ARCHOS Multimedia Jukebox

Here’s the formula. Take a tiny plastic package, and a quivering mound of multimedia features, mash them together with the palms of your hands (with help from a Star Trek engineer), and you’ll end up with this nifty device like the ARCHOS Multimedia Jukebox.

Here’s the formula. Take a tiny plastic package, and a quivering mound of multimedia features, mash them together with the palms of your hands (with help from a Star Trek engineer), and you’ll end up with this nifty device like the ARCHOS Multimedia Jukebox.

The ‘Jukebox’ in the product title is not accurate. . . enough. This contraption lets you listen to MP3s, record video and sound, view JPEGs, and watch movies via its small LCD screen. Packed along with the Jukebox is a set of headphones, a USB 1.1 cable (USB 2.0 and FireWire can be purchased separately); a video/audio-out cables; Ulead’s PhotoImpact and MusicMatch’s Jukebox software; and a power adaptor. The essentials fit into a supplied pouch, which can be slotted onto your belt.

Noticeable is the size of the LCD screen in comparison to the buttons. The controls however don’t make use of the space, with some almost redundant, and the size of each button will have you nurturing stiff digits.

In fact, you’ll be massaging a lot, as the device is not very hand-friendly or nice on the sight. It’s blocky, and relatively heavy, making it hard to hold, and while the display is sufficient for the function menus, it’s just not good enough for watching video for extended periods. It’s quite solid in construction though, and shrugged off our attempts to make frames and sound jump during playback.

Storage is handled by a 20GB HDD. It’s plenty of space, and XP recognised it fine after a reboot. While it can store and play any sort of MP3, the MPEG4 files [i]must[/i] be compressed using the DivX codec, at the minute resolution of 352 x 288 (CIF). Video-out is at a resolution of 352 x 288, and is comparable to Video CD -- as long as the bit rate during compression is set to a decent level. The Jukebox can also record MPEG4 video and MP3s, and are flexible abilities indeed. To record movies though, you’ll need the camera module, which will set you back an extra $240.

Sound was fine with the supplied headphones; however movies were sweeter to the ear than MP3s, which ‘hissed’ at higher bit rates. There are plenty of options to tweak in this regard though, including with treble and bass controls.
The Multimedia Jukebox is a nifty idea, but one compromised by its chunky design and interface.