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| Sound Quality | 8/10  |
|---|---|
| Battery Life | 7/10 |
| Features | 6/10 |
| Value for Money | 7/10 |
| Overall rating | 6/10 |
Full review by
cmitchell
on 21st Jul 2005
User Rating : 6
Respect :
0
Good Points: Sound quality, storage capacity, battery life, card reader function.
Bad Points: Diabolical software, 'shuffle' mode, crashing.
General comments: I bought the Archos Gmini 220 MP3 player in November 2004, after deliberating for a long time on which model to buy. I had seen mixed reviews on this player before, but the ability to download my camera's 1Gb Microdrive into it was a deciding factor. Let me explain... I have a Fuji digital camera with a good quality movie function, and use the camera to take both stills, and movies on family holidays, etc. However, the movies take up a lot of memory, and I can only fit 15 minutes of film onto my 1Gb microdrive. The solution for lasting a fortnight away from a PC was to find a device to download the files onto, therefore clearing the microdrive and starting again. The Gmini 220 seemed ideal, and had the bonus of the MP3 player too.
Once I'd taken delivery, I was delighted with the product. MP3's were (relatively) easy to download, and the device couples with the excellent Musicmatch software to organise its library, so that side of things were OK. I initially had problems downloading the files from the microdrive, but an update file from Archos resolved this. I soon found myself using the MP3 player more and more, and this has highlighted a couple of inexcusable issues.
Firstly, the software is terrible. Keypresses take a second or so to register, and sometimes are not registered at all. This makes trying to set the device up to play in the car a laborious task - and not one to attempt whilst driving! Once the player is turned on, it takes a minimum of 8 key presses to even start playing music, although there is a bookmark function to continue playing where you left off. However, this only works if you pause, and then stop the player.
The second major issue concerns the shuffle play mode. I have about 3000 tracks loaded onto the player; it's about half-full. When the player is in shuffle mode, it appears that the track selection software chooses tracks in alphabetical order, as I rarely get tracks played that start with any letter below 'G' in the alphabet. This means a lot of repetition, and I have resorted to compiling play lists - very time-consuming!
The final major issue concerns crashing. I believe this is again a symptom of poor software design - the player occasionally crashes and turns off, regardless of battery condition, play mode, or track played. It seems to crash at the end of tracks, so sometimes you don't realise it's done it until you find its gone quiet. The player doesn't do this very often, but when it does, you have the full 8-button play process to go through, not easy when you're negotiating the Coventry ring road.
I can partly forgive these fallible, (with perhaps the shuffle issue), as the player has excellent sound quality, particularly if you ditch the stock headphones for some Sennheisers. Also, the photo download facility is a boon, for the reasons suggested earlier. It's not the loudest player, but at full volume there is no distortion, so that's not really an issue.
In summary, if like me you need the download facility, there's very little choice; and all in all I'm happy with the player. If all you're after is an MP3 player, however, then I understand that Apple have a player that could possibly fit the bill?
cmitchell's review and ratings | 572 words
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