Why You Can Trust CNET Archos Gmini 402 (20GB) review: Archos Gmini 402 (20GB)
Archos Gmini 402 (20GB)
Archos makes a great personal video player (PVP) even better with the Gmini 402, an impressive update--if not a wholesale revision--to last year's top-notch Gmini400. Just like its predecessor, the 402 ($250) packs in plenty of features, such as video and MP3/WMA playback, photo storage and image viewing, voice and in-line recording, and gaming via the popular Mophun engine. But this time, we also get support for Windows Media Player syncing, including DRM-protected music and video. However, the 402 isn't without its problems: It's saddled with poor viewing angles on its otherwise gorgeous 2.2-inch LCD, so-so battery life, less-than-stellar volume, and lack of direct video recording, but considering the Gmini is nearly small enough to fit in a jeans pocket, we're still duly impressed. The silver and black Archos Gmini 402 is pretty compact for a PVP, but it's no lightweight. Measuring just 4.1 by 2.3 by 0.7 inches, the 402 is almost exactly the same size as an iPod or the svelte Cowon iAudio X5 PVP, but at 6.6 ounces, it outweighs the iAudio by a good ounce and a half. That said, we liked the Gmini's tough, scratch-resistant aluminum shell, and the tapered left and right sides of the horizontally oriented player made it easy to hold while watching our videos.
The Archos Gmini 402's 2.2-inch, 262,000-color TFT LCD looked good to our eyes, with rich color and plenty of detail, thanks to its 220x176-pixel resolution, easily beating the anemic 160x128-pixel resolution of the iAudio's 2-inch LCD. The 402's screen doesn't come close to matching the new Creative Zen Vision's 3.7-inch 640x480 LCD, but then again, the Vision is much bigger than the 402. Unfortunately, your buddies will have a tough time watching the display with you. Try watching from the left at a viewing angle greater than about 30 degrees, and the screen image goes negative, while the picture becomes distractingly bright from the right, above and below. Your audience will also miss out on the sound, since the 402, like its predecessor, lacks a built-in speaker; you can listen with the included earbuds, but they can't hold a candle to the latest in-ear varieties, so be sure to swap them out with a better pair. Clearly, the 402 is a personal device both for sound and vision.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Archos Gmini 402 has essentially the same intuitive controls as the Gmini400, including a four-way navigational control, Select and Back buttons to the left of the display, along with Stop/Back buttons to the right. Even better are the three soft keys lined up below the LCD--a clever design that allows for a wide range of functionality, especially while you're watching a video (see Features). We would have liked a dedicated hold slider, but at least you can press and hold the left-most soft key to lock the controls while you're playing music.
The Archos Gmini 402 comes with a pair of USB ports, one for connecting the player to your PC and the other for hooking it up to a USB-enabled storage device, such as a digital camera; those familiar with the Gmini400 will note that its CompactFlash slot is missing from the 402. Along the top of the player is a built-in microphone for voice recording and a combined headphone, A/V output, and line-in port (a plug-in adapter and a set of A/V cords for your TV's video inputs are included), as well as indicator lights for power, battery charge, and hard-drive activity.
Inside the box, you'll find a pair of USB cables; A/V cords and a small plug-in adapter; a typically bulky AC adapter; and a surprisingly sturdy carrying case.
The Archos Gmini 402's video interface is one of the best we've seen in a portable player. First up is a two-pane window, with your movie list on one side and thumbnail stills on the other. When you're watching a video, you can pause and scan forward or back, and pressing the right-most soft key turns on the player's info display, complete with filename; volume and battery-life icons; the current time; and time remaining/elapsed/total info and a progress bar. The soft keys, meanwhile, let you slow the video to one-half, one-fourth, or one-eighth speed; change the screen format from full-screen to 16:9 or squeezed (no overscan) mode; set a bookmark; or delve into the player's settings menu. Finally, the Resume function in the main menu lets you pick up a movie where you left off after powering down--very nice.
The Archos Gmini 402's MP3/WMA player also benefits from a slick interface, which includes artist/album/track name info; the name of the next track; file type and bit-rate info; elapsed/remaining/total time and a progress bar; and, in an especially nice touch, album art. The navigational keypad gives you the usual fast-forward/back/pause functionality, while the bottom soft keys let you tweak the player settings; set a bookmark or edit a playlist; or browse your music by album, artist, title, genre, or year. You can also sync your PC's music library--including any DRM-protected WMA files purchased from MSN Music--with Windows Media Player, a welcome improvement upon the Gmini400. However, we do have a couple of key complaints about the music player: There's no support for AAC or open-source Ogg Vorbis music files, and there's no equalizer for tweaking the sound, just bass, treble, and bass-boost sliders--a disappointing omission for an otherwise impressive music player. In fact, the 402 is the best MP3 playerlike PVP we've used, since it's so compact. It's great for music, but you also get video playback thrown in.
The Archos Gmini 402's photo viewer has the same two-pane browsing interface as the video player, with filenames and directory info on the left side and thumbnails on the right. Once you've transferred images from your digital camera via the 402's USB port, just click an image to see it in full-screen mode, or you can view four or nine images at a time using the left soft key. You can also zoom and rotate images or view your photos as a slide show, but you can't tweak the slide-show interval or play music in the background--too bad, given the Gmini's ready and willing music player.
The Archos Gmini 402's voice and line-in recording capabilities are decent if a bit limited. You can make recordings only in WAV PCM or ADPCM formats at sampling rates ranging from 16KHz to 48KHz--perfect if you need the best recording quality possible but problematic if you're running low on disk space. We also missed such handy recording features as voice-activated recording and the ability to detect track breaks when recording LPs or cassettes.
Gamers will get a kick out of the Archos Gmini 402's support for games running on the Mophun gaming engine. The player comes with eight demo games, including Golf Pro Contest, Dog City, Icebox Plus, Joe's Treasure Quest 3D, and Lock 'n Load. Don't expect PSP-quality action, however--these games are closer to the ones you'd find on a cell phone.
We were mighty pleased with the Archos Gmini 402's video quality; our movies looked sharp and smooth, with plenty of color and few, if any, dropped frames. Again, our only serious complaint was with the LCD's so-so viewing angles, especially from the left.The Archos Gmini 402's sound quality was good, with nice high-end detail, plenty of bass, and almost undetectable hiss. There's only one problem, however: The sound isn't all that loud, though we cranked the volume all the way up. We also found that sound levels were low for voice and line-in recordings, even when we turned the volume up on our audio source. There are no preset or custom equalizers, much to our chagrin, but the bass, treble, and bass-enhancement options did help mold the sound to our liking, especially the extra bass.
We were also disappointed by the Archos Gmini 402's so-so battery life. CNET Labs was able to squeeze 9 hours, 49 minutes from the 402 in our audio drain test, which is subpar for a 20GB MP3 player. For video, the 402 lasted nearly 5 hours, which is good enough for a couple of movies.