Great features and price-tag but quality lets it down.
Written: Sep 16 '02 (Updated Oct 06 '02)
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Pros: Good sound, long battery life, massive storage capacity, usable interface
Cons: Locks up, buggy firmware, gaps between songs.
The Bottom Line: Great features for a great price. Quality control issues - but worth persevering to get a good unit!
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| alexworden's Full Review: Archos Jukebox Studio (20 GB) MP3 Player |
First off - The image shown above is of the old model. The new 'RECORDER' model has better quality buttons, function buttons, and a higher resolution display (which all make it much more user-friendly).
So far I've had two of the same model and both have been defective. It doesn't say much for Archos quality control but I'm determined to get my hands on a trouble-free unit so I'm again sending my Archos back for a replacement. I'll explain why I'm persevering later...
USABILITY: The 'recorder' improved a great deal over the previous model due to the higher-resolution display and the extra 'function buttons'. The interface is workable, but isn't flashy like the iPod. If your focused on listening to music that doesn't matter. You can find what you want easily enough to play it and that should be good enough. The display can show aprox 8 lines of text and you use the direction buttons to scroll down and select tracks etc. The player also has three function buttons that change behaviour depending on what the player is doing. What they do is depicted above then in the screen. One gripe is that the button presses are somewhat delayed and it remembers each press so sometimes it's scrolls past where you want and isn't as responsive as I'd like. This is a side effect of the bad 'firmwhere' which is a shame. (See later)
SOUND QUALITY: Some reviews have said this is bad but that's not true. This is probably because the headphones that come with it are so awful - don't use them! I encode my MP3's at least 160kbps (192kbps for stuff I like a lot) and they sound great. Plug it into your HiFi and you'll be very pleased with the quality. It's plenty loud enough and in fact will go uncomfortably loud for long listening periods.
Other reviews have said it skips. It does not skip. It has 2MB memory that it reads into from disc. You can't skip memory! 2MB holds about 3 minutes worth of music.. However, if you don't select 'error detection' in the MusicMatch encoder that comes with it, it will create those wonderful skipping MP3 encodings that you often download from the internet :( It's not the player, it's your encoding! MusicMatch is a very fast encoder without error detection on but it's not reliable. It's best to spend the extra time and get a better quality encoding in my opinion.
BATTERY LIFE: The first time I charged them I perhaps only got 4 hours but the 2nd I got 10+ hrs. Also - I've tried regular alkaline batteries and they work fine too so no problems if you run out and can't recharge - though this isn't recommended by Archos! They say a lot of things on their site that they don't recommend but that's because they want you to buy accessories from THEM! The unit takes regular NiCad rechargeable batteries - and that is a BIG bonus over other MP3 players that require proprietary batteries. In fact, I'll opt for the Archos 'boxy design' anytime becuase of this. They've done a great job squeezing a hard-drive and 4 regular batteries into such a small size. The batteries aren't that difficult to change but be careful the first time you try it. The easiest way is to push a pencil into the small gap on the front of the unit. This pushes the battery cover outwards - you can then easily lift it up - it does not hinge! This design seems a little clunky but it's better than having these compartments get worn-in with age and fall open. Once you have the compartment off, it's a little effort to get the batteries out - but again I'd rather have this than have them loose. Besides, you really won't be changing these batteries more than once a year with regular use.
FIRMWARE:- This is the worst aspect of the unit and is a real let-down! FIRMWARE is the software program that controls the interface. There's really no excuse for this but fortunately the firmware is upgrabable but so there's hope - but the latest version I have v1.28 is still very buggy. Fast-forwarding / rewinding is unpredictable, sometimes skipping to a completely random song! Once I got stuck in a sub-directory and even off/on didn't help. It leaves gaps between songs - which really detracts from continuous tracks on many of my favorite albums - but even the iPod does this. The response to button clicks is very slow, and it sometimes remembers the button presses so selecting a track it difficult since the cursor moves past the track you want if you click impatiently - or perhaps it will just ignore your clicks! Very frustrating! The biggest issue that caused me to send the 1st unit back was that it would lock up entirely after 5-10 mins of listening when it my pocket and I'm walking or in the car. Only turning off and back on again would revive the unit.
TECH SUPPORT: The archos website is much better than the useless manual. I read their FAQ for answers to most issues. However I was very disappointed with my unit locking up and I didn't read anything about this on their site so I called their support number. It took about 15 mins but eventually I did speak to an engineer. He said that the unit should not lock-up like it did and suggested reformatting the hard-drive. I did and it still locked up. The point is that their support is acceptable and I did get to speak to a real engineer quite quickly. I also send 2 emails and got actual intelligent replies within 24hrs - which is really quite good. They must have improved their support since other reviewer's experiences...
OPEN SOURCE! The greatest hope for Archos is that their firmware is upgradable and a group of smart developers has started to write their own firmware for the unit. You can try it by downloading from http://rockbox.haxx.se It's easy to install (and uninstall) but simply copying a file to the root of your Archos hard-drive. The interface is a little unintuitive but it's much more responsive and I already prefer it over the original. Also, it's improving on a daily basis unlike the original firmware. Expect great things! They already have games and screen savers!
The other great feature that you may love is that you can record music. It has a built in mic which would be very useful for recording interviews / lectures / etc. You can also record directly from an audio source and it will encode MP3's on the fly!
CONCLUSION:
Despite the obvious QC issues that Archos have, I really think Archos have a winner here because:-
1) It is very inexpensive compared to competition
2) It uses regular rechargeable batteries that can be substituted with regular if you can't recharge (they don't recommend this but I think it'll be ok so long as you don't plug the unit in with regular batteries installed)
3) It is compact and pocket-sized
4) It has USB 2.0 which is faster than Firewire, and is also compatible with USB1.1 to works with any computers with a USB port.
I'm sending my second unit back on Monday for a replacement and I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. It's worth living with the shortcomings of the unit and it's very nice to have ALL your music in your pocket!
My advice to you is to buy this from a local electronics store (and not the internet) since you may need to get a few replacements until you have a unit that is good.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 230
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Epinions.com ID:
alexworden
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Reviews written: 9
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