WHY I CHOSE THE ARCHOS JUKEBOX 5000: I wanted a lot of storage space when I was looking for an MP3 player, because I am a music nut and have tons of it. I loved the small MP3 players, the kind that fit in the palm of your hand, but they just didn't hold enough music. I didn't want to have to spend time reloading the player every day, or every few days. I did a lot of research on various sites, and it seemed that the Archos brand had the fewest complaints and the smallest size (besides the Apple iPod, which is WAAAAAAY too expensive,IMO).

THE STORAGE CAPACITY: The Archos holds 5GB of music or files (Remember, it's a harddrive, so it can hold any kind of file that a regular harddrive can hold. This can come in handy when you want to give someone a file that doesn't have e-mail.). It is plug and play, which means that if you want to go over to a friend's house and nab some of their mp3s, all you have to do is plug your USB cable into their USB port and it will show up in Windows Explorer as an additional drive. Then, all you have to do is highlight their mp3s that you want, copy them, then paste them onto the Archos drive. It's unbelievably simple.

THE BATTERY LIFE: This player has one of the best battery lifes out there. The batteries have lasted at least 8 hours at a time for me. My boyfriend takes it to work, and listens to it for 8 hours straight, and the batteries don't die on him. The batteries are rechargeable, all you have to do to recharge them is plug in the AC adapter and it charges itself up.

ABOUT THE SOFTWARE THAT COMES WITH IT: This is the only mp3 player (that I know of) that doesn't require any software to load mp3s onto it. It does come with MusicMatch software, but you only need to use this if you want to take one of your CD's and convert them into mp3's to put onto your player. This was one of the biggest selling points for me. No proprietary software means less hassle. I haven't used that software yet.

THE SIZE OF THE PLAYER: The player itself is about the size of two Palm Pilots stacked on top of each other. Some people say it is heavy, but technically, I weighed it and it only weighs a pound. Sure, that is heavier than those little mp3 players that aren't harddrives, but you are talking about a harddrive. Of course it will weigh more.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM THE ACTUAL PLAYER USES TO PLAY MUSIC (the "firmware"): I hated it. I bought my Archos used, and it didn't come with a manual. I tried to find a manual for it online, but didn't have any luck. I tried e-mailing customer support, but apparently they had better things to do than to answer my question. The problem is that the player doesn't have an OFF button. What you have to do is hold one of the buttons (I think it was the ON button) until it shut off, which was usually 2 minutes later. I solved that problem really quickly by downloading ROCKBOX (which is a free firmware program made for the Archos). Once I loaded that, to shut off the player, all I had to do was press and hold the STOP button and about 10 seconds later, it shut down.

WHAT YOU DEFINITELY WILL NEED TO BUY TO BE SATISFIED WITH THIS PRODUCT: A pair of headphones that has a volume control on the wire. If you do not, you will have to go through the firmware menu to access the volume control, because (oddly enough) there is NO VOLUME CONTROL externally on the player. You would think they would have thought about this. And do yourself a favor, when you are shopping for headphones, demo them on your player because I found some had horrible volume levels. Oh, and make sure that you turn the sound all the way up on your player before you demo the headphones, or you won't get a true feel for the volume level of the headphones.

TO SUM IT UP: Great player, I bought mine used for $85. Definitely replace the firmware (not hard, you can find instructions on the ROCKBOX site http://rockbox.haxx.se/ ). Definitely get a pair of headphones that have volume control.

Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 85
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection