Archos XS-202 Review

Author's Rating:

Pros: Light weight, compact, good sized hard disc, long battery life, playlist on-the-go, NO SOFTWARE REQUIRED

Cons: No case included, 'Browser' a bit finicky

The Bottom Line: 
This unit is light, compact, doesn't require software, can configure playlists on-the-go, and is a dream to use for anyone. I highly recommend it.

Author's Review
About 3 months ago I finally gave in to the urge to buy an MP3 player, and set about researching what was available given my criteria.

I should say here that I don’t like the MP3 format – it is too lossy for me; i.e., the audio data that is lost in compressing CD files to MP3 format bothers me – but I didn’t want to cart around a bunch of minidisks for my (then) upcoming jaunt to the U.K., and the idea of putting a lot of music on a portable media device appealed greatly to me.

Because I don’t like the sound of MP3 files, I had initially looked at the Sony NW- HD1/2/3 range of hard drive based portable media players because I have an old Sony MiniDisc player that uses Sony’s proprietary ATRAC compression, and I really like that system: to my ears it seems to do a much better job of compressing files than the MP3 format. (Also, the Sony’s finally started to use the MP3 format, too, so they’re pretty versatile).

For several reasons, I chose to not go with the Sony range (the latest model was not available in Canada at that time; there seemed to be some hardware problems; and I wasn’t prepared to take the chance of importing one, and having something go wrong).

As anyone who is familiar with the Sony range, and with the Archos Gmini XS-200 and the XS-202, will know, these players are extremely small and light, and weight was my primary consideration. (By the way, The XS-202 is the updated version of the XS-200, and incorporates several additional features and improvements which make buying the XS-200 a bad idea. The most notable of these improvements is that the XS-202 has a much longer battery life).

Here is the full list of my criteria as it existed when I first began looking for an MP3 recorder/player:

LIGHT WEIGHT – this was my prime criterion, even over sound quality, because I knew that I wasn’t prepared to lug something as big and heavy as the iPods around. I decided that 140 grams (just over 4.2 oz.) would be the heaviest that I’d tolerate.

Large storage space - ergo a hard drive/disc based unit, rather than a flash based one. Even though I’m suspicious of hard drive based units in terms of their vulnerability and robustness, I have a 500 CD collection which means looking for a large, hard drive based MP3/storage device

Good sound quality. I’m very picky about this, but given that we’re talking about MP3 here – a lossy audio format – we’re already sacrificing sound quality. Also, when one has headphones on, and is out in the world, extraneous sounds are bound to intrude, so one is never going to be able to hear sound in the way that one can in a home environment. In short, I sacrificed the idea of perfect sound quality.

Built-in voice recorder. I find the voicenotes feature on my cell ‘phone to be very useful, and I also still write the occasional song, so having a way of recording these kinds of ideas really appealed to me.

No photo or video viewing or recording capabilities. I was not at all interested in either of these things for two reasons. First, they would add a huge amount of weight to the unit. Second, I want my portable storage device to be capable of playing music, and storing computer files, and that is all.

The ability to configure playlists AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER, i.e., to set playlists on the unit itself. The iPods apparently have this feature.

Separate, remote control, AND controls on the device itself for occasions when using the remote would be too cumbersome, or as a back-up if the remote broken.


WHY I BOUGHT THE ARCHOS GMINI XS-202 AND WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT
I didn’t find any devices that fitted all of my criteria, so I compromised on a few things, and initially ordered a unit via Ebay, but got ripped off and eventually received an almost full refund after going through the Ebay and PayPal refund process.

I then ordered the unit from a company here in Canada, whom I have been very impressed with.

Although the XS-202 does not have a built-in voice recorder, or a separate remote, it pretty much satisfies all my other criteria, and then some.

WEIGHT
I have been knocked-out by how light the unit feels (120 grams – 4.2 oz) – I wasn’t really expecting to be able to put it in my shirt pocket without feeling like something was weighing me down, but I recently spent a good deal of my 5 week vacation to the U.K. walking around with the unit and not noticing its weight at all.

My trip was also a test of the unit’s robustness, and it came through with flying colours on that score, despite me knocking it off the top of a computer once on to a hard floor.

I also took along a line out cable/lead so that I could plug the XS-202 in to friends’ amplifiers and boom boxes. People were very impressed with the storage capacity and the sound of the unit, and it was wonderful to have access to my music while I was there.

BATTERY LIFE
Although I haven’t actually tested this precisely, I only had to charge the unit 3 or 4 times; I simply forgot about this because battery life was not an issue, which is fantastic.

PACKAGING
I applaud Archos’s minimal approach to packaging, although I also have a small gripe about this (see the ‘What I Don’t Like’ section below). The unit comes seated in a recessed plastic tray in a small cardboard box which is about the size of three paperback books. There is no Styrofoam, bubble wrap or other extraneous pieces of cardboard to bloat the size of the package. There is a brief set of instructions to get one up and running, but the main manual is on the hard drive itself (it is also available for download from the Archos website – I had downloaded this a few weeks before I got the unit). The packaging is very economical, and eco-friendly, which I like.

ERGONOMICS
I very much like Archos’s use of a joy stick for navigation, although it can be a bit finicky at times, if you’re scrolling fast you can accidentally skip past the choice that you want, but then you just go back. No doubt, fans of other methods of navigation will have something to say about this, but I like it very much. The screen, also, is pretty good, although some might find its monochromatic blue a bit dull. The LCD is highly visible in daylight, too, so that is not a problem.

FUNCTIONALITY
I’ve never really had a glitch with this unit. At first, I thought that it was ‘hanging’ a couple of times, i.e., the unit was stuck in the on mode without any of the functions working. However, I had not read about holding down the shutdown button, which worked a treat on those occasions when the unit did hang.

PLAYLISTS
I do think that the ability to set-up playlists on the unit is a brilliant one, and I like that the way that this is done is that the unit puts a link to the songs that already are contained in other folders/albums. This method avoids unnecessary duplication of songs, and thereby saves space.

However, I would also like the ability to edit the playlist in Windows Explorer because it is physically easier to see and rearrange the titles of the songs on a computer rather than on the gmini. I ran into this problem today when I created a playlist that was 120 songs long, and couldn’t edit it on the computer because the playlist itself is just an m3u file – the naming file for an mp3.

My attempted solution to this was to create a folder in Windows Explorer into which I planned to copy and paste existing MP3’s (unfortunately wasting space); I ran into problems with this, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere.

SOFTWARE
The great news is that there is none! No software. The unit is fully compatible with Windows and Mac (for MP3 use – see my comments under ‘What I Don’t Like’ related to potential problems displaying word processing files from PC’s on a Mac).

TRANSFERRING FILES – USB PORTS
Dragging and dropping, cutting and pasting and renaming couldn’t be simpler or work better, barring one potential problem that I mention in the ‘What I Don’t Like’ section below.

My Dell laptop only has a USB 1.0 port, as opposed to the 2.0 of the XS-202, but music still transfers well. I uploaded all of my files to a friend’s computer (Pentium 3) while I was in the U.K., and it took a couple of hours, but worked like a dream. When transferring files to and from the unit, one should plug in the AC, as this type of operation is very battery intensive and drains the battery quickly.

SOUND QUALITY
I’m new to the world of MP3, so haven’t had much of a chance to compare the Archos with other units. I will say that I heard an iPod through a different amplification system than the Archos, and then plugged in the Archos to the same system, and was a little disappointed. This may have been because the iPod seemed to have a more powerful preamp, which helped the sound to be fuller in some ways.

On the whole, though, I have been very impressed with the sound quality, given the limitations of MP3. I have been ripping and encoding at an average of 192 Kbps – if the Gmini had a larger hard disc, I would increase this to 320 Kbps because that quality is good for me, and I would suggest that people record at this bitrate if they have a smaller CD collection to record than I have.

WHAT I DON’T LIKE
I just want to emphasize that the things that I mention in this section are very, very, minor gripes, not even problems really, and do not in any way affect my wholehearted recommendation that everyone runs out and buys an XS-202.

Although it’s not a huge problem for me, there is an audible click sometimes when initiating play for the first time. I presume that this is because the hard drive is starting up after having been dormant for a while. I also have not yet mastered the art of gapless recording on the unit, and to be honest, don’t know if it can be done.

The screen has become somewhat scratched unfortunately, and the XS-202 seems prone to that.

The use of the ‘Browser’ to move, copy, delete files is a bit tricky. The instruction manual isn’t all that clear on this, and one has to fool around to get the exact sequence of things right. For example, moving a file down a playlist is not that easy – you think that you’re moving it, you click the joystick to put it down in its new position, and then realize that the joystick isn’t the right tool to use for this final operation (it is in almost all other cases, so this is a bit frustrating).

In addition to MP3’s, I had transferred some MSWord and WordPerfect files to the unit. When I plugged the Gmini in to my cousin’s Mac, the folder containing these files was invisible, despite him having a conversion utility from Mac to PC, which we have successfully used before. I don’t know whether this is a function of the Mac not recognizing the PC, or a shortcoming in the XS-202.

I mention the possibility of a shortcoming with the Gmini itself because of a problem that has recently occurred, and which I have written to Archos about. Specifically, I have experienced a problem with a folder that I created in Windows Explorer only being visible in one part of the Archos’s file structure (not the ‘Music’ section which I pasted it into).

In ripping and encoding 7 GB’s of MP3’s before I went on my vacation, I became proficient at transferring MP3’s to the Archos, and this sometimes involved creating or renaming folders. I never had a problem with this previously, and would be interested to hear if others have experienced this. (For those who already have the player, the folder that I talked about above appears in the ‘Browser’, but not under ‘Music’, and yes, I have made sure that the Arc Library updates after I transfer this folder. To make things even more confusing, the folder is displaying in the ‘Music’ section of the XS-202 when I view it via Windows Explorer).

Small hard drive. As I mentioned above, I have quite a large CD collection, and will not be able to record the whole thing on to the XS-202 because of the relatively small hard drive (20 GB). If a 60 GB unit comes out, I would purchase it in a second, and have suggested to Archos that they incorporate a hard drive of that size into the same chassis that the XS-202 has.

I thought that it was a bit chintzy of Archos to not supply a case with the XS-202, so I ordered a case for the XS-202 from Newmp3technology.com, but had to return the item because the screw that was meant to attach the case to the belt clip did not fit into the thread on the case. I was a bit miffed that I did not receive a full refund for this, and will not be buying anything from newmp3technology.com again for this reason. I subsequently found a good case in an electronics store which does me just fine.

Even though I loved the minimal approach to packaging, the fact that the unit itself sits in its recessed hole in the plastic tray at the top of the box, i.e. just under a thin cardboard cover, unnecessarily exposes the unit to potential damage. If Archos would just swap the items that are under the tray so that they sit on top of the tray, the XS-202 would be better protected.

Finally, I have to say that I’m really, really, REALLY pleased with the XS-202.

UPDATE-January 2006. I have now dropped the unit 3 times, the last time on to a hard wood floor from above waist height.

The Archos's display was initially fine after this, and then became prone to occasional glitches (partial display, locking up) for a week or so. Subsequently, the unit's blue back light began to flicker, and eventually died totally. However, the LCD display is fine and the unit appears to have stabilized itself - if that is possible - and it is working perfectly.

While it is a shame that the backlight no longer works, it is a minor inconvenience, as the display is still readable in daylight (although not at night, now), and I am still very, very pleased with the unit.

END OF January 2006 Update.

DECEMBER 2006 UPDATE
The Gmini XS 202 is still going strong - both as an MP3 player and a hard drive, and I still love it. The only complaint that I have is that I have now used the full 20GB, and would like to buy the same unit with a bigger hard drive, but Archos does not sell a version of the model with a bigger hard drive.
END OF DECEMBER 2006 UPDATE