Archos Gmini 400 20GB Pocket Multimedia/Games Player

The player itself is simply stunning. It's got a cool silver cover, and the sharp colour screen is more than adequate. Sound quality is cd perfect with the sony earbud earphones, and the controls are simple and intuitive. It took me a grand total of 5 mins to be able to work it blindfold. It's simply amazing! The supplied games, videos, photos and music isn't upto much (except i want to go to wherever the video was shot - it looks beautiful!), but that can be easily sorted by putting your own music on it!!! Haven't tried to put videos on it yet but installing the mpeg4 converter seems simple enough. Overall its an amazing player well worth the money, the only quibble is that it comes in a really stupid plastic packaging which you've got to rip open, rendering it useless! Add a good old fashioned box and it is the perfect player for the person wanting more from their mp3 layer than just music.
P.S. The screen, although small, is extremely detailed!!!, and it's a very small player!

The good points:

Firstly, with a (supplied) wire you can connect this little gadget direct to your TV and watch your stored movies/photos directly on the TV, rather than the built in screen. No more trying to burn your movies onto DVD-r. The unit has a max resolution of 640x480 which is perfect for TV playback, so no real quality is lost. Using shareware programs, you can convert your DVD/AVI collection to the correct format (PocketDivxEncoder is very easy to use).

There is a Compact Flash slot direct into the machine, allowing you to put your photos directly into the Gmini while on the move. This frees up the card to be re-used. If you use a different type of card, an adaptor is available from Archos. You can view photos individually, 2x2, or 3x3 on the screen, you can rotate the pictures if you wish, and even set them as wallpaper.

If someone wants one of your files, it connects directly to a PC via USB2.0 (1.1 compatible) then you just "drag and drop" the files directly onto the PC. No Drivers to install. (The connection lead is the same as most digital cameras). You can also use it to transfer files from one PC to another, even if the Gmini can't read that file.

Everything on the screen is customisable.All fonts and colour schemes can be altered according to taste. Photos or j-peg files can be set as a background, just like a PC.

Already a user community is growing (www.gmini400.com) with helpful advice and reports of minor problems and their fixes.

I haven't mentioned the great sound playback, the games available (Like hi-quality mobile phone games),or the recording options, because I think that they are pretty well covered in the previous reviews.

Since I got this 3 weeks ago, I haven't left home without it. I can listen to my music all day at work, then take it to my friends house, wire it up to the TV and watch some videos. So far, my batteries have not run out.

Using the full 20GB Drive will give you 80 hours of Divx or Xvid video. Using the supplied software you can convert you Divx downloads to play on the Gmini or get FlaskMpeg (freeware) to convert your favourite ripped DVD. Okay copying your favourite film takes time (2 hours +) but it's worth it and the files are so small you can back them up onto DVD or CD for later use.

This is the future, look out apple!