Home > Consumer Reviews > Archos 20 GB USB 2.0 MP3 Jukebox/Recorder/ FM Radio

I got this Archos jukebox FM recorder used, and I've had it for two years. I've fixed the audio-out jack with a simple solder and I've replaced the 20GB hard drive with a low-power fijitsu 80GB. The battery life increased by %20 with the HD swap. At its peak, the battery lasted 10 hours, though it is fading now. But, of course I can easily replace it with a new one myself for $20.
First off, make sure you swap out the original software for rockbox. Most of the problems mentioned in these reviews will be solved.
I store tons of music on this thing, and I still have space for photos and videos and software. Computers detect it as a HD so file transfer is drag-and-drop--much better than itunes in my opinion. Also, unlike itunes, I can do whatever I want with the files on my player without messy 3rd party software. I also use this thing to record guitar chord progressions that I don't want to forget. Better quality recording can be done with the line-in input if you have a mic with built-in preamp. You can also hook it up to a sound board or other device to record directly.
It charges via power adapter or USB, so I have purchased a cheap, universal USB charging kit to use when I travel overseas. It works great.
This player does not work well in cold temperatures. I assume that other HD based players are the same, but this one has a very short battery life when the temperature drops. Sometimes, when the player is cold, the Battery will show %30 remaining and the player will shut down.
I plan to use this thing until it stops working, beyond repair.
The FM antenna is the earphone chord, so reception will depend on the type of chord your earphones have.
Oh yea, the sound quality with good earbuds is great.

A year ago, I wanted an mp3 player, since I didnt download music, I wanted one that recorded off the radio...this was about the only choice, and after reading many bad reviews I decided to buy it anyways on Ebay for $180. MISTAKE...this isnt a horrible mp3 player, it just isnt worth the price. It is hard to find music, and a lot of the features dont work. My shuffle, playback, and playlist all dont work. The navigation is ok...The radio gets pretty good reception but recording is a hassle because you have to get perfect reception of youll hear fuzziness throughout the song, and the 30 second record playback isnt all that is says...it just starts 30 seconds earlier so you have 25 seconds of talking or commericals and then your 5 seconds of the song you missed. But a month after a bought it, my stop button doesnt work, so when I go to the radio I have to stay at the radio or turn it off. The buttons are cheap. The screen gets dirty, especially on the inside so you cant clean it. Overall this is an OK mp3 player, not great but not horrible. I am going to buy an ipod, and if your reading this you probably should to.

PROS: recording off the radio is great if you get good reception, it holds TONS of music, it has a backlight

CONS: the buttons are cheap, its heavy and clunky, its EXPENSIVE, it breaks easily

I bought the Jukebok FM recorder last August, and since then I have sent the unit out four times to Archos repair. The first time, the unit was freezing up all the time at random, and this continued even after re-formatting the unit, as instructed by Archos support. The next two times I had the same problem, and each time I was given a different unit. The last was working ok until the F2 button broke (after normal use) . Archos support (the man who answerd spoke very poor English and I could barely understand what he was saying) told me they would upgrade my unit to the Jukebox Multimedia, but both he and his supervisor refused to renew the "non-negotiable" warranty for the new unit.
The FM Recorder did not by any means measure up to what was advertised, and proved very un-reliable. I know of two other units owned by friends of mine which have had similar problems. All of us use it for business purposes, and all of us have lost precious time and money due to "minor glitches" in the unit. The theory behind the unit and all it is supposed to be able to do is nice, but from what we can tell, the battery is not powerful enough to handle the load of spinning up the disk whle playing or recording. Archos has instructed us to try keeping the unit plugged in, but then what is the point of having it battery operated?? I would recommend buying a slightly more expensive IPod or something else. You might spend a little more up-front, but it will prevent you from having to spend a lot more money in the future. When I asked Archos what would happen to the new unit if something happened, the man replied that I would only have to pay the "low repair cost (not including parts) of $69.99" and it would get fixed. What rotten service!

Just bought the archos. Amazing. Buy this now! Although it is about one and a half times as thick as the ipod, it is about the same height and witdth, and it has twice the features for half the price!

If you buy this, upgrade to the rockbox firmware. It is much faster and works a lot smoother. Unlike an ipod, almost every feature is customizeable, and there are plenty of accessories at low prices.

Almost all of my songs (about 2,000: 9 gigs worth at average 2hundred something kbps) are recorded off of cd's in variable bit rate, and the archos recognizes all their bit rates perfectly. The sound is awesome and you don't have to scroll through any menus menus to get to the features that you use most.

I don't know why people complain about battery life. IT'S A HARD DRIVE! OF COURSE IT IS NOT GOING TO PLAY AS LONG AS A CD PLAYER ON A SINGLE CHARGE! Once I upgraded to the rockbox firmware, it worked for 13.5 hours playing continuously(which is comparable, if not more than the ipod). Just make sure to charge it completely before you use it for the first time.

My only gripe about this player is that the fm tuner sometimes is a little more static than a regular cd player and sometimes the player takes about a half a second to access the hard drive. (however this can be changed by adjusting spindown time; you can legnthen it, but it drains battery life.) However, the FM tuner works as well as you would expect it to in a portable device.

The hard drive can hold anything. I was in the process of switching to a new computer, and I backed up my entire hard drive onto the archos and it is recognized as a hard drive by any machine, so it is easy to transfer files.

Overall, I find the archos to be the best player out there for the money. If I had to do it all over again, given a choice between two of these or one Ipod(the ipod does not have an fm tuner and also has a smaller hard drive for twice the price), I would definitely go archos, wouldn't you?

Initially, I had my share of gripes with this product as when I listened to my mp3's every 27 - 45 seconds, the hard drive would make a metal "sliding" or locking sound which would also make the right & left equalizer bars to lock up for a few seconds (even thought the song did not lock up). I sent the jukebox back to archos for repair/maintenance twice (first time, they replaced the recharable batteries which didn't help at all and the second time they replaced the hard drive). Both times, their help desk reccommended I reformat the hard drive after I received the product back from them. Neither times did it fix the problems. I was ready to sell the thing and purchase an iPod when I came out to AMAZON and read on the reviews the same problems I was expiriencing were corrected if a different software (ROCKBOX) was installed. I went out to their website, downloaded the software, reformatted the hard drive, installed the ROCKBOX software and then reinstalled my songs. Since then, the product has not only been not locking up or making sounds but the software has additional features (fonts, display formats, clock timers on/off, etc.) that are wonderful!!!

I would suggest to any person who's been even a little bit discourage with the lack to performance with their ARCHOS to checkout the ROCKBOX website and see if what I have mentioned in my review corrects their problems.

I will say that I would give ARCHOS'S help desk a B- grade as they were very friendly, quick response turn around time in getting email/verbal correspondence as well as quick return of my product. The only issue I had was that when I contacted them the second time with my problems, at the time, I had not had the item for more than 6 months and I asked for them to replace the item. They explained to me that their policy is repair 3 times, after this, then they replace. I'm hoping I won't have to do this now.