I have been an ipod fan since they first came out and to be honest had never really heard about the Archosmp3 players. However last year I was given one as a gift and at the time I was thinking id rather have an ipod any day. But after using I discovered the qualities the Archos has.
For a start the design looks very nice, its silver small and very tidy. However it does tend to seem fragile as I was afraid that I might drop it or scratch the screen. Hence immediately I brought a cover from eBay which cost me £20 but its better than damaging an item worth £200.
20GB is more than enough to store music but when you have videos to store it can be a problem. As an average film after converting is around 1GB. The conversion process to put the videos on the Archos is a lengthy and tedious one. To convert one video and put it on my Archos for the first time took me 2 hours. But that was mainly due to the reason of installing all the converting software (available of Archos website) and converting such a long video.
The games on the Archos are simple games for a little bit of pass time, however I wouldn't really use it to play games as its so delicate and the buttons aren't really ideal to play games. Browsing through a number of folders can be hard. The ipod has a scroll button which makes it very easy but with the Archos you have to hold the down button to go to the folder you want and having a large number of files it can be a bit annoying.
The Archos can be connected to a television and the video transferred to the TV. Which means you can carry around a selection of videos and watch them on any TV as long as you have the cable with you. This is a great feature and something that ipods don't do.
The battery life has been very short. This could simply be mine because I think I left it on charge way too long however I'm sure by changing the lithium battery this problem should be resolved. But battery life on my Archos has decreased vastly. So a tip for anyone that might have one; do not run it of the plug all the time and don't charge it longer than it needs to be charged.
Overall I think it is great value for money, and would prefer it over the ipod or any other leading mp3 players.
Pictures of Archos Gmini 402 20GB
Archos Gmini Connected to TV
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) Great screen quality and size, built in speaker and stand. (-) The only downside is that it is fragile, and can be hard to get used to the on screen keyboard.
Sep 13th, 2006
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