The Jukebox is probably nearing death...
Apr. 22nd, 2005 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI dropped my Archos Jukebox a couple of months ago and ever since then its behavior has been most flaky and unereliable. Once dependable, it has become a cranky beast demaning the most cautious of handling. It's barely out of warranty and it's already showing too much age for its own good.
I found out why it's as big and heavy as it is. I took it apart last night. That's no mini hard disk in there; it's a full-size notebook drive, a Toshiba 20-g and a pair of custom fitted circuit boards to hold it in place, and that represents the length and breadth of it. The thickness is to hold the batteries and the hard drive. There wasn't much I could do, but still, I gave the geeks prayer that maybe if I just take it apart and put it back together again it'll work this time. It seemed to.
This morning, though, when I tried to do lesson 75 of my Japanese, it failed. The sound came on, but stuttered badly. Annoyed, I performed Hardware Maneuver #1: I smacked it against my chair. It started working again, but I have no faith that it'll work well for much longer.
I think I'm going to be in the market for a decent MP3 player again very soon. Are there any out there that support OGG, Linux, and don't demand DRM?
I found out why it's as big and heavy as it is. I took it apart last night. That's no mini hard disk in there; it's a full-size notebook drive, a Toshiba 20-g and a pair of custom fitted circuit boards to hold it in place, and that represents the length and breadth of it. The thickness is to hold the batteries and the hard drive. There wasn't much I could do, but still, I gave the geeks prayer that maybe if I just take it apart and put it back together again it'll work this time. It seemed to.
This morning, though, when I tried to do lesson 75 of my Japanese, it failed. The sound came on, but stuttered badly. Annoyed, I performed Hardware Maneuver #1: I smacked it against my chair. It started working again, but I have no faith that it'll work well for much longer.
I think I'm going to be in the market for a decent MP3 player again very soon. Are there any out there that support OGG, Linux, and don't demand DRM?
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Well... Linux and no DRM is available...
Date: 2005-04-22 11:52 pm (UTC)The base units are about $20 more than the equivilant iPod Shuffle, but they have a built-in screen, run off of a single AAA battery for about 16 hours (~18 if you don't have an extra memory card loaded), and use a standard USB<->Mini USB cable to show up as two external USB storage devices when plugged in.
If you're worried more about storage than durability, then the previously-mentioned options would work better, but I've enjoyed having an MP3 player that I don't have to worry about dropping or leaving it to bang around in my glove box, or can stuff in a gym bag without fear.
Re: Well... Linux and no DRM is available...
Date: 2005-04-23 08:20 pm (UTC)I was able to plug it in to my USB and use it as an external hard drive without installing any software in windows, but when I tried to do that in linux, and then I tried copying stuff onto it, the file system got corrupted. I had to reboot into windows to do a disk repair and all was well again. I may try this again sometime when I am in the mood to hack around.