I have been meaning to write a review about this Archos player I received last year but never got around to it (I was too busy trying to make it work).

When I first saw this unit, I fell in love. It was one of the first with a hard drive of its size and I loved the big, bulky package. I did not workout at the time so I was just look for something that could carry a large portion of my electronic music collection.

Within the first few days, I figured out that this was not the player for me or anyone for the matter. First off, the batteries take as long (or longer?!?!) to charge as they do to empty. This player lasts, optimistically, 4 hours total on one charge. This unit runs FAIRLY well with full batteries but starts to slow down and glitch out half-way through. The battery meter starts to flash "low battery" when you have 25% capacity left which is odd. Once the battery runs out, it does not say anything which indicates a power issue, it says "Hard Drive Error" and shuts off, leaving you to believe the player just died.

I have had an ENDLESS list of problems with this thing and English-speaking customer support is tough to find (Archos is headquartered in Europe). It locks up so much, it has become an interesting decoration on my shelf. It is very heavy and unruly, terrible for working out. The "protective" rubber corners want to fall off and the battery columns on the left or right of the screen tend to separate, shutting this unit off. To take the covers off for any reason means to leave scratches in the outer casing.

I really don't know what else to say about this flimsy, overpriced hunk of useless plastic. When I saw their "multimedia jukebox" which plays MPEGs and the like, I cringed thinking of all the people who are going to be ripped off. I would say avoid this company like the plague.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 300
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection