a mac user's experience with the Archos 6GB jukebox
Written: Mar 06 '01 (Updated Mar 21 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
| Durability: |
|
|
| Portability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
|
Pros: small, easy to get started, simple interface, decent battery lifetime, great flexibility
Cons: mediocre software, some skipping, bizarre manual, some mac features not implemented (yet)
The Bottom Line: Got money to burn? Get one of the more expensive mp3 players. But who has money to burn? Save $150 and get this player/hard drive which works almost as well.
|
|
|
| felicia's Full Review: Archos Jukebox Studio (20 GB) MP3 Player |
I am a music lover and mp3 hoarder, and once I saw how cheap this unit was I decided it was time to make my 6GB portable mp3 player dreams come true. I had a few concerns in that I had never heard of Archos before, but I had also never heard of Nomad until a year ago. I checked out the Archos website and they seem to specialize in very small data storage; this mp3 player is a natural outgrowth of that. In addition to its main function of playing mp3's, it is just like a portable USB hard drive - you can store any type of file on it, up to 6 GB total storage.
The Jukebox 6000 is mac and pc compatible. I am running mine off a mac, but there is no need to commit to either. One of the nicest things about the player is that it makes trading mp3's (or any other file) very easy. I can copy mp3 files onto it from my mac, bring it to a friend's house and copy these files onto their pc, copy some of their mp3's or other files onto the jukebox and bring it back to my mac, etc.
While all of this is nice, the functioning of the player is the greatest concern with this product. While it is extremely easy to copy files to the Archos Jukebox 6000 (just drag and drop files to the Jukebox drive which is added to the finder when you plug in the USB cord), I am unhappy with the implementation of playlists on the unit. At this point in time Archos cannot support playlists for the mac, and pc playlists are limited to 300 files. In theory, further revisions to the firmware (the operating system for the player) should be available to fix this. While not being able to create a playlist for the player is a minor complaint, I do hope that they add this feature in future releases of the firmware (available free at the company website). There is also a continuing problem with the shuffle (random) function - it likes to play the same order of shuffled files (starting from the beginning) each time you turn the unit on and off. The way to avoid this (according to the website) is to re-shuffle before turning the player off, that way it will be a new shuffle when you turn it back on later. I guess this makes sense - but is this really the best way to fix this problem? The website indicated that they are still working on fixing this, but this doesn't seem like the a very challenging programming problem - why isn't this fixed yet?
The included software, MusicMatch jukebox, is mediocre. I guess keeping costs down was the most important factor here, but I find that Soundjam MP is far better mp3-playing software, easier to use and much, much faster. I was shocked at how slowly MusicMatch added files to the playlist. But MusicMatch is the playlist software supported by the JB6000, and it won't read any other mp3 playlist format. But this is only relevant for PC users, since the current version of firmware can't read the MusicMatch for Mac playlist files anyhow.
The manual is rather scanty, and must have been translated since much of the prose is kind of strange. It is understandable, but rather short on details. Furthermore some features not included with the player are included in the manual (a remote control, for example), and likewise some warnings given in the manual (e.g. hold the mp3 player upside down when in use) are disavowed at the company website. Further features are added by updating the firmware, but the firmware doesn't come with a readme file explaining what the new features are. For instance, turning the volume up and down was a real pain in the original operating system as it required maneuvering through a set of menus. Firmware updates now make it possible to adjust volume by holding down the on button and press + or -. This is a good addition, but I would have never known about it if I hadn't checked the company's "Firmware Revision Page":
(http://www.archos.com/zone_a/support/tech_jb6000_rh.html)
These inconsistencies are annoying, but clearly, saving money is what this all comes down to, and I certainly appreciate the fact that this player is $150 less than its competitors. But just be warned before you buy about some of these issues.
The batteries do seem to last about 6-8 hours as claimed. They take about 10 hours to fully recharge. They are not easily replaced should they become unchargeable, as it requires unscrewing the two halves of the unit and thereby voiding the warranty, but hopefully this takes a long time to happen.
Although the player has a 2MB memory buffer to guard against jostling, I doubt you could go jogging with it. When I walk along the road listening to the unit I have to hold onto the player to keep it from jostling too much. But it is pretty good about going back to the spot where it skipped from.
The sound quality is quite good, although not stellar. I haven't had any problems in this department - it sounds about as expected. The JB6000 comes with headphones, but I will probably replace them soon. They are ok but the ear-pieces fit very snugly into your ear, which can get uncomfortable after awhile.
The JB6000 is nice and small, easily fitting into a coat pocket. It weighs just 12 oz. It is some pretty dreamy technology the first time you take it out of the package - heavy enough to have some heft but still very small and very light. The design is not as nice as the Nomad, and the Nomad comes in multiple colors, but the Archos is smaller and lighter. There are blue rubbery things on the corners which are supposed to be shock-absorbers, but I have my doubts about how much these would really help if you dropped it. I have heard nothing but horror stories from people who have dropped any hard drive. If you are the kind of person who drops their walkman or portable cd player a lot, you might want to avoid the whole portable hard-drive mp3 player field altogether - a single drop could destroy the whole device, permanently. Needless to say I am very careful with mine. It does come with a nice carrying pouch, which probably helps reduce the damage a drop would do to it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 350
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
felicia
|
|
Location: San Francisco, CA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 4 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.