If you say MP3 today, most people will know that you are talking about a music file, commonly downloaded from the internet or created from audio CD?s.  I can remember the time when MP3 was a format just picking up speed, and when MP2 was used to do the same task.  MP2 however, would take about 100MB for an entire album, where MP3 can do the same in about 60MB, depending on quality.  Personally when I rip MP3?s I use a high bitrate and my albums end up around 100MB anyway.  When MP3 players first arrived, they had small amounts of memory ? typically 64MB onboard, with an expansion slot.  I had a Rio 500 for a while that had a total of 96MB of memory.  This was enough for a custom album, but that was it.  We eventually saw the rise of MP3 CD players and jukebox MP3 players.  Jukebox MP3 players contain hard drives which have plenty of space for your MP3 collection.  We are going to take a look at two different hard drive-based MP3 players today - one from Archos, and one from Creative.


Archos Jukebox FM Recorder 20:

 

Features:

• 20GB Hard Drive
  
• USB 2.0/1.1 for up to 480Mbps
  
• MP3 30-320 kBps and VBR
  
• FM Tuner Built In
  
• LCD Display 112x64 Pixels
  
• Up to 12 hours playback time
  
• Rechargeable Li-Ion Battery
  
• Headphones
  
• Carrying Pouch
  
• MusicMatch Jukebox Software

 

 
Archos Accessories

There are the accessories for the Jukebox FM Recorder 20.  You get a stereo RCA cable to hook the unit to a home theater system, the USB 2.0 cable, headphones with built in volume control, AC adaptor, carrying pouch, and the software/manual.  The headphones fold together to make a decently small package, but I would recommend that you ditch them and go get a nicer pair.  I use Sennheiser MX 500 earbud headphones for listening to my MP3 player of choice.  There isn?t much else to say about the accessories, they work as promised.

 
Archos MP3 Player

 
Archos Controls

Taking a look at the controls of the Archos, we see they are laid out in a basic circular pattern.  Up and Down for menu navigation/sound control, Left and Right move between tracks, and then there is stop and menu (on and off if held down).  In the center is the play/pause button, and the three buttons at the top select functions such as the FM radio.  Overall the controls on the Archos are pretty easy to use, but the menu system could be better.

I tried out the FM radio, and it did alright unless it was near my computer system, but I can hardly fault it for that.  Having the ability to listen to FM radio is nice, but may not be what you want to do when you have 20GB of MP3?s on the system.  One other big plus for the Archos Jukebox FM Recorder 20 is that it doesn?t require drivers for using the hard disk.  It will work automatically and allow you to transfer MP3?s or any data to it, so if you take it to work and need to take a large file home for some reason you can just hook it up and copy the file to it.  It?s always good when there are no special drivers required to access a USB disk device.

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