Archos Announces Portable Mediabox

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Archos has just announced the Jukebox Multimedia Portable Entertainment Center. Due this January, The unit is the same size and weight as the company's Jukebox 6000 MP3 portable, plays and records MPEG4 video, MP3 and WMA audio, has a color video screen built-in, and offers a FireWire interface as an option. What's most interesting about the player is an expansion connector that allows additional modules to be attached to the unit. One module lets the player take digital photographs and another allows the unit to record video from a TV. Neat concept that's more flexible than the Bokks AV component reported on Slashdot last week, but I think I would want more than the 10GB drive it uses for storage."

Comments

Invest 30 seconds to visit the site

[Chairboy]

If you took even the briefest moment to visit the site before trying to get 'fp props' or something, you would have been able to read that the unit has a 10 hour playback on one charge.

It's not clear what this was 10 hours of playing, eg, is it the same for video versus music?

Re:Invest 30 seconds to visit the site

[OmegaDan]

ummm, I own the arhcos jukebox 6000, and I can tell you that the "6 hour battery life" they claim is more like 2 or 3... the device also seems to have a mind of its own -- some days I get 5 hours, some days I get 2, on the same charge time.

keep that in mind when you think about "10 hours"...

Re:Invest 30 seconds to visit the site

[MstrFool]

I get 6 to 8 hours on the 2nd set I got from them. They put out word that the had some bad batteries and to call them for an RPL, took all of about 5 mins total, then a few days for them to get here. and if you don't like the life the get some better batteries, use some 1800 maH NIMs, they realy bring up the life and will charge fine in the unit.

I don't know if anyone else noticed tis, but..

[jx100]

for some reason it lists the specs for the Archos Jukebox at the bottom, not the Archos Jukebox Multimedia

I mean:
"Capacity: 6GB Low Voltage Hard Drive "?

"Display: Graphic Backlit LCD (Up to 8 lines of characters)"?

Re:pockets?

[MstrFool]

It can get better. I have the 6000 jukebox and found that a 30 gig drive fits quite nicely in it and works as well as the 6 gig it comes with, and at $150 it makes a nice upgrade and only drops battery life by about an hour. Using the Monster 1800 ma NIMs corects that quickly as the bats it comes with are only 1500 ma NIMs. They also have 48 gig drives that are the same size over on pricewatch.com, havent tried one of those in my jukebox, but I bet it would be real nice in this player.

official site

[pneuma_66]

As i was reading the article, i thought the item was a fake (all those badly rendered images), so i went to archos's site and here is the official page on the device. however, it still sounds like vapor to me.

Re:Hmm...

[Simulant]

Mine is somewhat flakey on low batteries also....(It is one of the first hardware revs) It also sometimes says "USB Active" and then powers off for no apparent reason. But it plays MP3s very well most of the time, is pretty much flawless as a USB hard drive and was more affordable than anything else at the time. (Still is, I think). I've abused my too.. I broke the backlight when I installed a 20gig drive and I can't even count how many times I've dropped it, usually on the concrete while getting out of my car. I still love it though! I would like a more stable version of essentially the same thing. Wish they sold them cheaper, without the drives. They could also use a redesign so it's easier to get the batteries in and out. Oh.. and of course fire wire would be great! Not so sure I want to watch video on it though.