. I charged the battery fully, copied a bunch of files over and next time I switched the thing on... battery empty. Happens over and over again.

Ive got a 20 GB Creative Zen jukebox which I play all week on holiday on one charge. It can also play WMA files as well and is all round fab.

I have relegated my Archos to using as a back up hard drive for my important PC files.

I suggest you do not buy an archos.

If you are thinking of buying one, at least try them out by sending a query to the helpdesk and see if you get a reply.... think that may be enough to give you a clear idea of what you are (not) getting for your money.

PG

I got the 10gb version of this jukebox some time ago, sadly the thing died within 2 weeks - saying there was a hard-disk error. When i phoned customer support a guy told me that it was faulty batteries and that i had to replace them - funnily enough - when i replaced them i still got the error!

I tried emailing again and again - and i would never get an answer from anyone in the company. However, when i emailed them about where i could purchase some batteries they replied instantly!

I could spend a lot of time describing the product, but instead I am going to point out the things I have encountered with the machine that either suprised me or agreed/were contrary to other reviews.

As a music player, this machine is probably like all others. Many reviews say that the product locks up, etc, but I have yet to encounter this difficulty. I found that the players battery life isnt the 12 hours that the specs claim, but I always get through the day. I expected to be able to use the machine while it charged, but I found that you cannot use the system when it is plugged into an AC adapter. This was unexpected.

Since the Archos lacks an antenna, the radio stations are often difficult to hear. One review said that radio reception was excellent, but it has not been in my experience. The radio does work however, you just have to hold the machine in a certain spot.

The biggest problem with the set is the lack of user friendliness. I have had it for over a week now, but I still have not figured out much more than how to operate the basic functions such as listening to music and the radio. I have messed with the settings a little bit, but it is still difficult to unlock some features. You really have to know something about computers, etc, to figure this machine out. I would not reccomend it to someone with minimal computer skills. I have not figured out the voice recorder, the file cropping feature, how to delete files yet, or even how to use the playlists!

I would HIGHLY advise organizing your music directories on your computer before using this product. I have my files put into folders by artist and then album. It would be a mess if my files werent organized.

The play features are nice. I am the kind of person who likes to put an album in and listen to it and only it-- the Archos reads from one directory at a time. Therefore, if I am in my Pink Floyd folder and am listening to "Animals," when that album finishes, it will not move on to the "Dark Side of the Moon" folder (which comes next alphabetically), but instead it will replay "Animals" until you move out of that directory. Some people think this is a downfall, but I like how it reads the directories. This feature is especially noticeable when you have the "random" setting on. If I am in the "Animals" directory and turn on "random," it will only play the files in the "Animals" folder randomly. In order to play multiple artists randomly, you have to create a playlist, which is fine (with me anyway). My favorite play mode though is called "queue," which should be self explanatory, but it basically means you can select the next song you want to hear before the song you are listening to is over. That way you can make your selection and be done with it when you are ready and can enjoy two songs without stopping to choose a new track. You can only queue one song at a time.

Some other minor things before I move on-- there is no hold button, which was a disappointment, but the "on" button is so hard to accidentally press, plus you have to hold it for a while to get it to turn on so it really doesnt matter. Also, people complain about the lack of an instruction book, but the software includes an interactive guide that shows you how to do just about everything.

And now for my biggest gripe and the most annoying part of this machine. THERE IS NO VOLUME CONTROL. You can change the volume, of course, but I am moving to an MP3 player from a CD player-- meaning this is my first MP3 player, and I am used to having a separate button for volume. On this player, you can only change the volume using the up and down buttons, but these buttons function differently depending on what screen you are at. If I am browsing my catalouge and someone starts talking to me, for example, it is not possible to turn down the volume, because in browse mode, the up and down buttons are used for navigation. Also, you cant exit browse mode. Once you go into it, you have to either select a new song, stop your current song, or wait 20 seconds until it goes away. By then, whoever was talking to you is probably done and you will have to ask them to repeat themselves. I guess that goes back to the lack of user friendliness. To make a long story short, the Archos has too few buttons doing too many tasks.

I spent a long time knocking the volume control, but that was really unexpected to me and is a hassle, but that isnt to say this isnt a great player. I am very satisfied with it. Like I said, I have only had it for a little over a week, though, and who knows what could go wrong in the future. I have not encountered ANY of the problems described by other people, though, and hope that I never do. I DEFINITELY reccomend this player to ANYONE who is even remotely interested in a large capacity MP3 player. For the amount of money it costs, its better than the Ipod.

**Update: I have had this unit now for several months and have had NO problems, none of the problems listed in other reviews have happened. I have definitely gotten my moneys worth of enjoyment from it. A definite recommend!

What some people have been saying about the nomad zen is that it is the only jukebox that you can create playlists on without connecting to your pc. Well, theyre wrong. You can create playlists just on the mp3 player without any help from external software.

The radio was better than I expected, I actually get better reception with this than I do with my small boom box radio. It takes a little practice to get totally used to the way you navigate on this thing, but after about thirty minutes I had it down.

It was smaller than I thought it would be! Its kinda heavy (since its a hard drive) but it still fits in the back pocket of my jeans. I like the look of the FM recorder better than the other archos jukeboxes. Overall I am very happy with it. Less expensive than the ipod and just as good! I recommend it!

1. Horrible battery life. I travel 1 1/2 hrs to work ea. day. I I love music. Before my round trip commute is over usually the battery is dead. I charge it each night for over 5 hours. Doesnt help. I try not to touch too many buttons or replay the same part in a song too many times or even fast foward. Doesnt help.

2. Random shutdowns...by this I mean the unit at random times just shuts down while in the middle of a track. Each time you boot up you use more battery life. If I have 5 random shutdowns during my commute, I will run out of battery life by the completion of my round trip commute.

Its really sad because this box has excellent sound quality and I luv the FM tuner, and its easy to transfer music, but I cannot live being a slave to what I use on this product. I think I may have to bow out and purchase an Ipod.

PS. Tech support took 3 days to email me a reply regarding my issues only to tell me to call them on there pay number. Doesnt sound like much thought has been put into Tech support.

This has the potential to be a good product, if Archos fixes a lot of these problems. Most of them can (and probably will) be fixed via firmware updates. But the battery life is a major issue with this player.

The quality could be a little better - I have had no problems, but the controls seem a bit flimsy. The volume could also be louder. As with most portable devices, youre well advised to purchase a set of good quality headphones. Dont plan on wearing it on a back support belt or clipping it on pants - its too bulky or heavy. It had a belt loop on the included neoprene pouch - this will fit a standard belt, but not a belt for the gym. I keep mine in a pocket or carry it around.

Its a great buy!

Followup (3 months later) - still love this thing! Found a couple of software bugs, but these are addresses in frequent updates.

Either they have no idea how bad the Archos is in comparison to other players or they just simply have no understanding of what quality is about!!

I bought this player, and had several issues with it. Firstly, the battery power is horrible. Lasting for under two hours is an example of how poorly this player functions. Almost always, the player suddenly freezes and shuts down for no apparent reason. Fm radio does not function accordingly and when using the unit to record meetings, recording several times, the files rerecord over each other.

This player was not designed for listening pleasure, rather designed to irritate, fustrate and infuriate users.

Also, just when you think Archoss tech support can help, getting in touch with them is like breaking down a brick wall with your bare hands. So, be patient on contacting them, cause they have major problems that they have to deal with.

I will be amuzing myself buy just viewing all the glowing reviews that mislead consumers with positive reviews.

AND HERES THE WORST PART OF IT ALL THAT CAN BE VERY DAMAGING TO RECORDINGS. I had to learn the hard way. And Archos does not mention this problem anywhere. When I started recording through the radio it created a file called "New Song00 pt1" then when I clicked NEXT it created a brand new file of the audio I was recording called "New Song00 pt2" clicked next again I got "New Song00 pt3". So I recorded through the radio and created these 3 recordings and then I clicked "STOP". They were IN THE FOLDER I created called Speeches. They were very important audio files. So an hour goes by and I have to record 3 more Audio files through the radio. So Im Still IN THE FOLDER called Speeches and start to Record again and divide the Audio recordings into 3 new files. And heres what Archos FAILED TO ANNOUNCE and can be very damaging: when I went back to the FOLDER I created called Speeches there were only 3 files in it and I had made 6 files. I listened to the files and it turns out THE NEW 3 FILES I had Created HAD ERASED THE 3 OLDER FILES I CREATED FIRST. And those very important 3 files I created first were OVERWRITTEN & ERASED by the new recordings I made. THE ARCHOS REPLACES OLD RECORDINGS WITH NEW ONES IF THEYRE IN THE SAME FOLDER. With no warning I was very very Disappointed. Im telling this so no one has to go through the same thing I went through of loosing valuable Audio. So if your buying this thing for recording Audio I wouldnt recommend the Archos go for Nomad or Minidisc Instead. Hope this helps.

The player looks good and feels good and sounds good, but highly unimpresive with its performance.

I since returned the unit and bought the Nomad Jukebox 3, a huge differnace. Not only the player sounds better, it last for about 9 hours on continuous playback. Also, the interface is much more professional, for example, i noticed when i wanted to forward to the next track on the archos, it would take about 3 to five seconds to get to the next song. The Nomad is instant.

Bottom line, the archos does not have a good and reliable battery source to run this hard drive, let alone an MP3 player.

I am sharing this review with the hope of helping someone out there make a right decision and not be fooled like me!

Well done...."CREATIVE"

What this product is good is it can record voice directly into MP3.

I would not recommend the product.

However, Im one of those odd open-source (i.e., Linux) types, so Im always looking for a way to integrate different hardware. Archos is very platform neutral--while they actively support Windoze and Mac, this little guy works on Linux. So, I only have to rip my CDs once and then copy them down.

The website cites a Linux USB driver link, but that proved not to be to useful. If youre sporting the right Linux kernal, you need only configure it right (my distribution had it configured by default, making this almost plug-n-play), and the rest is a cinch (edit a text file, one command line command).

I also keep a few key configuration files on my Archos so if I need to start from scratch with an install I can bring back those configurations more quickly.

On other notes, it takes a little while to get used to the minimalist controls--that off can also mean stop doesnt register at first, so dont be afraid to experiment. The player responds to "m3u" playlists. Im currently assuming that the USB connection also provides power to play and charge the batteries.