Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 22 years and 9 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

I found out quick that using the Microdrive along with my iPAQ to play MP3s on the road wasn’t a perfect solution. The Microdrive would only hold about 50 songs, suck the iPAQ’s batteries dry, and using Windows Media Player is not exactly my idea of fun. At the same time, I was looking at portable hard drives so I could actually carry around large files and applications, more than I could fit on CompactFlash.

Enter the Archos Jukebox Studio 20. This little gizmo has a 20gb hard drive in it and doubles as a USB hard drive and a portable MP3 player. It’s a little on the heavy side, and the user interface needs work, but it’s usable and the battery life is pretty good (rechargeable, too). It even has a line out so I can connect it to my home stero and have hours of music. I’ve got a little over 1,000 tracks on it now and still have gigs left over. There’s even an open-source project to write new firmware for it, called RockBox. Had the Windows-compatible iPod been available when I bought the Jukebox, I might have gone for that, but I am very happy with the device.