The Jukebox is probably nearing death...

[elfs]

I 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?

Comments

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Diamond doesn't exist, and hasn't for some time now. The Rio line is now owned by "Digital Networks NA", which is a division of Denon Audio. Their software support is excellent: they've produced multiple firmware updates for the Karma, are still producing some for no-long-sold players, and their engineers hang out and kibitz on their consumer forums.