The Thinking Person's MP3 Player

Author's Rating:

Pros: Smallest 20GB player, no software required: mass storage/drag and drop, huge screen/unit ratio.

Cons: Ignorant/apathetic tech support, bad firmware update documentation, firmware not regressable. Joystick is awkward.

The Bottom Line: 
Best music player for someone who wants the smallest size with largest storage, and smallest size for largest screen and battery life. Shows up as mass-storage device!!! Great navigation.

Author's Review
I think the Archos Gmini XS202S has been one of the best purchases I've made in my life (providing it proves durable, of course--I've had it over a year and no major problems so far, with quite heavy use). Is it a perfect player? No, there is no such thing. But it's because I USE it so much that makes it an important addition. Judge your next MP3 player not by what is "the best", but by what you'll USE THE MOST.

Most of the "limitations" of this player make it the great player it is. The monochrome screen saves battery life while still allowing a large screen (almost as large as an iPod). The lack of audio recording, radio tuning, and multimedia capability allow for its diminuitive size. You'll hear others say this player does one thing, and does that very well: play music. And that's true.

The sound is flawless, the unit is silent (amazingly so). This is the smallest 20GB player, and the screen size ratio is huge. Navigation/interface is simple. Drag And Drop works (no software necessary--a must for me). Battery life is long. (Replacement batteries are available but looks like soldering and unit disassembly are necessary.) I can delete, rename, move, and copy files (not just music) internally WITHOUT a computer. Device is pretty stable. "Real" shuffle mode (truly random). This is the thinking man's MP3 player.

Quick downsides: buttons would be desirable over joystick; this is the unit's biggest flaw, allowing easy (often too easy) pausing, and awkward finger movements to push the joystick left/right to skip/search a track. I plan on getting some skateboard tape or gluing a piece of sandpaper to the joystick nub, to prevent my finger from slipping off, and make one-handed operation easier. Shuffle Folder mode currently cannot include subfolders. So basically, you can't keep your audio books separate from your music if you want to just shuffle all music, but not audio books. These being the biggest downsides in my opinion, now take a look at downsides of other players.

OVERALL: This is a very well-designed player, with the look and feel on an expensive audio device. Something like this would have been unimaginable or at least prohibitively expensive a few years ago. This is the "thinking man's player"--one which allows you to ride hardtail or softail (i.e. use drag & drop to upload files [a rare feature and something I insiste on], or 'sync' software like Windows Media Player/iTunes), and have the control and unintrusiveness you want. One which lets you be a big boy and says you're responsible enough to make your own decisions. This is the parent who lets their responsible child go where they want, as opposed to the iParent which chaperones its kid to every party, standing in the corner watching. You can get handholding if you want, through Windows Media Player "synchronization", as well as iTunes functionality (MP3, not AAC), but most people who get this player want to drag-and-drop files from windows directly onto the player, and play files directly from their folders. This review was written after extensive use of the XS202s.



ARCHOS XS202S suggestions:
Please note: I haven't loaded the latest firmware, where the company only cryptically states "reworked music player interface", but doesn't let you go back, so some of these issues may be addressed currently.

"PLAY FOLDER" settings should have "INCLUDE SUBFOLDERS" option to be able to keep Audio Books separate from Music during Shuffle, and enable playing/shuffling of multi-disk albums.

Ability to turn "sound effect" OFF, without using up a flat/default user preset?

Add an "always off" backlight setting (there is currently an "always on" setting but no "always off").

Ability to navigate 'up' by going 'down' (coming out other side), etc. This capability is there with music scrolling but NOT menu scrolling. Navigating off the screen should end up on the other side of the screen. Currently, menu items just stop moving. Due to awkward button design, it is awkward to press certain directions more than others. The ability to 'go east by going west' should extend to the lateral menu items like the "Repeat & Shuffle" option in the Playback menu.

Ability to program Left & Right buttons to specific functions, specifically "Fast Forward" and "Rewind" preserving their Original functions via double-click. Browsing files, the Left button should act as a "Back" button, while double-clicking it should do its current function ("escape").





PHYSICAL IMPRESSIONS:
The device is heavy for its size. I'm not sure if the front and back covers are metal or plastic, but there is definitely a metal chassis. I'm not saying the heaviness is a plus, just that it's obvious they crammed a lot of stuff in there.

The biggest way Archos messed up in the physical design of this unit was the bizarre choice of going with a joystick. With the XS202S, the joystick appears to stick out 2.5mm further than it used to (the amount the "Slim" version was slimmed by), possibly exacerbating the mild problem. It is difficult to use one-handed--most importantly, while driving. I think a joypad of buttons would have been easier to use one-handed and blind, because the joystick is easy to depress in the wrong direction. The XS202(s) is prone to being accidentally paused as the joypad is pressed down while playing. Buttons would be more durable too, as a stalk wouldn't be conspicuously sticking out of the product. This is my biggest long-term concern of the unit. The upside of the stalk being easily pressed-down is that you can discreetly pause the device when it is hiding inside your pocket. Unfortunately, I accidentally pause it more than intentionally covertly pausing. If the other unique benefits of the XS202S are still important to you, still look hard at this device.

The buttons kind of float around a little bit on their springs, but it doesn't bother me.


NAVIGATION:
Software navigation design is extremely good: easy to understand, fast, and intuitive. Few features, if any, are more important on a music player. In fact, it's so easy that you don't need to look at the manual. The quick-start guide (the only printed instruction) is quite sufficient and probably not necessary for most people. The full PDF manual is on the device's hard drive or downloadable from the Archos website.

Some minor suggestions regarding navigation are included elsewhere here. However, the most difficult part of navigation, as described above is dealing with the joystick stalk. You may have to "nudge" it, depending on your circumstance, such as trying to move the stalk when the player's protected in a plastic baggie, or if you're trying to use the stalk through a pocket or clothing. Having a joypad would also make it easier to use in a carrying case, or while jogging and exercising. This created more problems than I anticipated with the device, but I still don't think I would choose another device. There is no perfect music player. The Direct-Connect Hard Drive capability and direct Folder Playing capabilities outweigh this to me. I refuse to be tied to playlists and "sync" software (even so, this model does well with both.)

A great feature of this player is the ability to delete, copy, move, and even rename files on the player. The delete function is most useful, because it allows you to go through music you haven't heard yet, and cull the music you don't want. I have already used the copy and move functions for technical reasons. All these are very powerful, unique features.

In addition to the wonderful standard "Resume" feature (which choice the XS202s defaults to when booted), the XS202s features a Bookmark capability for marking a long file to return at a later time when Resume isn't enough. This allows you to bookmark, say, a book on tape, then listen to some music, and come back to the book on tape chapter and pick up where you left off. When you browse files, a file with a bookmark tag will have a different icon next to it to help you find the file. When you play an already-bookmarked file, the device asks you if you want to resume, start from the beginning, or clear the bookmark tag. It's very easy to use.

Strangely enough, despite the great, simple Resume and Bookmark features, if the device shuts down ungracefully (i.e. freezes), it won't remember where you were, and will Resume at the last graceful shutdown location. However, if the device runs out of batteries, it will do a graceful shutdown automatically before it kicks off and remember the location.


SCREEN/DISPLAY:
The screen displays a plethora of information--wonderful to a person like me. During song play, there is a progress bar, current song info, and upcoming song info. It simultaneously displays song count-up time, count-down, time, and song total time! That's great! It also displays a digital clock in the upper-right corner of the screen. I wish certain more-important info had larger fonts than less-important info, as there is space to do this, that's minor.

Early on, I carefully covered the screen (the whole unit, actually) with high-quality (3M) clear packing tape to avoid permanent scratches. Cheap and it works; simpler than buying those "screen protectors". Before this, I used the ziplock baggie the earbuds came in as an impromptu "carry case". Carry cases are not numerous for this model, and the awkward joystick interface aggravates this. So the packing tape solution works for me, and I just keep it in my wallet pocket (not my keys pocket). I recommend you do something to clothe your XS202s in some way, as the screen does seem to scratch easily. There is no included carry case (bummer), and I don't intend to buy one.

Here is the song information displayed while playing a file:
- ID3 artist, ID3 album name, ID3 song name
- file type (MP3, WAV, or WMA), bitrate, and sample rate
- Upcoming song (apparently by filename)
- Progress bar spanning the width of the display (nice feature)
- Time count up, time count down, and total song time!!! (way nice)

Here is the other information displayed at the top of the screen, mostly in iconic form, while the song is playing:
- Locked/Unlocked status (disables controls so you don't accidentally pause/skip, which, by the way, is easy to do/undo by holding down the power button for 1 second)
- Play/Pause status
- Play mode (All/Shuffle)
- Volume setting (0-99)
- Digital clock (yes!! And no need to go to a separate screen! This means you can take it on breaks and not have to take your cellphone to monitor your time, if you don't wear a watch.)


FILE TRANSFER SPEED:
By rough observation, the device transferred at about 4-6MB/sec. USB 1 peaks out at 1.1MB/sec. Not bad, but it still takes about 25-30 minutes to load 6-7 GB of files. So filling the device up can take over an hour and a half.


SOUND:
I directly A/B'd the XS202S to my Creative Sound Blaster Live Value sound card, using identical high quality MP3's created by myself (all EQ off, of course). Sound quality was indiscernible, except for that the XS202S has less or even no discernible self-noise. In standby/pause mode at least, the XS202S is shockingly silent--not just quiet. I was elated about this and didn't expect it. This should be talked-about more. If you A/B an MP3 player against a sound card, you need to match gain levels perfectly. If one is even slightly louder than the other, it will come across as having 'superior' sound, I found. My subject music was some complex Neil Young stuff from the Harvest album. Anyone complaining about inferior sound from the XS202S is an idiot, or has a defective unit (but probably an idiot). OR they're actually simply reviewing the included earbuds, which is NOT the same as judging the sound of the unit itself. The earbuds are typical of included earbuds, with the bonus that (mine, anyway) came with a volume control on them. The earbud volume control goes all the way down to zero. I find this extremely useful for listening to audio books and downloaded talk radio, adjusting volume as noise requires, easily pausing/unpausing by pressing down on the stalk through my pocket. I wouldn't use the included earbuds for music unless I had to. But I prefer for MP3 makers to include cheaper earphones, as this keeps cost down and I don't want anyone to choose earphones for me.

The player appears to come, by default, with the equalizer set to "Rock" preset. That must be because the headphones are so crappy in their bass response. I was disappointed to find that there is no way to turn the "Sound Effect" (which is what they call EQ) off. The manual seems to confirm by omission that there is no way to turn it off (!). The best I could seem to do was switch to the "Sound Effect" to the one "User" preset, by default set to flat (which is immediately what I did). I was surprised to see only one user-definable preset. Hm. If your gear (heaphones/speakers) is good, you probably won't need equalization anyway, because the of the player is so good. Still, I think there needs to be a way to turn "Sound Effect" off without chewing up a User preset. The single User setting is a 4-band EQ, modifiable in real-time while listening to music (which is another thing my old iRiver MP3-CD player couldn't do).

The volume I think will be sufficient for most people. Perceived unit volume has a lot to do with the actual headphones used. I think most people will find it gets plenty loud.


FIRMWARE:
Though customizable, there were surpringly few options compared to my old iRiver MP3-CD player. With my old iRiver, you could actually spend upwards of hours customizing. However, the XS202S works better, despite having less customizability. The best example would be Seek/Scan (FF/RW). The iRiver had programmable seek/scan speeds. The XS202S does not, however it is easier to rewind and fast-forward with the XS202S. That's because the XS202S fast forwards progressively faster as you continue--smoothly, not jumping from one speed to another, and there is a progress bar the width of the screen, with both file time count-up and count-down always simultaneously displayed (yes!). So if you're listening to an audio book or downloaded radio program, and you accidentally switch to another track, you can come back and scan back to the middle of a 40-minute audio file very quickly, and then fine-tune seek to find the exact spot you left off. Very impressive, powerful, and simple to use.
UPGRADES: A firmware upgrade was extremely easy and non-dramatic. But Archos's documentation of changes is pathetic. You can't state "completely reworked audio player interface" with no details as to what's changed, and then prevent people from reverting back to the old firmware.
STABILITY: With the old firmware, I experienced about 4 lockups in about a month's worth of heavy use. There's a feature which lets you hold down the 'Off' key for 15 seconds in case of a lockup, which has worked. I've had a couple instances where a certain feature (ff/rw or seeing non-music files, namely) stopped working until a restart. Overall, pretty stable, and nothing dramatic. I wanted to get the feel of the old firmware before upgrading. The new firmware should be even more stable.


TECH SUPPORT:
They actually have AMERICAN, toll-free, 24-hour phone tech support! There is a single person manning the third-shift position, apparently out of Chicago. Unfortunately, he's not very technically knowledgeable about the player, and his phone skills aren't the greatest either (he didn't say his name when he answered the phone and was rather distant). He didn't know which file the ArcLibrary was on the player, and didn't offer to find out (I had to ask him to email me back on this, and though he said he would, he NEVER DID). I had accidentally forgotten to disable the ArcLibrary auto-update, so it updated after I disconnected it from the computer, which I didn't want. Even though I disabled it in the firmware, I believed it was still might be enabling the device to find music files outside of its own "Music" folder, and in either case I wanted to erase the ArcLibrary file, but needed to know which file it was first (I could apparently reformat the device if I sufficiently screwed up the on-drive data). My other questions about wanting to keep my talk radio shows separate from my music in the "Shuffle" function were also answered with only the most obvious answers which weren't helpful, even to the point of me thinking that he didn't even listen to my question (in fact, I'm sure he didn't). Basically, the tech support guy wasn't significantly more helpful than the unhelpful "FAQ" type info on the website. At least I got an American and someone picked up the phone after a short hold time. Being in tech support myself, it maddens me to encounter an American tech lucky enough to not have his job offshored, acting almost as ignorant, distant, and unhelpful as a foreigner.


BATTERY:
Contrary to the manual's suggestion, I transferred the files on battery power (full charge). At the end of 18GB of transferring, the battery was only down one bar. The battery also takes only 3 hours to charge fully (update October 2008: li-ion battery is wearing out due to constant use, charges to 'full' and depletes faster, lasts just a few hours now; replacements are available online, but soldering is necessary). The battery is internal/integrated. I've seen the battery life rated up to 18 hours. I doubt that in normal use, and it all depends how you configure and use the device, but suffice it to say battery life is long, and you can extend it with good power-saving practices. Avoid draining any lithium ion battery completely if possible, and charge as frequently as possible. I noticed depleted capacity after just the first time running the battery down to the point where the device shut itself off.

I listen to a lot of books on tape/downloaded talk radio, and I listen at work throughout the day, and commuting. I leave it on through the day on pause, listening between calls, with frequent 'rewinding' of certain passages. So the device is on about 10-11 hours per day, with about 3 hours of that being actual play. I can do this for 2 days before having to charge the battery, with a little left over (retrospect: I would not do this again; this was abusive to the battery). If I had a settings to keep the screen off all the time (I usually 'rewind' passages through my pants pocket), it would last longer. I've concluded it's really the backlight which drains the player the most. The backlight seems to be an incandescent bulb, cheaper but far less efficient than white LED's which are common now in cellphone and digital camera displays.

Your mileage will really vary on your MP3 bitrates and other listening styles, but I've been very impressed with the battery life, and charge time. The monochrome (non-color) screen plays a big factor in such a small player being able to go for so long. I'm so glad this thing has a monochrome screen.



MISC:
There is a programmable auto-idle-shutoff when no music files are playing. But when the unit is in Pause mode, it will never auto-shutoff. I keep my player paused for hours sometimes, so this is convenient for me. I think there should be an auto-shutoff field for Pause mode, but I'm afraid if they added it, they'd remove the ability to leave it on indefinitely, so I won't suggest this to Archos. If you leave it on & paused overnight, a charged battery will be down significantly the next day. But in normal use, constant on/offing will probably result in more battery drain than leaving it paused. On/off reads/writes to the hard drive, while pausing doesn't.

Being a hard drive player, if the HD is idle and you press a key, it often requires the HD to spin-up, which can take a second. The most HD pause I've seen was several seconds. Once the HD is spun-up, reaction is almost instantaneous. You can program the HD to keep spinning longer (or permanently), but I don't recommend it and neither does Archos. As long as you're expecting it, the extra occasional second isn't a big deal and will occur in any hard-disk based player.

Too-bright LED's: of the 3 LED's on the unit, the "Power" stays lit the whole time the device is on. This attracts attention and is bright enough to annoy you, almost hurting your eyes in the dark. A smidgen of electrical tape solved this. It also bothers me a little that it creates a constant drain on the battery, even if small. There is no firmware option to disable it, but I'd like one.

The blue Indiglo-type display creates a soft but physically audible humming sound when it's on. The surprising and thing, however, is that this sound does not bleed electromagnetically into the earphones/output. Again, you can physically hear the display backlight when the device is physically near your ear, but it thankfully does not come through the headphones (see also the "Sound" section). So the audio output is very well electromagnetically shielded. I had a cellphone with a similar Indiglo-type display which whined in exactly the same way, but unfortunately for the cellphone (and unlike the Archos), the cellphone's display whine did bleed into the headset.

The hard drive in the device is nice and quiet. In fact, the above audible physical whining of the backlight is more annoying than any noise of the hard drive itself, and I hate hard drive noise. The actual spin noise of the HD is nearly inaudible, even next to the ear in normal ambient room noise. You can hear drive head access, but it's not obtrusive, and the head noise sounds like it's coming from a high-quality drive, not a cheap one (you get to know the sound of a quality hard drive over years of dealing with them).

The device stays pretty cool during use and does not get "hot" during file transfers. During my gigabytes' worth of uploading, it did get warmer, which is to be expected, but not hot, which was a bit of a pleasant surprise. This is another indication of a good hard drive. On the other hand, the back does get pretty warm when charging.

The three greatest risks to longevity in this device are the battery, the hard drive, and the joystick. The battery and hard drive, given enough time and use, will inevitably wear out. The joystick causes longevity concern mainly due to fear of breakage, sticking out from the rest of the device, waiting to be crushed.

The XS202s is literally a hard disk drive with an MP3 player on board. The 1.8-inch hard fits exactly the profile of the player, taking about half the thickness. This "Slim" model uses a thin 5mm, 1-platter hard disk drive with a ZIF connector. From my research, compatible 30GB HD models should be available at the same size. Incompatible 40 and 60GB models available at slightly thicker (being 2-platter, which could be compatible with the XS202 [not S], but I'm not sure). Samsung has announced a 60GB 5.0mm ZIF 1.8" drive (which uses perpendicular recording, allowing for a single platter), but I can't find any for sale yet. I'm not sure it's worth the cost & risk to upgrade to 30GB, but 60GB--now we're talking. Maybe Archos will release larger-capacity versions, but at the time of this writing, they haven't.

My "wish list" would include the ability to view non-music files as text files, with the ability to edit the content with the same interface as its cool onboard file renamer. You could make notes to yourself and include info about on onboard files. Such a feature could be added in a firmware, but "dream on"... other additions are more important so I won't distract Archos with this one. Also, I'd like to be able to set the backlight to come on when the device ends one track and begins another. This is so I can see what song is playing if I'm reviewing new music.

The Archos XS202s is the closest representation of my favorite software music player, 1by1 Directory Player, freeware by Martin Pesch at mpesch3.de . 1by1, like the XS202s, allows for simultaneous count-up/countdown time, but the XS202s goes one step further, also displaying total song time. Neither require playlists, but both will do them well, and both allow for you to essentially create playlists on the fly, or set the next song to be played while browsing. Both will play files in a folder and traverse directories.





WHEN YOU FIRST GET YOUR XS202s:
go through the entire settings carefully, first. Don't activate the ArcLibrary if you don't want it. See below.

DELETING THE ARCLIBRARY:
Through reading reviews, people love ArcLibrary, but I have no interest. I neglected to turn off the ArcLibrary auto-updater before loading my music, and after disconnecting, it spent a few minutes compiling an inventory of all my music, which idea I didn't like: a database of my music, taking up about 16 Megabytes (which I'd rather have to myself, thank you very much). Once it's on there, even if you turn the auto-updater off, ArcLib is still in there. I called Archos tech support asking which file(s) they were so I could safely delete them, and the 3rd-shift chump had absolutely no idea, and said that even if he did know, he wouldn't tell me. They don't want you to "screw up" your player, so they let me take the chance of me deleting things myself by educated guess. I safely removed 2 files which contained info on my songs, both located in the System folder of the XS202s: mtplib and NDX.AVX. mtplib is apparently the main ArcLibrary (mine was 16MB). NDX.AVX was only 273KB and contained all my album names. I first renamed them on the player to see if there would be any problems, then when no ill effect was noticed, deleted them (but not before backing up the entire System folder to my computer).

Other Setup settings I changed from default:
- Show All Files: ON
- USB Port: HARD DISK (vs Sync, I guess. Hard Disk may actually be the default)

UPDATING FIRMWARE:
I DID NOT immediately update the firmware. I wanted to get familiar with the original firmware so I'd see any improvements with the new one (I'm nerdy like that). Other than stability, possibly, I actually didn't see any difference, but there is a changelog available at archos.com. Mine came shipped with firmware 2.1.21, and firmware 2.1.44. Reading one forum, firmware 2.1.42 and 2.1.43 had obvious problems with the clock and sync'ing. These were resolved with 2.1.44, but the older 2.1.21 didn't have these problems and was stable too.





XS202s AS COMPARED TO THE CREATIVE ZEN VISION:M:
XS202s dimensions:
2.25" x 2.875" (2 7/8") x 0.6" tall (0.625" or 3/8-inch at widest point)
volume: 3.8 cubic inches
surface area: 6.47 square inches

Creative Zen Vision 30GB dimensions:
4.1 x 2.4 x 0.7 inches and weighs 5.7 ounces
volume: 6.9 cubic inches
surface area: 9.84 square inches

xs202s is exactly 66% of the surface area of Creative Zen 30GB.
xs202s is 55% of the volume of Creative Zen 30GB.


xs202 (not s) Dimensions:
Approx. 7.6 x 5.9 x 1.9 cm / 2.9" x 2.3" x 0.75”
xs202s (not size dif in inches--should be 1.6": Dimensions:Approx. 7.6 x 5.9 x 1.7 cm / 2.9" x 2.3" x 0.7"
Weight: Approx. 118 g (4.2oz)

The Zen Vision is, in person, obviously much larger than the XS202s, especially in length. Stricly in terms of volume, the XS202s is almost half the size of the Vision. Screen size, however, is only slightly larger on the Zen Vision. Yes, the Zen Vision will play video files, but if you're using this primarily for "pocket play", doesn't size matter? To me, it does greatly, and now that I'm no longer in high school riding a bus every day, sound is more important than vision. Which one would you use more: a small player you can take almost anywhere with you, or a larger player capable of video which you leave home most of the time?

Perhaps just as important in differences are the controls. The Zen Vision, in obvious response to iPod's infamously short-lived scroll pad buttons, has touch-sensitive buttons which CAN'T be controlled through fabric or gloves. Sure, the Vision:M has backlit buttons, but that's because you can't feel for them in the dark (or in your pocket). The Zen Vision does have 2 hardware/clicking buttons in the center, a "left" and "right", but it did not appear to me that those could be used to pause/unpause, or adjust volume--probably only to advance/retreat track number, and probably rewind/fast forward. THOSE would work through clothes (say your pants pocket). So while the controls of the Archos are not perfect, I at least CAN access all the functions through my pants pocket, discreetly and fairly conveniently (especially pause/unpause), without taking the device out of my pocket at every time. This is very convenient and discreet especially when people come up and talk to me. I normally wear only one earbud while listening to voice recordings, which gives people permission to talk to me, and also makes me look like not so much of a slacker. When someone talks to me, they don't even notice that I put my hand to my pocket and discreetly pushed the stalk to pause the track. I then push again to go back to listening. All the controls are at the front, mostly through the joystick.

Even if the XS202s didn't exist, I wouldn't be looking at the Zen Vision:M because, although it "can act as an external hard drive", this is not for music files, and you must enable and reserve space separately on the drive to do this! Add to this a bothersome "sync adaptor". With the XS202s, you just a the cable right into the player. (I sometimes take this convenient if short cable to work to download my talk programs there.) I still probably wouldn't buy the Vision:M due to its size, but the ability to play my digital camera's MotionJPEG movies is interesting to me. But for all those extra capabilities, you're simply going to pay a price in size. (Still, there's no USB host function, so I wouldn't be able to upload my movies to the player, nor would I expect it to have this function). The Zen Vision feels and looks solid and the buttons are obviously designed for longevity. Sill, it's designed to directly compete with the iPod, NOT be the smallest/best music player. I want the latter.


XS202S AS COMPARED TO THE RIO KARMA:
The Rio Karma, unfortunately no longer made, and Rio, the original big name in MP3 players and pioneer for MP3 freedom, is no longer in business. The Rio Karma was the most similar device ever to the XS202s. It was of similar size, had a 20GB hard drive, and even a similar joystick-style interface. The Karma's joystick was recessed, preventing accidental button hits. The most important difference in my book was that the Karma could not have its music files loaded via drag and drop. You had to use their sync software, which is always a dealbreaker for me; otherwise, I probably would've bought the Karma, as it was out long before, and was also easily available in America. I even saw it for sale at Target, at around two hundred bucks--not bad.

Aside from Rio forcing you to use sync software, the Karma's screen was smaller and more spartan. The device was also thicker. However, the Karma had some extremely interesting features, such as an Ethernet file transfer dock (!) in addition to USB 1 and 2. I understand you could in fact load software which would enable the Karma to show up in Windows Explorer/File Manager to load your songs from there, but there was no support for heirarchical folders, and the Karma's entire navigation operated on is onboard catalog, RMM (Rio Music Manager?), built by ID3 tags, similar to Archos's ArcLibrary. I guess if your files didn't have ID3 tags, you were up the creek. The Karma also had two audio outputs, two different physical ways to scroll through files. In addition to bookmarking (which the XS2xx series has), there was crossfading, and apparently had better random play options.

Perhaps most importantly, the Karma spoted OGG & FLAC support. I once had my whole CD collection encoded to OGG, an open-source copy-protection-free audio format slightly higher quality than MP3. I re-encoded it to MP3 because so few devices supported it, or supported it well. While the XS2xx series is ambidextrous, the Karma would let you flip the screen 180 degrees for ambidextrous use (it had side buttons). I was surprised that such a forward-thinking device as the Karma would still require sync software.



AVAILABILITY IN AMERICA:
If Epinions has no links (and they probably don't), try Google's "Froogle". MobilePlanet, who links through Froogle, is the only company I've found which reliably has them, and then it's only sometimes. Please note that MobilePlanet stated my unit was in stock before purchase, when it really wasn't, and then after my order the site page changed with several different messages of availability (ships in 3 days, usually ships in 9 days, etc). During this time I never received an email from MobilePlanet about any delay. When I did write to them after a number of days, I asked what was going on and if I could receive free shipping (8 bucks) as a token of goodwill for my unexpected hassle. Someone replied that the shipment was delayed (thanks for the news flash) and completely ignored my request for shipping cost refund, not even denying it. So yet a number of days foward, when the wait time for this "in stock" item was going on 2 weeks, I again emailed and asked for credit for shipping. This letter was totally ignored. So I gave up. I did receive my unit, and they even threw in a needless Euro to US physical power adapter, but I wasn't impressed (the unit I got already had one included, but it's built for the US market so the included adapter is for Europeans, actually). They then started sending sales pamphlets to my ship-to address, which was my workplace, so I had to call them go get that chnaged to my billing address. MobilePlanet makes their site look like a US site but they are actually based in the UK, and the guy I spoke to on the phone had an Irish accent. At least with the XS202, it gets shipped from their warehouse in the UK to their warehouse in the US. This explains why you can get the XS202S from an "American" company when the thing seems to be only available in Europe (and Asia, I guess). Also, MobilePlanet's price on this thing varies widely. I've seen it in the low all the way up to the high 200's. An alternate but out-of-country source is Amazon.de, which has them very inexpensive, around 180 Euros last I saw, which should be around 200 US dollars. But you'll have to pay international shipping, which in my opinion would be worth it. Strangely, the XS202S was designed in America. I still can't figure out why they aren't selling them here.