Voice Recorder - LCD - Blue, Metallic Silver - MPN: 500277
Strengths: SMALL size, large capcity, good sound, good support from Archos
Weakness: screen is small but displays a lot of info, headphones suck
First off I cant beleive the first post on this saying the Archos is large. IT Is the smallest hard drive based player on the market. Has this person ever seen a laptop hard drive? I am amazed that Archos has kept this unit so small. Try looking at the Nomad 3 or Rio Riot...now they are huge.
Also Archos tech support has been good. Try phoning them. Your wait is a lot less than with any other major company.
I have had that Archos Recorder 20 since it came out. Have had no problems and it works great. Size is small. Sound is great.
I do not use the recording feature but is a nice touch.
I use this to store date and transfer between computers and the fact that unlike every other company you do NOT need software to get your songs and data on the player is great.
USB2.0 is fast and I find even faster than firewire.
Headphones suck but with a decent pair youll be blown away.
It is too bad that the few unhappy customers post (or are they competitors) and those happy do not....Typical of the internet
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TopStrengths: 20 GB Hard Drive
Weakness: Not very user friendly
I bought my Jukebox about 5 months ago because my friend had one and really liked it. He has pretty good luck with his. Maybe I just got a lemon. It worked pretty well for the first few weeks but after that the screen wouldn't keep up with the song that was playing. It was a little annoying but I could stand it. Now many times after I boot it up the screen fails to come up at all. It will still play the music fine but you are blindly navigating through 20 GB worth of music. It is very agravating finding the song I'm looking for. I would definetly not have bought this item if I would have known it would be such a hassle.
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TopStrengths: Good storage size. Good battary life.
Weakness: Freezes because of vibration (car on hard surface). Built-in mic poorly designed. XP drivers
Several problems:
- some problems with XP drivers. Crashes once in a while. Not too bad though
- navigation to make play lists is a bit cryptic.
- built in mic records sounds of the hardrive, so expect some clicking noises every 30 second on the recording.
- tends to freeze from vibration, such as sitting on a hard surface in the car.
- a bit too havy to be use for any sports activities, aside from golfing if you have an electric car to leave it in.
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TopStrengths: Large disk space
Weakness: awkwardness, poorly written manual, no support, no updated bsite drivers on we
The thing worked ok until I upgraded to Windows XP. The downloaded drivers do not work, making it next to useless. Tech support does not answer emails. Do not buy this product.
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TopStrengths: Large 20GB capacity; fast USB 2.0 hard drive; relatively good sound; convenience of recorder; long battery life during playback.
Weakness: Rather heavy; buggy firmware; horrible tech support; slow response; accepts only NiMH batteries; poor built-in mic; short battery life during recording or as a USB HD unless using AC adapter.
I will only elaborate on the negatives, because the strengths speak for themselves.
Weaknesses:
-I had upgraded to this player from an older 6GB MP3 player, and the first thing that struck me was the slow response the unit had from my button-input. It would sometimes take as long as 2 seconds to move between directories.
-Also, it only takes 1.2V NiMH batteries; luckily, we have a bunch of these batteries at home, although I can imagine others seeing this as an inconvenience.
-The firmware is also rather buggy, as with most Archos products soon after launch (although it's been a few years now). As if that wasn't bad enough, Archos is also pretty slow about releasing new versions of firmware.
-The built-in mic... well, you should just pretend it isn't there. Why? The engineers didn't bother filtering out the internal noise of the hard drive, among other things. If you record through the mic, you will literally hear only the hard drive writing, clicking, etc. It's LOUD too. The "line-in" port on the unit doesn't have this problem.
-If you plan to use this strictly as an MP3 player, then you'll be happy with the battery life. Otherwise, you will be happy only during playback. I would say that on a full-charge with 1500mah nimh batteries (what it comes with), you might be able to use it as a portable HD for an hour if you're lucky. The same thing applies if you're recording with it. The reason is because for these applications, the HD will constantly be on.
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TopStrengths: 1.lots of storage 2.portable enough 3.no competitors for MP3 recorders
Weakness: 1.Made in China 2.design could be better menu navigations could of be more user friendly
Received directly from Archos instread of New item - the USED one.
Have not been able to exchange from Archos:
1. need to prove that it is USED???
2.need to pay restoking fee -
becomes Golden Juke Box -
had to leave it as it is.
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TopStrengths: Great idea! MP3 and Data Storage in 1 device.
Weakness: Hard drive made in France, balance in China. Complete falure!
The first unit I bought Failed in 4 days. Returned unit. Second unit recieved, charged up but would not turn on. Tech dept would not answer e-mails. Getting a full refund almost impossible, and I had bought direct from Archos!
Lost valuable data. Stay away!!
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TopStrengths: This box rocks! Plug it into your XP OS computer, wait a few seconds and it's a drive letter. Totally portable, long battery life, fast up & download speeds (USB 2.0).
Weakness: User interface a little hard to get your head around. With practice though, fairly easy to use.
Get it, you won't find more user friendly large media storage anywhere. The real time MP3 recorder made me throw my cassette decks away. As soon as they have a 40+ GB version I'll buy it!
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TopStrengths: huge storage, quick access with USB 2 hardly needed manual to figure out--
Weakness: sceen could be bigger; battery life could be longer, although I haven't replaced battery with higher mA batteries yet. Sure the headphones are not much, but who cares? I already had good headphones.
greatest thing since the invention of the PC.
i'm buying a second one for my wife -- wish they
were as cheap a month ago as they are now
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TopStrengths: 20 GB of memory, up to 8-10 hours without re-charging
Weakness: awful technical support, I would even say - no technical support was offered to me after 10 e-mails to the manufacturer. Bad hardware,
First jukebox got broken after 10 - 15 days of use. Replacement went out after 2 month of use. Customer service doesn't exist at all when you are calling to get some information..
I still have the second replacement. Every time I look at it I remember how much money this thing costs. (((
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TopStrengths: LOTS OF SPACE IN HARD DRIVE, I PUT 1500 SONGS ON IT, AND STILL HAVE PLENTY OF SPACE, ALMOST TO MUCH.
Weakness: I DONT HAVE NONE
IF YOU WANT A MP3 PLAYER, THIS IS THE ONE TO GET. DESIGN, LIGHTWEIGHT, HUGE HARD DRIVE. THIS IS THE ONE TO GET. NOT THAT MUCH MONEY. YOU CAN ALSO RECORD MP3'S ON IT. IT IS QUICK AND EASY TO USE. USB IS THE QUICKEST. POPS RIGHT ON THE SCREEN. YOU DONT HAVE TO HAVE LITTLE DISK, EVERY WHERE YOU GO.
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TopStrengths: Massive storage. Great sound -- with new headphones, the ones they provide are worthless. Ease of use. Connected to my laptop with USB and it showed up as a drive letter immediately. Just too easy
Weakness: Weight; provided headphones.
Fantadtic product. A great value. Like i said, sound is great once u get new headphones, easy compatability with windows, a super system. highly recommended
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TopStrengths: 20 Gigs of storage. USB 2.0 Very compact.
Weakness: The headphones are lame. Not much in the users guide.
hooked up to PC and in 10 minutes had alot of songs transferred to it. Very easy and VERY fast. Buttons not hard to figure out, this is good considering the users guide does not explain in depth what the buttons do. In just a few minutes learned all the buttons, then read guide.
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TopStrengths: 20 gig hard drive, can store data and can record
Weakness: Size(this thing is huge), battery life, Archos as a company is horrible to deal with when you have problems and you will.
When i opened the box I knew then I would return this unit, its too big, no excuse at all for the size of this you almost can't call it portable. The screen is horrible to look at and decipher whats written on it at any angle. Yes the controls are cool but slow to respond. Finally the damn thing didn't work. Plain and simple it didn't work, I ate over 40$ to return the thing for shipping and restocking, thankfully it was in the time frame that they even accept returns. Forget about this junk of electronics.
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TopStrengths: None
Weakness: Doesn't work with Mac
This product was supposed to be Mac compatable, it is not. I spent all day trying to get tech support. When I finally got some they didn't return calls or e-mails. I bought it trying to save some money and only got aggrivation and grief. It may be different for PC users but any Mac user should aviod this product at all cost.
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TopStrengths: lots of drive space. perfect for backing up or adding to your computer's hard drive.
Weakness: needs more detailed instructions. the design is not that great, it's a box.
i download a lot of music, this is the perfect way to store it all without losing drive space on my computer. i have 3000 songs on it with plenty of space for more. the MusicMatch softwear is a nice touch which allows me to make my own mp3's. i also burn my own cd's from it with no problem. i highly recommend this product to anyone who dosen't want to go out and buy another computer for more drive space. i will get another when this one runs out of room.
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TopStrengths: Holds a ton of songs, and has good way to organize them all I really like the fact that it shows the entire song name
Weakness: It doesn't play well through the computer. In fact it just stops for no apparent reason at times. I have never changed the batteries, but I have no idea how the old ones will ever come out
Overall, I really like the product; but I would like to see a better manual and tech support. Also they need to upgrade the drivers for Windows XP users, I think that may be part of the problem with mine always just stopping on me.
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TopStrengths: Good sound, great battery life, works well
Weakness: User manual is useless, occasionally, it shuts down for no reason.
I've actually been pretty pleased with the product. Haven't had the horror stories of others. I'm not sure it is worth the $ paid, as I'll be surprised if it lasts the year -- but so far, I've been quite happy.
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TopStrengths: Very easy to use, stores a lot of songs, shows up as another hard drive on your computer. It also comes with rechargeable batteries, which hold an 8 hour charge. Built very sturdy.
Weakness: The headphones could use a little work.
Over the 3 months I have had this product, I have had absolutely no problems with it. One of my favorite features are the rechargeable batteries. I just plug it in and a few hours later it is totally recharged. Another feature I like is the windows explorer interface. I have seen some that come with special software just to put your files on the player, which is a hassle. This player also stores MASSIVE amounts of data. I have both of my hard drives backed up and over 4 GB of songs on the thing and I still have room to spare. I reccomend this product for anyone who wants the biggest bang for their buck. Players with the same capacity sell for $100 more, and thats at retail. I bought mine off eBay for a lot less than the price listed in the description. It is probably the most cost effective player out there.
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TopStrengths: Storage capacity. Perfect for backing up data, and I download a lot of music files, so it is perfect for me space wise. Like the design
Weakness: The instruction manual is not very well written. Took me 5 hours to figure it out. Company needs to explain things a little easier. It is a little heave for something that is portable. Made in China..
As far as using this for Music I rate it 100%. Setting it up is a royal pain because the manufacturers intruction booklet is not very helpful at all. But other than that it is an ok product.
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TopStrengths: Easy to use, excellent display, large storage capacity
Weakness: User manual does not provide sufficient detail to understand all of the features and/or how to use them.
The Jukebox worked perfectly right out of the box. I converted music and book CDs to MP3 format using the MusicMatch software included and now have the Jukebox 75% full. It works great. I use it with the travel accessory kit to play music through my car and home stereo systems. It took a while to learn all of the features because the instruction manual is brief and does not cover all the options. I have now used the Jukebox for over two weeks and am extremely satisfied and would recommend it to anyone that travels and appreciates music.
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Top
Archos Jukebox 20 Recorder and MP3 Player
Strengths: 20GB - Still one of the largest memory capacities after almost a year and a half on the market. Well ahead of it's time. I wish I could have bought my unit for the price it is now.
Weakness: Poor user manual. If you are a moron don't buy this unit. The rest of the civilized world will be able to figure it out on their own. A little unstable in the car, skips or stops every so often.
I have had my player for over a year now, I bought it when it first came to market. It is still one of the best bargains for the ammount of memory you get. How many players give you 20 GB of storage space, even now. I think the unit was far ahead of it's time for the price. I use it for file transfers from work to home and vice versa. I have converted all of my CDs to MP3 format and have just about filled the unit to full capacity. The USB 2.0 compatability this unit has is highly underrated in this category of electronics, it is vital for the amount of files you will transfer with this unit, USB 1.0 is way too slow. I used it on a camping trip, plugged it into the auxilary port of my 10 year old boom box and we had tunes for the entire weekend. I didn't need to recharge the batteries for several hours a day for three days of music enjoyment around the campfire. It truly is a portable Jukebox, you can take your entire music collection wherever you go. I have had no mechanical problems in the time I have owned my unit, it is very durable and I hope it lasts several more years. It is one of the best technology purchases I have made. You get a lot of bang for the buck at the price it is at now. I only wish I could have gotten mine at the price it is now, but do not regret my original purchase one bit.
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