Archos Gmini400 MP3 Player

Not bad

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Feb 24, 2005 | 5 out of 5 found this Archos Gmini400 review helpful

Pros: Features are amazing

Cons: construction is not solid

I have had one of these for about 3 months and have been using it constantly. Overall it is great -- once you figure out how to make mp4 vids, you can watch every tv show/dvd movie etc you want on the player. It is a great way to pass time while rid...ing on the train etc. This feature is not for technophobes/typical Apple users etc --- as you have to know what you are doing. You cant expect to just pop a DVD into your computer and hope to have a mp4 file on your player a couple minutes later. Encoding mp4's is a fairly complex process. But, when you figure it out -- it is an amazing feature -- one that is WAY beyond what an Ipod can do. The sound quality for mp3's is superb. Better than my wife's Ipod in my opinion. BUT, the construction of the player is weak. It always takes two hands to operate it and the buttons are cheapie and dont work that well. Another amazing feature is that it records UNCOMPRESSED audio files, which is a fantastic. You need a powered mic/portable preamp, but it does a great job. It is better than a minidisc recorder in this nature. The games are lame -- they are cell phone games and are similar to early 1980's MSDos games. Playing the games is also difficult because button operation sucks. Battery life is not stellar -- but about what an Ipod is (8-10 hrs) when just playing mp3's. If you are playing something that is more harddrive or screen intensive (wav's movies etc) then the battery life is considerably shorter, naturally -- maybe half, if you are lucky. The accessories that come with the player are junk. The included headhpones are a $2.99 piece of crap. Dont even bother with them. The charger does not snap into the player (like on an ipod) whic is a bit annoying. Overall the player is fantastic -- and the number of features for basically the same price as an Ipod makes it much more desirable in my opinion. But, at the same time, dont expect the slick quality of an ipod. What you get is a player with $500 features with $99 quality. The same player with Ipod quality (and the huge Apple fashionista markup) would probably be like $1000. The nice thing about the Archos though is that it does not have to dictate the color/style of your shirt and shoes. It is just a player, not a "lifestyle". Read more Less