- 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
- User-friendly graphical interface with icons
- ARCLibrary to organize and synchronize your music
- Formats supported: MP3, WMA and WAV
- USB 2.0 High-speed (USB1.1 compatible) plus CompactFlash reader (compatible type I and II)
I'm going on vacation halfway around the world and wanted a way to store digital photos without lugging a laptop. Despite the negative reviews on this site, I decided to try the Gmini 220 because it was the only reasobnably priced, small device with 20 GB of storage and a built in CF card reader.
I've tested photo storage using the CF reader and it works great, and I've also come to love the MP3 player. The sound is great (I bought a $15 pair of headphones to replace the earbuds that came with the player). After loading over 200 CD's using the enhanced MP3 format from the MusicMatch software, I still have 15 GB free to store my photos. Now I have entertainment for that long plane ride as well as the photo storage I wanted!
The Gmini is small (easily fits in a shirt pocket) and well designed. The interface is intuitive, and gives you several ways to access music or data on the drive, including a straightforward browser.
After many hours of use, I've only had one problem: When I first got the player, I couldn't get the ArcLibrary to update after loading new music. You can use the browser instead of the ArcLibary, but I wanted everything to work as designed, so I called Archos technical support. They answered promptly, were courteous, and walked me through solving the problem in a few minutes (I had a corrupt ArcLibrary file they had me delete the file and update the player, and the Gmini automatically recreated a working ArcLibrary file). This problem has not recurred and everything else has worked well.
I wonder if the people who are flaming the player here have read the manual e.g. the person whose Gmini froze. The manual's troubleshooting section identifies this as a possible outcome of subjecting the player to electrostatic shock and says to hold the power button down for 15 sections to shut off and reboot the system if this happens. The person complaining here talked about pushing all the buttons and now waiting for the battery to die he doesn't mention tryintg the solution easily found in the manual (hmm operator error?)!
Anyway, I'm very pleased with the Gmini 220 very small size; huge storage capacity; very good sound quality; felxible, intuitive interface; versatile (self powered external hard drive, photo storage direct from CF card); good technical support.
Buy G Mini 120 20 GB MP3 Player & Recorder Now
I purchased the Archos120 through Amazon.com several months ago. I use it a bit as an MP3 player on long plane rides, but I use it primarily to capture and store the images on my camera's Compact Flash card. On a recent 2 month trip to Peru, the Archos performed well through exceptionally humid and dusty conditions. I used it daily to retrieve the images from my camera, and never experienced any of the problems I've read about in other reviews. Perhaps I got an especially good one, or perhaps Archos smoothed out some earlier manufacturing problems or software bugs. I also take very good care of my toys. I carry the Archos in my camera bag when it is not in use, and I have thus far avoided dropping it.There is criticism in these reviews of the navigation buttons, and while they are unlabelled, the system is fairly intuitive once you read through the manual once. The buttons are just hard enough to push so that you will likely not push them accidentally.
I don't know if the battery will do a full 10 hours, as I have not tested it to that duration. However, it performed admirably for the entire 5 1/2 hour flight from Miami to Lima, and the 2 hour flight from DC to Miami before that. The battery still showed one bar of charge, and the volume was still respectable. Frankly, I'll grow tired of wearing earphones before the battery wears out. I did, however, purchase a different style of earplug, as the ones provided didn't really suit me personally.
I will try to clear up some confusion that conflicting information on this site vs. the Archos site caused me. The software that drives the Compact Flash unit in the 120, and likewise the software for the microphone does not come loaded in the unit at the point of purchase. Instead, I had to enter a secret number (found on and in your Archos) on the Archos website to download a small patch. Download and installation took me about 3 minutes, and the unit was ready to go after that.
I have recommended this unit to several friends. No complaints from them either.
Read Best Reviews of G Mini 120 20 GB MP3 Player & Recorder Here
Hello all,I gave the Gmini 5 stars because I really think it deserves more than the 3 it has cumulated so far; in truth, it deserves 4. Additionnally, I find the comment given by Aron Pilhofer (below) to be quite correct. The device has flaws, but it does eveything it says, as advertised...mostly.
Usage
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Before I left for India, I filled the 20 gigs with MP3s. Whenever I needed to dump my photos (from a Canon S45) on it, I would first delete music files to make room for the pics, create a new subdirectory, insert the flash card and press one button. It worked every time, although once I got a corrupted movie file (probably due to my cheap Transcend 256MB flash card). When CD burners were available in web cafes, I would make the occasionnal backup. The device was always correctly detected by win2K and XP, but almost never by Win98 (to my surprise, I din't come accross any Linux stations not in India, Thailand or Nepal).
Playing music was flawless and straightforward. I never much used my FM remote, but it worked fine (yes, there is a hiss when the remote's LCD is lit, but this only lasts a few seconds).
Battery
-------
For most of my usage, the battery life was quite adequate (I'd say 6 or 7 hours). 95% of the guest houses (hotels) I went to had electrical outlets, so I had no problems keeping the battery full. A (good) friend of mine even helped me build a custom battery pack for it (which generated unsollicited interest when crossing borders :), but I only used it once or twice, namely for the 12 hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong.
Sound
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For my ears (+ the Sony earbuds I used), the sound quality was more than adequate. The guy I travelled with for a bit had miniature portable speakers that we plugged into the Archos. That worked OK, but get some with internal amplification if you can.
Problems
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I had read about "significant" delays when selecting or browsing tracks; there are delays here and there, but nothing that bothered me at all, not even after 5 months of regular use. Here are a few problems that I did notice:
-Bad buttons-
As mentionned in many reviews I had read, the buttons are a problem. Sometime's you'll press the "down" button, and the device will register it as a "menu" button press. I really wonder how this can be. While it is a bit annoying when it occurs, it does not prevent the device from working correctly (and will not lead you to do something tragic like deleting all your files).
-System hangs-
There is also the possibility of system hangs or freezes. This has happened to me once or twice, but I was able to get out of it. If I recall, the device froze on me because I tried to pull out some attached cable without letting the device finish its work, or something like that. I simply replugged the cable, pressed a few buttons and eventually, the Gmini was able to fall back on its feet.
-Free space-
This is not a big thing, but it did give me a few headaches. If you delete files from the Gmini120 through Windows (while USB connected), the free space will later not be accounted for or recognized by the Gmini OS (e.g., you got 15GB of data on it (5GB free), you plug in the USB cable, it appears as a new mass storage device in Windows, from there, you delete 5 gigs of data, you unplug the device, from the Archos interface, you go to the system menu and you will find only 5GB free). Just make sure you always delete files from the Archos interface, not from Windows. The one time this happenned to me, I solved the problem by filling a dummy directory with garbage data from Windows, and then deleting it from the Archos interface.
Recording
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I sold my Sony Minidisc just before I got the Archos. It was a really neat device, perfect for recording and playing, light, small, rugged + very long battery life (on a single AA!!!). However, Sony disallows uploading music to the PC (something I only found out after buying it ;( -make sure you know what you're getting into before purchasing an MD); AFAIC, this is a big limitation. So I got the Archos instead, which records quite nicely to *standard* formats with a quality that is quite sufficient for my average user needs.
The future
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Ha! I think my next "ideal travel" mate will be something like the Flipstart (www.flipstartpc.com). There's a bunch of similar devices listed at www.handtops.com. Really exciting stuff can't wait for availability and for prices to go down (wayyyy down). The Sony U50/U70 is almost perfect for my needs, but too too expensive there's also the Yopy (www.yopy.com).
Gmini 220
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I don't know about the 220, but everything about it seems better than the 120. I would definitely look into it. Check out DPReview's "storage and media forum" (forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1023) and the Archos GMini Yahoo group (groups.yahoo.com/group/ArchosGmini/) for more info. Even with the new iPod pricing (299$ for a 20GB), I still think the Archos is a better choice. Too bad the 120 is no longer available.
So there, that's my review. Figured I'd give a little something back to the community. Here's a link to my photos of India and Nepal, for anyone who might be interested (sorry, the comment are in French): www2.jenfil.com:443/gallery/inde. Note: I'm Canadian, not French I got the Archos because it was my best choice, not out of patriotism. :)
Adiosssssssssssss
jpv
Want G Mini 120 20 GB MP3 Player & Recorder Discount?
You know, some of the criticism here is warranted. But a lot isn't. I honestly don't know how you can blame Archos if you don't bother to actually read up on the product?No, it does not come with a photo wallet or flash card reader. That is on the order of $50 extra (quite reasonable in my opinion). And I don't know how anyone could say the Gmini is anything but a huge upgrade from the Studio20. My goodness, for USB 2.0 alone it's worth it.
My experience: I have had mine for about three months now. I use it every day, and I have yet to experience a single problem with it.
The good --
1) The navigation functions/layout are 10000 percent better than the Studio models. The larger screen, navigation buttons all make it much, much easier to find the files/music/whatever you are looking for. You can very easily navigate around your machine, rename, move and delete files without having to be connected to a computer.
2) Battery life is good to great compared to similar units. I get 6-7 hours minimum, which is pretty darn good. That's what my pal gets from his iPod, so I'm pretty happy with that. Archos implies an "up to" 10 hour battery life, which I think is pretty inflated.
3) The Music Match software works quite well with the unit, though if you don't have USB 2.0, you will end up dragging and dropping files the old fashioned way. For some reason, it takes Music Match four or five times longer to move files to the Archos when you use the built-in function to do that.
4) The fact that you can mount it on any system without installing a driver is huge. I can bring it to work, and mount it on my local machine without having to get the IT staff to add drivers to my 'puter. I use it to move large files from home to work and back, and in that capacity it works just great.
5) Unlike just about anything else on the market, the archos is expandable. I have not purchased any of the add-ons, but it is nice to be able to add functionality like that on an as-needed basis.
6) Cost. The Gmini is still less than $250, which is just a little more than the Studio 20. Dirt cheap comparatively. My friend spent $300-plus on a used iPod, which doesn't have as much space or any of the features my Gmini does.
The Bad -
1) Unlike other Archos models, the Gmini has built-in music library software that (in theory) allows you to select and play songs, artists or albums without creating playlists. Unfortunately, it relies on Music Match to build the library database. So, if you don't use Music Match to move you MP3 collection to your Archos, you basically cannot use the library function.
2) This may be an issue just with my person unit, but the "up" navigation button is not as responsive as the others. It's not a huge issue, but I thought it might be worth mentioning in case others have problems.
The bottom line is this: The Gmini is a more-than-adequate alternative to an iPod, especially if you want it to do more than play music. For my personal needs, it's great to be able to cart around my photos, data, files, music, etc. on a pocket-sized machine I can whip out and mount on any computer I come across. I couldn't be happier.
i had the original archos jukebox 2 years ago. i went to the ipod because of the craze that it would be the best mp3 player hands down. well, im back to archos. if youre thinking about getting an ipod, understand that A, it seperates music by id3 tags, and B, the battery dies in a year and it is $100 to replace! the gmini 220 seperates songs by folder much like using windows explorer. if you dont want to deal with the hassle of making sure all your mp3 id3 tags are correct so the ipod will read them then get the archos.
this unit is really easy to use. it takes a little getting used to, but so do all of these mp3 players. a couples of the features that are really cool and good to have. 1. the CF card reader. not only is it really neat, but you can use that to transfer music to or from the player (in small quantities) if you find yourself without your usb cable. you can also use it to store pictures from a camera or other digital devices. 2. the internal microphone and line in recording. FINALLY! i can make tapes into mp3s and even radio shows i like. all you have to do is use the supplied cables to record from a device, or you can even use the mic which i found to be pretty good quality. the display is very nice. i was worried it would be difficult to operate the device with one hand, but it is pretty easy.
ok, so why 4 stars instead of 5? well, the battery doesnt appear to be as long as they said it is. they list 10 hours, but i think it is probably close to 8. this isnt THAT big of a deal, and any other mp3 player most likely will give you the same thing. also, the unit did freeze up a few times. this has happened with all the mp3 players i have had (3). i dont think they will ever make mp3 players perfect, but this one is the best i have used so far. i would recommend it over the ipod.
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