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Archos Ondio review: Archos Ondio
We've seen major MP3 innovation from Archos before; the Jukebox Multimedia 20 hard drive-based MP3 player comes to mind. So it only makes sense that the company would eventually release a flash-based player that stands out from the pack. The elegant, feature-packed Ondio encodes MP3s on the fly without a PC, records songs directly from its built-in FM radio, and has a couple of groundbreaking features. A few of these features have their flaws, but some users might tolerate them considering the device's wide range of functions and its low price.
A study in stylish minimalism, the Ondio's blue-and-silver face sports just an LCD, a four-way navigation pad for controlling most playback functions, and a Mode button that accesses most of the player's settings. Though plastic, it can withstand a fair amount of abuse. At 3.1 by 1.8 by 0.9 inches, the 2.1-ounce device is small enough to fit in your palm and light enough to be unobtrusive when carried in a pocket or on your belt in its padded neoprene case (with Velcro strap). Holes in the case allow access to the controls and eight-line LCD, but you'll have to remove the unit if you want to use the internal mike for voice recording. We do have one gripe about the Ondio's LCD; though it is large and includes a few graphical elements, it lacks backlighting, which makes it impossible to operate in the dark.
The Ondio is a mostly rectangular affair except for a circular indentation on its lower-right side that houses an extra MultiMedia Memory card, allowing you to expand the player's onboard 128MB capacity. However, we should note that you can listen to either the songs on the onboard memory or the card--not both. If you want to hear the songs stored on the device itself, you'll need to remove the card, although Archos claims that this issue will be fixed via a future firmware upgrade. A USB port on the unit's right side is vulnerable to damage when the device is without its case, but this is fairly normal.
Like most earbuds, the ones included with the Ondio are nothing to write home about, but they do have an attached, in-line volume control. A full-function remote would have been nice, but most flash-based players don't even have this feature.
The Ondio's most noteworthy feature is its ability to record VBR MP3s from line-level sources sans computer at average bit rates of 78Kbps to 166Kbps. To do so, you simply connect one end of the included RCA-to-1/8-inch cable to the Ondio's line-in jack and hook the other end to any standard analog stereo output found on cassette decks, mixing boards, or almost any other audio component. Powered microphones (such as this Archos model) work, too. Once the cable is connected, navigate to the Ondio's Recorder section and double-click the power button to start recording. When the tune is over, double-click the Mode button to stop; your MP3 will appear in the Ondio's file tree.
Significantly, this device lets you adjust the gain of the incoming audio so that you can record a strong, clean signal without worrying about running out of headroom or adding harsh digital distortion to your recordings. Next time you connect the Ondio to your PC, you can upload the recorded MP3s for archiving or distribution.
Like the iRiver iFP-180T, the Ondio records music straight from its built-in FM radio, which sports a hefty 30 presets. But the Ondio improves on iRiver's design by including a Retro Record feature, which can be activated in the Settings menu. When Retro Record is on, the Ondio adds to the recording the 30 seconds of FM radio that played before you double-clicked the power button to commence recording. What's so cool about this? Well, if you miss recording the beginning of a song by less than 30 seconds, Retro Record solves the problem--quite impressive. You can also trim away any unwanted audio at the beginning or end of your new MP3 from within the device--again, no computer required. However, the editing process is somewhat tricky, and you'll need a few practice runs in order to perfect it.
Aside from its robust recording capability, the Ondio also does a fine job playing MP3s and playlists, though it does not support the WMA format. A healthy number of playback customization options are available, so you can individually tweak levels for bass, treble, loudness, and bass boost on a scale of 1 to 10. You'll also find the usual random and repeat modes, a hold feature, and a power-save mode that shuts down the Ondio after one minute of pause. The Ondio allows you to delete or rename files on the go and choose among six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch).
Like certain other portable players, this Archos stores data files, so you can port documents from one computer to another. The Ondio innovates in this area, too, by allowing you to read TXT files on its LCD, something we haven't seen before. The screen is too small for lengthy texts, but the feature is fine for checking a grocery list or an address.
The Ondio connects to your PC or Mac via USB 1.1. Archos supplies the rather short USB cable. Otherwise, getting music on the device is a breeze; since the player shows up as a drive in Windows Explorer, you can simply drag and drop files to the Ondio. A full copy of MusicMatch Plus is included for ripping and encoding MP3s at maximum speed. As we mentioned before, the Ondio gives you a great deal of control over sound quality; all audio files that we heard (including those that we recorded ourselves) sounded excellent, although we'd recommend swapping in a better set of headphones. Unlike some players that don't play loudly enough, the Ondio drove our test headphones at near-concussive volumes without distortion.
Unfortunately, Archos doesn't include a rechargeable battery, but three AAA batteries provide 7.5 hours of battery life, slightly subpar for a flash-memory device. We also found several performance-related issue that tempered our initial enthusiam. First off, the Ondio's FM reception is strictly mediocre. Also, the voice recorder introduces a slight, high-pitched background sound to voice memos, and songs longer than 10 minutes skip. Both of these problems should be fixed by a firmware upgrade, although the latest version on the company's site fails to address them.
In terms of file-transfer speed, we moved 82.4MB worth of tracks to the player in 1 minute, 58 seconds. That translates to a file-transfer speed of 0.7MB per second, which, in keeping with the Ondio's overall theme of excellence, is quite fast.
 The Ondio's remote has only one function: controlling volume. |
The Ondio is a mostly rectangular affair except for a circular indentation on its lower-right side that houses an extra MultiMedia Memory card, allowing you to expand the player's onboard 128MB capacity. However, we should note that you can listen to either the songs on the onboard memory or the card--not both. If you want to hear the songs stored on the device itself, you'll need to remove the card, although Archos claims that this issue will be fixed via a future firmware upgrade. A USB port on the unit's right side is vulnerable to damage when the device is without its case, but this is fairly normal.
Like most earbuds, the ones included with the Ondio are nothing to write home about, but they do have an attached, in-line volume control. A full-function remote would have been nice, but most flash-based players don't even have this feature.
 Archos includes a USB cable, as well as an 1/8-inch-to-RCA cable for playing the Ondio on a stereo system or recording from an analog source. |
Like the iRiver iFP-180T, the Ondio records music straight from its built-in FM radio, which sports a hefty 30 presets. But the Ondio improves on iRiver's design by including a Retro Record feature, which can be activated in the Settings menu. When Retro Record is on, the Ondio adds to the recording the 30 seconds of FM radio that played before you double-clicked the power button to commence recording. What's so cool about this? Well, if you miss recording the beginning of a song by less than 30 seconds, Retro Record solves the problem--quite impressive. You can also trim away any unwanted audio at the beginning or end of your new MP3 from within the device--again, no computer required. However, the editing process is somewhat tricky, and you'll need a few practice runs in order to perfect it.
Aside from its robust recording capability, the Ondio also does a fine job playing MP3s and playlists, though it does not support the WMA format. A healthy number of playback customization options are available, so you can individually tweak levels for bass, treble, loudness, and bass boost on a scale of 1 to 10. You'll also find the usual random and repeat modes, a hold feature, and a power-save mode that shuts down the Ondio after one minute of pause. The Ondio allows you to delete or rename files on the go and choose among six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch).
Like certain other portable players, this Archos stores data files, so you can port documents from one computer to another. The Ondio innovates in this area, too, by allowing you to read TXT files on its LCD, something we haven't seen before. The screen is too small for lengthy texts, but the feature is fine for checking a grocery list or an address.
The Ondio connects to your PC or Mac via USB 1.1. Archos supplies the rather short USB cable. Otherwise, getting music on the device is a breeze; since the player shows up as a drive in Windows Explorer, you can simply drag and drop files to the Ondio. A full copy of MusicMatch Plus is included for ripping and encoding MP3s at maximum speed. As we mentioned before, the Ondio gives you a great deal of control over sound quality; all audio files that we heard (including those that we recorded ourselves) sounded excellent, although we'd recommend swapping in a better set of headphones. Unlike some players that don't play loudly enough, the Ondio drove our test headphones at near-concussive volumes without distortion.
Unfortunately, Archos doesn't include a rechargeable battery, but three AAA batteries provide 7.5 hours of battery life, slightly subpar for a flash-memory device. We also found several performance-related issue that tempered our initial enthusiam. First off, the Ondio's FM reception is strictly mediocre. Also, the voice recorder introduces a slight, high-pitched background sound to voice memos, and songs longer than 10 minutes skip. Both of these problems should be fixed by a firmware upgrade, although the latest version on the company's site fails to address them.
In terms of file-transfer speed, we moved 82.4MB worth of tracks to the player in 1 minute, 58 seconds. That translates to a file-transfer speed of 0.7MB per second, which, in keeping with the Ondio's overall theme of excellence, is quite fast.
The Good
Records MP3s from line-level sources or FM radio; great sound quality and options; inexpensive; expandable memory; voice recorder.
The Bad
LCD isn't backlit; no rechargeable battery; doesn't support WMA files; quirky memory expansion.
The Bottom Line
Archos's handsome Ondio packs ambitious features into a small package for a fair price.
We've seen major MP3 innovation from Archos before; the hard drive-based MP3 player comes to mind. So it only makes sense that the company would eventually release a flash-based player that stands out from the pack. The elegant, feature-packed Ondio encodes MP3s on the fly without a PC, records songs directly from its built-in FM radio, and has a couple of groundbreaking features. A few of these features have their flaws, but some users might tolerate them considering the device's wide range of functions and its low price.
A study in stylish minimalism, the Ondio's blue-and-silver face sports just an LCD, a four-way navigation pad for controlling most playback functions, and a Mode button that accesses most of the player's settings. Though plastic, it can withstand a fair amount of abuse. At 3.1 by 1.8 by 0.9 inches, the 2.1-ounce device is small enough to fit in your palm and light enough to be unobtrusive when carried in a pocket or on your belt in its padded neoprene case (with Velcro strap). Holes in the case allow access to the controls and eight-line LCD, but you'll have to remove the unit if you want to use the internal mike for voice recording. We do have one gripe about the Ondio's LCD; though it is large and includes a few graphical elements, it lacks backlighting, which makes it impossible to operate in the dark.
The Ondio is a mostly rectangular affair except for a circular indentation on its lower-right side that houses an extra MultiMedia Memory card, allowing you to expand the player's onboard 128MB capacity. However, we should note that you can listen to either the songs on the onboard memory or the card--not both. If you want to hear the songs stored on the device itself, you'll need to remove the card, although Archos claims that this issue will be fixed via a future firmware upgrade. A USB port on the unit's right side is vulnerable to damage when the device is without its case, but this is fairly normal.
Like most earbuds, the ones included with the Ondio are nothing to write home about, but they do have an attached, in-line volume control. A full-function remote would have been nice, but most flash-based players don't even have this feature.
The Ondio's most noteworthy feature is its ability to record VBR MP3s from line-level sources sans computer at average bit rates of 78Kbps to 166Kbps. To do so, you simply connect one end of the included RCA-to-1/8-inch cable to the Ondio's line-in jack and hook the other end to any standard analog stereo output found on cassette decks, mixing boards, or almost any other audio component. Powered microphones (such as this Archos model) work, too. Once the cable is connected, navigate to the Ondio's Recorder section and double-click the power button to start recording. When the tune is over, double-click the Mode button to stop; your MP3 will appear in the Ondio's file tree.
Significantly, this device lets you adjust the gain of the incoming audio so that you can record a strong, clean signal without worrying about running out of headroom or adding harsh digital distortion to your recordings. Next time you connect the Ondio to your PC, you can upload the recorded MP3s for archiving or distribution.
Like the iRiver iFP-180T, the Ondio records music straight from its built-in FM radio, which sports a hefty 30 presets. But the Ondio improves on iRiver's design by including a Retro Record feature, which can be activated in the Settings menu. When Retro Record is on, the Ondio adds to the recording the 30 seconds of FM radio that played before you double-clicked the power button to commence recording. What's so cool about this? Well, if you miss recording the beginning of a song by less than 30 seconds, Retro Record solves the problem--quite impressive. You can also trim away any unwanted audio at the beginning or end of your new MP3 from within the device--again, no computer required. However, the editing process is somewhat tricky, and you'll need a few practice runs in order to perfect it.
Aside from its robust recording capability, the Ondio also does a fine job playing MP3s and playlists, though it does not support the WMA format. A healthy number of playback customization options are available, so you can individually tweak levels for bass, treble, loudness, and bass boost on a scale of 1 to 10. You'll also find the usual random and repeat modes, a hold feature, and a power-save mode that shuts down the Ondio after one minute of pause. The Ondio allows you to delete or rename files on the go and choose among six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch).
Like certain other portable players, this Archos stores data files, so you can port documents from one computer to another. The Ondio innovates in this area, too, by allowing you to read TXT files on its LCD, something we haven't seen before. The screen is too small for lengthy texts, but the feature is fine for checking a grocery list or an address.
The Ondio connects to your PC or Mac via USB 1.1. Archos supplies the rather short USB cable. Otherwise, getting music on the device is a breeze; since the player shows up as a drive in Windows Explorer, you can simply drag and drop files to the Ondio. A full copy of MusicMatch Plus is included for ripping and encoding MP3s at maximum speed. As we mentioned before, the Ondio gives you a great deal of control over sound quality; all audio files that we heard (including those that we recorded ourselves) sounded excellent, although we'd recommend swapping in a better set of headphones. Unlike some players that don't play loudly enough, the Ondio drove our test headphones at near-concussive volumes without distortion.
Unfortunately, Archos doesn't include a rechargeable battery, but three AAA batteries provide 7.5 hours of battery life, slightly subpar for a flash-memory device. We also found several performance-related issue that tempered our initial enthusiam. First off, the Ondio's FM reception is strictly mediocre. Also, the voice recorder introduces a slight, high-pitched background sound to voice memos, and songs longer than 10 minutes skip. Both of these problems should be fixed by a firmware upgrade, although the latest version on the company's site fails to address them.
In terms of file-transfer speed, we moved 82.4MB worth of tracks to the player in 1 minute, 58 seconds. That translates to a file-transfer speed of 0.7MB per second, which, in keeping with the Ondio's overall theme of excellence, is quite fast.
The Ondio's remote has only one function: controlling volume. |
The Ondio is a mostly rectangular affair except for a circular indentation on its lower-right side that houses an extra MultiMedia Memory card, allowing you to expand the player's onboard 128MB capacity. However, we should note that you can listen to either the songs on the onboard memory or the card--not both. If you want to hear the songs stored on the device itself, you'll need to remove the card, although Archos claims that this issue will be fixed via a future firmware upgrade. A USB port on the unit's right side is vulnerable to damage when the device is without its case, but this is fairly normal.
Like most earbuds, the ones included with the Ondio are nothing to write home about, but they do have an attached, in-line volume control. A full-function remote would have been nice, but most flash-based players don't even have this feature.
Archos includes a USB cable, as well as an 1/8-inch-to-RCA cable for playing the Ondio on a stereo system or recording from an analog source. |
Like the iRiver iFP-180T, the Ondio records music straight from its built-in FM radio, which sports a hefty 30 presets. But the Ondio improves on iRiver's design by including a Retro Record feature, which can be activated in the Settings menu. When Retro Record is on, the Ondio adds to the recording the 30 seconds of FM radio that played before you double-clicked the power button to commence recording. What's so cool about this? Well, if you miss recording the beginning of a song by less than 30 seconds, Retro Record solves the problem--quite impressive. You can also trim away any unwanted audio at the beginning or end of your new MP3 from within the device--again, no computer required. However, the editing process is somewhat tricky, and you'll need a few practice runs in order to perfect it.
Aside from its robust recording capability, the Ondio also does a fine job playing MP3s and playlists, though it does not support the WMA format. A healthy number of playback customization options are available, so you can individually tweak levels for bass, treble, loudness, and bass boost on a scale of 1 to 10. You'll also find the usual random and repeat modes, a hold feature, and a power-save mode that shuts down the Ondio after one minute of pause. The Ondio allows you to delete or rename files on the go and choose among six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch).
Like certain other portable players, this Archos stores data files, so you can port documents from one computer to another. The Ondio innovates in this area, too, by allowing you to read TXT files on its LCD, something we haven't seen before. The screen is too small for lengthy texts, but the feature is fine for checking a grocery list or an address.
The Ondio connects to your PC or Mac via USB 1.1. Archos supplies the rather short USB cable. Otherwise, getting music on the device is a breeze; since the player shows up as a drive in Windows Explorer, you can simply drag and drop files to the Ondio. A full copy of MusicMatch Plus is included for ripping and encoding MP3s at maximum speed. As we mentioned before, the Ondio gives you a great deal of control over sound quality; all audio files that we heard (including those that we recorded ourselves) sounded excellent, although we'd recommend swapping in a better set of headphones. Unlike some players that don't play loudly enough, the Ondio drove our test headphones at near-concussive volumes without distortion.
Unfortunately, Archos doesn't include a rechargeable battery, but three AAA batteries provide 7.5 hours of battery life, slightly subpar for a flash-memory device. We also found several performance-related issue that tempered our initial enthusiam. First off, the Ondio's FM reception is strictly mediocre. Also, the voice recorder introduces a slight, high-pitched background sound to voice memos, and songs longer than 10 minutes skip. Both of these problems should be fixed by a firmware upgrade, although the latest version on the company's site fails to address them.
In terms of file-transfer speed, we moved 82.4MB worth of tracks to the player in 1 minute, 58 seconds. That translates to a file-transfer speed of 0.7MB per second, which, in keeping with the Ondio's overall theme of excellence, is quite fast.