Archos Gmini 220 20 GB MP3 Jukebox / Recorder / Photo Wallet-Viewer with Compact Flash Reader

[Archived in $300 - $400, 11 to 20 GB Jukeboxes, Archos, Archos, Inc., Products]

Manufacturer: Archos, Inc.
Price at amazon.com: $409.99
Usually ships in 24 hours

New from $254.99

List price $449.95



Product Features:

• 20 GB Hard Drive: 300 hours MP3 at 128 kbps or 700 hours of voice recording at 64 kbps or 200,000 photos or 20 GB of data storage
• 2.5” gray-scale LCD with user-friendly graphical interface with icons
• ARCLibrary to organize and synchronize your music
• Formats supported: MP3, WMA and WAV
• USB 2.0 High-speed (USB 1.1 compatible) plus CompactFlash reader -- compatible with type I and II

Product Description:

The ARCHOS Gmini 220 is the market's smallest 20 GB MP3, WMA and WAV player/recorder. The Gmini 220 is the industry’s first MP3 player offering a modular solution that allows you to upgrade its functionalities by downloading plug-ins directly from the ARCHOS web-site. This means you can create your own personalized player with exactly the options you want.

It boasts a large 2.5" gray-scale, blue backlit LCD screen and features a new intuitive icon-based interface for simple... read more


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Average Customer Rating:

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Comment: Gmini220: Nice Versatile Box for the price Rating:
This is an upgrade from the Archos Jukebox 20. I compared this to the Rio Karma and Ipod. The Karma has a 90 day warranty and Gmini220 one year. I chose this player over Ipod for price and versatility. It shows up as another 20GB hard drive on whatever computer I plug it into. (For win2K and XP, no drivers needed.) Ipod is extremely proprietary and requires cumbersome software installs to get at the data. Fast USB interface loaded 15GB of MP3s in less than 40 minutes! The Gmini220 sound quality is excellent with high end headphones. The user interface is excellent and MP3 navigation is easy. The large display is a big plus and there is plenty of useful info displayed. Creating playlists is as easy as holding down the play button on a filename or directory while browsing the music folder. (some quirks fixed by upgrading firmware to rev. 1.6.0 - a very painless task.) With standard screws on the case, I have a better chance at replacing the battery one year from now versus the Ipod which is snapped together. With some online shopping, can be purchased shrinkrapped new for 15-25% off MSRP - my purchase was 25% off MSRP (03-28-2004), 15% less than brick und mortar stores.
The drawbacks are 6 hour battery life, dim backlight, cumbersome cables, and proprietary AC adapter (no way to quick charge or charge via USB.)
I cannot reccomend the FM radio/remote with high end headphones. There is a lot of excessive audible noise created by the digital controls and hard drive when using the FM radio/remote. The remote display freezes occasionally requiring the remote to be unplugged and pluged in again.

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Comment: The good, the bad and the return Rating:
I wish I could write a scatheing review but I am not. I checked out a lot of MP3 players before purchasing the Archos GMini 120. I also looked at all the reviews here on amazon.com and weighed those for the iPOD, Zen Xtra and Diamond RIO before making my purchase. Here is my experience:

The Good: Price vs. Features hands down goes to the GMini. At 249.00 (CompuUSA) with it's 20GB hard drive, Smart Card memory reader and voice recorder (I am a student and am tired of packing a tape recorder) no other player even comes close.

After letting my batteries charge for 24 hours connection to my PC was a breeze, just plugged it in and boom I was up and running in seconds (literally). The icon based menu made browsing the units features easy.

Before installing MusicMatch I uploaded a couple of hundred songs to the unit just to see the sound quality and options. After a little bit of learning the key layout I selected a song from Pink Floyd just to see how dynamic the frequency response was. I was pretty impressed by the playback. The environment setting were pretty basic and the EQ did not impress me too much but it was useable and the volume range was excellent.

The Bad: I am not going to elaborate too much here just give the down and dirty facts as most of the dis-advantages have already been listed in prior reviews.

The button controls are awkward to use even after using the unit for a week or two. The documentation provided was not very well put together and in a lot of places erronious. The earbuds hurt my ears and I had to go purchase a pair of sony headphones. Music Match is the only product you can use to transfer to the GMini to sync and update it's ARC library.

The Return: While I did not experience some of the issues other users have listed and I was quite happy with the GMini, I did have to return it 2 times. No matter how long I left the unit charging it would only get to 2 bars, never 3. This meant a battery life of around 3 - 4 hours if I was lucky. My second unit done the same thing. After finally getting a hold of customer support (That was a nightmare) they told me that I must not have followed the initial instructions to let my batteries charge fully before using the unit. I asked them how long did that take, they replied 8-12 hours. I told them that I had let it charge for over 24 and basically they called me a liar.

I really did like this player but without the option to change the battery pack without voiding my warrenty I returned it for an in-store credit and purchased the Nomad Zen Xtra.

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Comment: Crashed continuously, finally stopped booting Rating:
I thought this would be a perfect companion to my 8MB digital camera. I was totally wrong. The gmini crashed continuously, shutdown in the middle of playback, and finally stopped responding altogether. Fortunately it was still within my 14 day return period so I was able to get my money back. I would not recommend this product to anyone.

Posted at November 11, 2003 07:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)