King Of All MP3 Players

King Of All MP3 Players

The Archos Jukebox is the fastest and most capacious MP3 player on the market.

Look out, Apple. Sure, your iPod MP3 player is sleek and smooth, but as always, upstarts from the PC world are looking to take what you've done and do it cheaper. One player in particular, the Archos Jukebox Recorder 20, is a force to be reckoned with.

Don't get us wrong. We love the iPod, but the Archos Jukebox is just as fast, works with both Mac and Windows operating systems, and has a hard drive that's twice as roomy as the iPod's. And at $319, versus $499 for Apple's 10GB player, the Archos is hard to beat. Which is why, just a few months after the iPod's debut, the Archos Jukebox is taking the crown.

Crowning The King
The first thing you notice about the Jukebox Recorder 20 is that it's heavy--12.3 ounces--twice as heavy as the iPod. And it feels rugged, with rubberized cushions on its corners to protect the drive in case you drop it. It uses a 4-button navigation disc with a central control button, individual On/Off switches and three selection buttons. Examining the top of the player reveals the earphone jack--Archos thoughtfully includes a set of folding headphones--and a digital input/output jack for connecting the player to your home stereo.

The bottom of the unit houses a DC power jack as well as a USB 2.0 port, which lets you transfer data at 480 megabits (60MB) per second. That's a vast improvement over USB 1.1, which tops out at 12MB per second. At that snail's pace, it would take forever to fill up this player's capacious drive. If you don't have USB 2.0, don't worry. You can easily add an internal card to a desktop, or a PC Card to a laptop, for under $80.

Another cool feature is the analog line-in port, which is used to record in MP3 format straight to the hard drive. Plug in a microphone and start recording.

The Archos draws its strength from a 20GB low-voltage hard drive with an internal 2MB buffer to prevent skipping. That's enough to hold about 270 compact discs, or almost 14 days of continuous music. No other portable MP3 player even comes close. You will have to change the batteries at some point, however--the four AA rechargeable batteries last about 8 hours before giving out.

In addition to the nifty navigation disc, you get a bright LCD screen--and the backlite and contrast settings are easy to adjust. You also can set the bass, treble and balance using the interface to the device's simplified equalizer. While in playback mode, the screen displays a song's title, artist, album, bit rate and the time point--everything in one glance.

The Archos is a bargain for the size of the hard drive, the speed of the data transfer and the included MusicMatch software. So fill up the King of all MP3 players with your favorite songs, then hit the road.

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