Lots of storage but too unstable for me (Archos Jukebox 6000 6 GB)

Member Name: sydneytheduck

Product:	Archos Jukebox 6000 6 GB
Date:	23/09/02 (654 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy File Organisation, Massive Storage, Better on Batteries than Creative Labs 6GB

Disadvantages: Hardware Glitches

After owning 3 of these machines (I had to keep taking them back!) I have decided to give up on hard drive based MP3 players and go back to good reliable old solid state ones.
I have loads of MP3?s and like to take em with me when I travel, so I wanted something with lots of storage and preferably a long battery life. The batteries on the Archos last a lot longer than the Creative Labs (of which I also had 2 that broke, but that?s another review), but still only about 4 or 5 hours. The main problem I had with the Archos was that it kept crashing. I installed the firmware upgrades from the website as suggested by the retailer, but unfortunately this didn?t help. And the third and final machine had an odd habit of switching the power light on and then locking me out from the buttons so that I couldn?t do anything about it until the power ran out. Which was creepy.
If it wasn?t for these problems (and lets face it, ?It Not Working? is a pretty major problem!) I quite liked the Archos! I liked the way you could organise your files anyway you liked in folders like on any other hard drive, rather than the player organise them by tag. And the way you could use Music Match playlists (which is my Mp3 prog of choice anyway) although they seem to have to be in the root.
I suppose it IS possible that I was unlucky with the 3 I got (from 2 different stores!), but sadly I think that probably all hard drive based players have stability problems.
I now have an MPIO DME 128MB + 128MB SM and it?s fantastic!

Summary: