Archos GMini 400 / 20GB HD / MP3 and Video Player review

Things get a bit more complicated with the video player. Once you have your video in the correct format, transferring it to the Gmini400 and playing it back is dead simple. The catch is getting it into that specific format: MPEG-4 Simple AVI at 30fps, with either an MP3 or WAV IMA-ADPCM soundtrack, if you really want to know all the ugly details. Archos provides several utilities to help (one of which you have to download yourself), but there are so many different audio and video formats and complicated settings that it takes some work to get it right. The manual helps, however; once you get the routine down, it isn't all that tough, but it isn't for the faint of heart. Also keep in mind that the process of formatting the video is accomplished in real time (a two-hour movie would take two hours to transcode) or longer, depending on your PC's horsepower.

The Gmini400 has several advanced audio and video features. You can bookmark songs or videos to return to the same location. An optional resume feature lets you start off at the last bookmark when you restart the player. The device can play music on any stereo and display video or photos on a TV using the included cable. Conversely, the Gmini400 can also record any audio in WAV format using either the built-in microphone or via line-in with the included RCA cable and adapter.

The Photo application lets you view individual photos (JPEG or BMP only), create slide shows, magnify portions of images, or use them as wallpaper. But the most compelling photo feature is the CompactFlash slot that lets you transfer images directly from a digital camera, so you no longer need to lug a laptop on trips just to free up space on your card. If your camera uses a different format (Memory Stick, SD, or MMC/SM) you can purchase an adapter from Archos. Unfortunately for serious photographers, the Gmini400 does not support playback of TIFF or raw files, but you can still store them, of course. One final shutterbug-friendly feature that's missing: File Verify. This feature, found in many photo viewers, assures you that all of the images were completely copied over to the hard drive with no errors. That way you can clear off the card without worrying that you might lose something.

The Gmini400 can play 2D and 3D games using Mophun, a gaming platform designed primarily for cell phones. Out of the box, the Gmini400 provides one full game and a few samples. To give you an idea of the games available and their quality, you can run browser-based demos at the Mophun site.

Impressive as its feature list is, the Gmini400 is missing a few features found in some larger PVPs. Most notably, it cannot directly record video from a camcorder, a VCR, or cable/satellite; for that you'll need its big brother, the Archos AV420. You can run only one application at a time, so, for example, you can't view a slide show while listening to music. Finally, when the USB cable is attached, you can't run any application on the device. All these are relatively minor issues though.

Overall, the performance of Archos Gmini400 was excellent in our tests. Both the audio and video playback were smooth. The sound quality was good with high-quality earbuds and full-size headphones. Video was detailed and free of any significant artifacts, displaying accurate-looking colors. However, still photos looked mediocre overall, so the Gmini400 is better as a storage device than as an album. The video also looked substandard when ported to an external TV, our reference Sony KD-34XBR960, but that's not surprising, given the resolution.

The operating system and applications were all rock-solid, and the USB 2.0 interface was sufficient even for transferring large multimedia files. During our tests, we transferred 3,000 JPEG images, three albums, and two feature-length movies, and transfer times were generally 10 minutes or less. In the CNET Labs, we were able to get an impressive transfer rate of 6.8MB per second.

The nonremovable lithium-ion battery is rated for 10 hours of continuous music playback and 5 hours of video playback. Our test unit came with version 1.0.00 of the operating system, but we downloaded and installed a firmware update (1.1.00) that Archos says reduces power consumption. In our prefirmware tests, we eked out 4.8 hours for video and 9.4 hours for audio. This is not the best we've witnessed, even for a device this small. One word of caution: Archos somewhat ominously warns that you should keep the Gmini400 plugged in whenever it is attached to your PC because a power loss could corrupt the file system.