Good bang for the buck!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Small, huge capacity, great sound!

Cons: No bells and whistles.

The Bottom Line: 
This MP3 players does exactly what it is supposed to do, play music.

Author's Review
The Archos Gmini XS 202 seems to have been designed with a simple goal in mind; to make a tiny MP3 jukebox with excellent sound and at an affordable price.

The device itself is very small for a 20 GB player. Archos claims that it is the worlds smallest and they may be right. In fact at 2.9” x 2.3” x 0.7” and 4.2 oz its size is comparable to a Creative Zen Micro. The Zen has a few more bells and whistles but the Archos has four times the capacity of the 5 GB Micro for about the same price (use a price bot like Pricegrabber to get the best price).

You may wonder how Archos was able to achieve such a price. Apparently they did it by eliminating a lot of fluff and sticking to making a good MP3 player. Don’t’ expect a color display, voice recorder, FM radio, sleep timer or other add ons. The 202 only does one thing, play music and it does that well.

The player comes in an attractive little box along with its accessories. Here again, Archos has gone with the minimalist approach. You get a player with battery (factory replaceable), ear buds a standard USB 2.0 cable, a start-up cheat sheet and a nifty small charger. There isn’t even an install CD, although the player has a manual and some additional files on the player’s hard drive including copies of Windows Media Players 9 and 10 and some files to make the player iTunes compatible for Mac users. The Gmini isn’t AAC (iTunes) compatible for Windows users. It does work well with other on-line services.

The great thing about this player is that unlike most jukebox type players, this one is immediately recognized as an external hard drive by your computer making it as easy as drag and drop to transfer your music files. Most other disk drive players require that you load drivers and use special transfer software to move files around. Naturally, you can also use the Archos as a tiny 20 GB hard drive for data files.

Style:
Well, the Gmini isn’t cool and sexy like an iPod. It has more of a functional look about it. Although not stylish, it isn’t ugly.

Play for Sure:
This is a protocol developed by Windows for their WMA files. Play For Sure allows for DRM or Digital Rights Management to be incorporated into your WMA files giving them copy protection. This type of scheme is used to copy protect music that you purchase on-line. Subscription services (where you rent the music for a monthly fee) require that a player be Play for Sure compatible. In addition, libraries are now offering audio books using this technology which allows you to check out an audio book at home. After your loan period is up the book will no longer play. Many devices, including all iPods are NOT Play for Sure compatible (see www.playforsure.com). Some, like the Zen Micro and the Dell DJ require that you upgrade your firmware on the player before it becomes a Play for Sure Device. This firmware upgrade can be a bit tricky (it isn’t nearly as easy as upgrading the firmware on CD Recorder). When you upgrade on these devices you lose a bit of your hard drive space. The Zen Micro also says that the upgrade makes the device only compatible with Windows XP /Media Player 10. None of these problems exist with the Gemini as it is compatible right out of the box.

Making MP3s and transferring files:
Since the Gmini doesn’t come with any software you have to rely on 3 rd party software to convert your CDs into MP3s or WMA files. This isn’t much of a problem as many programs exists, including free ones. Windows Media Player (WMP) does a good job and ships with the OS. Windows Media Player 9.0 will convert WMA files and for about $10 you can buy a plug-in that will also give you MP3 capability. Windows Media Player 10 does both WMA files and MP3 out of the box. Naturally, if you already have software from an older player, you can use that too. One drawback when using WMP is their song data base. When you rip your CD, Windows looks online to a data base so it can automatically insert information, like the song title. Unfortunately the data base that Media Player uses isn’t that good and (at least with my CDs) often couldn’t find the songs and sometimes listed them incorrectly. This would be less of a problem with current, popular CDs.

Getting the music on the player is a snap; all you need to do is drag the music from your hard drive to the music folder on the Gmini (using Windows Explorer). You can also use Windows Media Player to do this automatically, but I found this process confusing and frustrating. WMP is very sophisticated and it will automatically move your files to your player. For me this is a problem as it takes away a level of control that I want. When I would use media player it would not only transfer the music but other audio files that I didn’t want it to transfer. Windows Media Player does offer some controls, but I found these confusing too. Perhaps I’m getting old, but I really don’t want to figure out what a “fresh” file is. I’m very happy using regular words like new. Once, in an effort to limit what was going into the player I adjusted the parameters. That time WMP transferred only the files that I wanted, but then it removed all of the other files on the player! The bottom line is that unless you are very techy or young, stick to manual file transfer. BTW, you can use WMP to manually transfer files too and this option should be used when you transfer DRM protected media as using drag and drop in Explorer won’t work with these files. Here again, Microsoft didn’t follow Windows conventions. To transfer a file or album you need to right click on it and select “add to play list.” You can’t drag files to the player and the files don’t highlight in any way so you have to remember which ones you already transferred. I use the very simple Windows Explorer method for most files and the manual option on Windows Media Player for DRM files. Using this method makes file transfer an easy operation.

Using the Gmini:
The player is very small and light weight so you barely know that you that you are carrying it. It square shape is easy to hold, but not as comfortable as the curvy and rectangular Zen.

The Gmini uses 3 simple controls. Two buttons and a joy stick. Most functions are easily accomplished with this system. The buttons feel a little spongy (durability?) but my biggest grip is the short, smooth joy stick. Rubberizing the stick and giving it tactile clicks would help a lot as my fingers tend to slip off of its shiny surface. The display is large and clear. You can easily see the type even with the backlight off. The large display offers a lot of useful information. For instance it shows not only the current song, but also the next song. Time of day is also listed, something strangely absent on a lot of other players. Adjust volume, pausing or moving to the next song is an easy click of the joystick.

The Gmini allows the usual selections; song, artist, genre. It will also let you sort by year…I’m guessing the year the album was pressed. The Gmini allows you create play list on the device itself. I think that this process is overly cumbersome, but it does work. One hint: to get the play list to show up on your player you have to run the players locating program called ARClibrary. This takes about a minute (depending on how many files you have stored). You can’t form a play list on the computer like you can with an iPod. With that said, the iPod can’t form a play list directly on the player.

You also have basic functions like a basic 5 position equalizer and the ability to play your entire collection, shuffle or repeat play. Fancier options like playing favorite music or music rating are not available.

It is very easy to upgrade the firmware on the player. You simply drag the new firmware file to the player, reboot the player and follow some simple on-screen instructions.

Listening to music:
The supplied headphones are OK, but you will probably want to upgrade. If you are serious about your music a nice pair of Grados would do you well. When you upgrade to good headphones the sound is excellent and full. I already had a lot of music that was highly compressed at 64 kbsec in WMA format. It sounded rich and full on the Gmini. When I plugged the player into my Fostex PMO.5 near field monitors the sound was really great. I think you can be assured that the sonic quality of the Gmini is great.

Battery life also seems excellent. I have used the Gmini all day at high volume and it has continued to work. However, I haven’t done a formal battery test.

Gym rats may miss the FM radio function (as many gyms simulcast TV audio on closed circuit FM micro transmitters). Those folks might do better with a flash player like the Zen Nano Plus.

Bottom line:
The Gmini offers great sound, tiny size, good battery life and a cheap price. What you don’t get are extras like an FM radio, color display or a sleep timer. Most people buy an MP3 player to listen to music, not check their Outlook contacts. If you fit into the former category then the Gmini 202 is for you.