Rating: 
Summary: Good in more ways than one
Review: There are a lot of MP3 players on the market so it's hard to decide what to get. I narrowed my search down to the Archos and iPod players, and although I like the iPod and there are a lot of cool aftermarket accessories you can get for it, it is kind of pricey.
The Gmini-it's pronounced "Gemini" which is one of the only things I would have changed about it, I mean really, what marketing morons come up with these brand names? Anyway, it is well worth the $250 price point. Forget about the whimpy 128MB flash players and Sony's stupid mini-disc crap, because let's face it, if you're going to pay in upwards of $200, you might as well make the investment and get something that can conceivably hold your entire music collection, and this thing does more than that. Don't worry about skipping.The Gmini plugs into your USB port and bam, it's there. It shows up as an external hard drive-no drivers to install. Drag your existing music files and that's it. I had a folder of about 50 WMA files that transferred over in about 40 seconds. I was a little disappointed that the extra features it boasts like the CF-card reader requires that you buy the downloadable plug-ins from the manufacturers website, personally I would have paid more for the thing if they were already installed, but that's minor since the price is worth it anyway. The headphones hurt my ears a little if they are in there too long and the player itself can be difficult to turn off. You're supposed to just hold down this button for a couple of seconds and it shuts off but it doesn't always do it-remeber that this thing is like a little computer so it has to shut itself down. I found that it's better to just leave it alone because it shuts off automatically after a couple of minutes-which you can change the settings to how you like it. Those are very minor complaints, and I also wonder what happens if the battery ever finally dies-it's internal so I don't know if you can replace it or not, just keep on re-charging I guess. Overall this thing is pretty good. It's easy to use, compact (a little thicker than an iPod)and can be customized to the way you like it. It also makes an excellent storage back up, and you should check out the other stuff that Archos sells. They have a USB 20G hard drive that is as small as a 3 1/2 inch floppy, and a player that has a color screen that reads a variety of video files so you can actually watch movies and music, and with an 80G hard drive, you can have your video and music collection in the palm of your hand and ready for viewing/listening. Of course it's expensive, but damn it's cool. I don't think anyone else makes such a thing. I still remember when the first walkman came out so this stuff seems pretty cool to me. DO NOT hope that an electronics store will have a salesperson that knows this stuff, they're usually pretty clueless. I bought mine at Circuit City and the people there had the wrong price, didn't know if it came with batteries and when I wanted to see the Archos player that played videos on it's little color screen, the sales guy didn't believe me when I told him that it could record and play video files. Other stores knew just as much. For the price, capabilities, compact size, and ease of use, this thing is probably the best you can get right now. If you could get a 20G iPod for under $300, it might be worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Crashed continuously, finally stopped booting
Review: I thought this would be a perfect companion to my 8MB digital camera. I was totally wrong. The gmini crashed continuously, shutdown in the middle of playback, and finally stopped responding altogether. Fortunately it was still within my 14 day return period so I was able to get my money back. I would not recommend this product to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect
Review: This product is excellent! You get great MB/$ ratio. When mine came in it took little time to load all my songs. Its perfect for my camera that uses a CF card. The sound quality is excellent. And the size is incredible- its much smaller than a floppy disk and weighs about the same amount as one AA battery. The screen is huge and the overall look of the unit is great. I haven't had any problems so far (~month), and I would recommend this to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: What's the problem?
Review: I've had my player for a little over two months now. The only time that I've had any troubles with it was when I accidentally put all of the music into the home directory of the player (it's supposed to go in the /music/ directory) which caused it to crash. That was easily fixed; I simply cut and pasted the files from the home directory into the /music/ directory. Upgrading is easy. Simply download the latest update from the archos site (http://www.archos.com) and follow the directions that they give you on how to install it. And as for the battery life, I've had mine last for a little over a total of 10 hours. The buttons work fine and I haven't had a problem with them. As for features, it doesn't have the most, but it has enough to keep me happy. It has randomize and repeat, an equilizer, very good sound, easy and fast file transfer, ability to choose up to one song ahead of time (while not in playlist mode), bookmarking to start where you last left off, ARCLibrary feature that allows you to browse by artist, album, title, genre, and even playlist, and many more things that I can't think of. All in all, I think that this product is one of the best alternatives to the overpriced ipods that I've ever owned.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I wanted - Works Great!
Review: I spent weeks researching mp3 players and ended up with the GMini 220. I wanted both the music and Photo wallet features. I travel for extensive time without a laptop and needed something to down load pictures to. The sound quality is great and the photo wallet works great. I've had the unit for 5 months now and it has worked perfectly. I would buy another one (or maybe the GMini 400 series when that comes out)
Rating:
Summary: supa dupa!!!
Review: This gear is perfect!!! Huge screen, tons of info on the screen, and it looks tight. Plus you get AV cords to plug it right into a stereo receiver, so I can get a thousand watts behind my Gmini on my surround sound. YOWZA, couldn't ask fo' a betta unit. I've had mine fer 'bout 6 months, no complaints. Buy it, love it, nevva leave wit out it! Holla at cha girl.
Rating:
Summary: Gmini 220 - A Nightmare
Review: I received this mp3 player as a gift from my wife Christmas of 2004. I debated between this player and the ipod. Eventually, I told her to buy the gmini 220 and she purchased one new off ebay. I regret that decision every day. From day one the unit has never operated properly in regards to its primary function, playing mp3s. I will relate my experiences with this player and the horrible company behind it below:
When my wife gave me the player, I greedily opened it and set about loading it with mp3s. This unit is extremely easy to load as both Mac and Windows machines (I own both) recognize it as an external hard drive. Just drag and drop. I loaded it with 4 gigs of mp3s, made sure it was charged, and set off listening to songs. The player played for approximately 5 minutes and then crashed, shutting itself off. I thought this was strange, but I restarted it and it did the same thing repeatedly.
By now I realized that the player needed "fixing." I downloaded the latest firmware from Archos and loaded it on the player. Still the same problem. I reformated the hard drive (following the advice of the Archos website). Still the same problem. I realized that the error must lie in the internals of the player. Now begins the terrible odyssey.
I emailed customer support because the website did not list a service number. A week passed and I got no reply. I emailed again after looking up the customer relations head, Terry Perrin, on the Better Business Bureau website and threatening to file a complaint. I got a reply this time giving me the customer support number. I called. I was informed that the player needs repair. They informed me that because it was purchased new on ebay they would not honor their warranty for an admittedly faulty player. They furthermore wanted $65 to fix a problem that they cannot identify. They also promised to email me information on how to send in the player for repair. I never received the email. I emailed them again letting them know that I would let all consumers know about their customer relations department and the quality of their product. I am now following through on my promise. The gmini now sits beside my computer as I'm writing this as a useless mp3 player but a good 20 gig external usb hard drive.
So, what do you need to know:
1. The product has known problems.
2. The company will not honor their warranty if you buy on ebay.
3. The technical support number is long distance and you must make threats to receive answers to your emails.
4. This company does not support its products and does not care that consumers make an investment of several hundred dollars in their products.
5. Buy the ipod.
Rating:
Summary: Gmini 220 Great Deal
Review: I can't stand the radio anymore so decided to get this for daily car commute. Every song I own in one spot without changing discs. I'm still working on playing it to the car stereo (tape adapter I think), but here are some impressions after 2 weeks.
Pro's 1. Simple transfer of Compact Flash to the Gmini220 through provided port.
2. Simple recognition on Mac G4 through keyboard USB or a PC USB running Windows XP. Acts as a hard-drive very simply.
Stores anything you can put on it.
3. Can view jpg in low or RAW format on 2.5" screen.
4. Plays music to headphones or other sources via headphone jack. RCA plugs are provided to play direct to audio source or record from one.
5. Easy navigation when you figure it out. When playing music the buttons are familiar. When browsing the hard drive off of the computer the buttons are up-down, left-right, select, menu, back, etc.
6. Although the manual doesn't promise much functionality when using iTunes to download, I'd disagree. I'm using iTunes to convert files, then open up Musicmatch to (View) (Portable Device) and then update the ArcLibrary. Musicmatch wasn't recognizing any info or tags but iTunes does.
Cons -
1. Kind of touchy. I had a corrupted hard-drive that would not recognize any changes on the Arclibrary, essential for genre, album, artist view outside of the general browser function.
I called tech-support and was advised to backup all my files, re-format the hard-drive as a fat32 format (right click on your JUKEBOX drive when it's plugged into the computer and select Format) Downloaded the recent firmware 1.13, unseated and installed the new firmware, then dumped everything back onto it. Easy, and I've never tried something like that before.
2. Battery anywhere from 3-5 hours maybe. So So
3. FM Transmitter is terrible option, tried and sorry for it.
4. If you lose functions sporadically, check the setup Arclibrary may have turned off. Turn it back on & you're OK.
Great functions really for the price, far more than I've discovered with other products.
Rating:
Summary: unwarranted criticism?
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Piece of junk
Review: When I bought it, it was great, inexpensive and it seemed to be a great product. I returned the first one, because the buttons didn't work right. The second one seemed to be much better and work just fine. It would turn off occasionally after playing a song, it would display the wrong information, and take a long time to load and save playlists, but I over looked these problems, because it did what it advertised to, and had a pretty good battery life. It had a good enough batter life, because when I was at home I plugged it into speakers and into the wall. The recording function was also very nice and worked well. It's biggest advantage was that it doubled as a hard drive. But, this product can take no abuse. It fell once, and now it will not work. When I shake it, something rattles. . . and it only fell about two and a half feet. Other problems are the size, while it is reletively small, it still is bulky compared to other mp3 players.
I would not recomend this product to anyone, while it did what it was supposed to, it did not work well enough, or long enough. Do not buy it.
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