Give your dreams a chance.™ - Apple in the mid '90s

Warrior maclover5
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
Number of 68ks Liberated: 6

Edited by - maclover5 on 01 Nov 2002 14:29:42

Edited by - maclover5 on 01 Nov 2002 14:30:44

God i'm such a lUser with this forum code...

Edit (Again) - wrong smilie. I didn't want a kissing smiley!

Edited by - maclover5 on 01 Nov 2002 14:32:35

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Obviously ol' Mikey is giving in, eh?

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jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

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Check out today's Joy of Tech!

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HAR! I nailed that one!
Sick minds think alike!

jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

Y0! ml5! Howsabout a buried url bugfix in your post to eliminate the wiiiiiiiiiiidescreen compliant monitor requirement for viewing this thyread!

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 01 Nov 2002 09:00:22

edit: I just about clicked on the "select a topic" link in that ad by mistake, if they're paying for sale leads, tell 'em to fix it. If they're payin' for clicks . . . let'em!

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 01 Nov 2002 09:03:42

I know TONS of PC users (Pretty much all that surrounds me...) that are jealous of mine, and the whole conecpt, period.
Somehow it is my fault I didn't tell one of them about macworld when the were released for PC, he had bout a $300 minidisk player the day before.

~The Penguin

I'm not saying that to you candypunk, its more just generalization. Few people realize that that is where the iPod's price comes from, that and the REALLY nice battery in it as well. *shrugs* c'est la vie.

Hopefully this deal with dell will keep iPod sales high, they seem to be a BIG staple in money for Apple.

~The Penguin

However my experience of Archos customer support is not even shocking it;s just nil. After about 3 months the P/S and Charger failed. I sent probably close to 20 emails over the next months to a variety of their email address and even made a long distance call to the US to try phone support. Not one single email or call was answered. I eventuall bought a generic P/S (probably about 6 weeks after the original failed) and all was fince once again. What annoy's me most about it is when I emailed them to ask a question about it before I bought one they answere withing 20 mins

Anyway eventually I came over to Australia and it turned out the IT guy I often worked with is extremely well connected was the first person in Australia to buy one and is basically an importer for them having sold 20 odd to his friends. He said the only way he was able to communicate with Archos was by writing in French to their French email address.

Shortly after that the internal P/S connector failed because it is not set back far enough and inserting the Male P/S connector tip it back on the PCB, eventually breaking the connection. This IT guy said this was a common problem but was able to modify mine as well as all the others that passed though his hands to prevent reoccurance.

Despite all these problems I would consider buying one again although it wouldn't be for my self. I don't need the extra functions of the recorder (plug in a mic and encode MP3's on the fly) and if I want more storage I can popo in a 20 gig drive (you have to flash it with the 20 gig firmware from their site to make it work properly aswell). It does seem that in the last few months Archos have been quite busy. There site is much improved and you can order replacement powersupplys, finally! And the Archos firmware is updated regularly with notiveable improvements. I suspect if you bought it from a shop where you could easily return it rather than direct from Archos you would have a much easier time if any of these problems occured. I would hope my experience was not typical.

At the end of the day it play mp3's perfectly the audio quality is good enough for me. Being able to use it as a regular USB HD is great, works in internet cafe's schools almost any work place on almost any computer. It's cheaper than the iPod, although it sligtly bigger and heavier it fits in my coat pocket or rucksack but not a shirt pocket. Play lists are supported on the PC but you need a third freeware app to make them on a Mac (you can't make a playlist while away from the computer) The build quality is not as high as an Apple product however it can survive being dropped off a table and feels solid. It uses 4 high capacity rechargable AA's that can be removed and charged in a normal charger if necessary and you can get spares in most Electronic shops or R/C model shops. (normal AA's from the shop are not powerful enough to keep it going for long) It doesn't charge from the USB port though withough modification.

When it works it's fantastic when it doesn't Archos are a total PITA.

At 280 vs. 500 I would have to go with Archos again, think of all the stuff you could do with an extra 300 USD. Just make sure you buy it from somewhere you can go back to easily if there are problems.

[sorry for the really long post!!]

This occured to me today: the iPod is now being sold for winblows to court Peecee users and impress them with Apple's great product quality, as I understand it. Now, it's good that Dell is selling them as it may achieve some of this goal, but it seems to me that the most people who would buy from Dell's online store are probably buying a computer at the same time! I don't think people who have just bought a brand new PC are about to switch to a mac. It's revenue, though.

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Is there any question of it working right?

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erm . . . if it's an electronics device . . . probably not!
. . . ever hear of Murphy's Law?

jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 02 Nov 2002 11:16:09

The disk is PC formatted but no Mac I've ever connected it to has had problems. The HD itself is perfectly reliable (and replaceable). The only time I would connect it to a PC is to defrag the hard disk, none of the Mac disk utilities will work on a PC formatted disk.

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