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Down with iPOD!
By: cartdog
August 22, 2005 @ 8:39 PM
QUOTE
“Beware of Archos”
ijkern on Dec 29th, 2004 at 1:25 AM
Score: 1
This is a great looking, innovative product, but based on my fairly extensive experience with products made by this company I would be very cautious about purchasing any of their products. I have owned four Archos jukeboxes, beginning with their original, pre-Ipod, 6gb jukebox. All of them had great features, but all were marred by manufacturing or design defects. One could put up with these, however, since Archos had a responsive, if informal and sometimes disorganized, customer service organization. Times have apparently changed. My last Archos product was an AV320 I bought a few months ago. Within four months a small but vital part–the joystick controller–fell off. When I asked for a replacement, I was told I had to send the whole unit back. After going through a lengthy return process, I was sent a replacement unit with a smaller hard drive than the one I had installed in mine. When I asked for the return of my hard drive Archos initially refused, claiming (incorrectly) that since I had voided the warranty by replacing the hard drive, they would not return my drive unless I paid for the “service” they had performed. The price of the service? $125. To repair a defective part after three months of normal use! If you buy an Archos product, just be aware that it will probably have a malfunction of some sort. If you are lucky it will occur during the warranty period and Archos will honor their warranty (though there are some documented cases of Archos refusing to honor the warranty, claiming that the unit was not “normally used” without any evidence for this). If you are unlucky, the malfunction will occur (or recur) after the warranty has expired, and you will have to pay an exorbitant service charge to make a repair that should never have been necessary if the product had been properly manufactured in the first place. You might want to check out the various Archos forums in Yahoo! Groups before buying. While many participants are still enthusiastic about the products, there are a lot of dissatisfied customers ready to sue Archos for their abysmal customer support. Did you ever own a French car? Kind of the same experience.
————————————-
Why would you write a product review when you don’t even own the player!?
Don’t anybody listen to this flogger!! The gmini400 is an excellent player and awesome value for money. It shits on the iPOD and most other mp3 players!! Archos have always demonstrated excellent customer service if I have a query.
Hands down this is the ultimate gadget!! You won’t be dissapointed!!
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
unhappy
By: TheCleaner
August 17, 2005 @ 6:43 PM
Firmware constantly crashes. I ignored a review on ArchosSucks.com and bought my jukebox anyway. I deserve what I get.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
A real 20 GB bargain.
By: bubbygator
April 19, 2005 @ 9:16 PM
Don’t forget the hard-disk is plug & play compatible with USB. Besides all the neat stuff mentioned by others, I use it as off-computer back-up & for traveling. I have all my personal data in one directory of about 0.8 GB & it goes where I go… available at any computer with USB connection.
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Love it
By: Jan
April 7, 2005 @ 10:39 AM
I purchased the gmini 400 for a couple of reasons
1. 20 GB capacity (not only for audio)
2. compact flash drive (ability to put other memory types with the adapter)
I wanted to be able to go on vacation without having to take a Laptop to get my pictures off the mem card, we were always running out memory because if was full (there are 5 digi cameras used)
My problems lies in getting the adapter … I am struggling to finding it to purchase it … the place I purchased the unit from does not sell it and could not help me in getting . Since I am canadian it seems difficult to get it here.
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Most complete and best player
By: Maarten
February 27, 2005 @ 1:57 PM
I do have the Archos for half a year and it works perfectly! I bought it for the mp3 and photo storage. The radio works well and also the cardreader is perfect (very fast!). With the remote control the battery lasts longer because the display stays off while managing the Archos.
The new photo i-pod can do almost the same but is very much more expensive if you buy a radio and card reader with it. The new features of the new apple are in the Archos already. The apple can be used as photo storage but you can only see the pictures if they were transmitted by i-tunes. When you’re on holiday you can storage your photo’s but you can’t watch them.
The Archos feels very strong. It’s all metal en works perfectly.
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Amazing
By: Neil
February 14, 2005 @ 11:09 AM
I can understand the comments by iJkern if he/she has had bad experiences in the past with Archos, I tend to be once bitten twice shy too but you really shouldn’t let that put you off the Gmini 400. I haven’t seen a single report yet that indicates build problems with this wonderful little machine (I’m sure they will now roll in). The Gmini is simply amazing; fantastic sound quality and superb for watching videos. The video conversion can be a bit of a pain but thet is not the fault of the Gmini but more an issue with third party DVD rippers. The reults, however are really good. There are those that say the screen is to small to watch movies on but I can tell you I have spent many a happy hour at airports or on aeroplanes watching my favourite TV shows and even movies. The sound of the MP3/WMA’s is superb.
There have been arguments about 20gb being too small but I have not found this. I have about 20 hrs of video loaded (at higher res than it needs to be) and about 50 hours of audio and still have 3gb of free space. I still have all the demo music and video too so could easily conjure up a few extra gb if required.
I think I can understand the previous review though when it comes to accessories. I purchased the FM Radio/Remote that sounded like a great idea. Why not add radio to the MP3, Video, Games, Photo’s and voice recording? Especially as you can record from the radio and even re-wind live radio like Sky+? Trouble is (appart from teh fact that it sells in the US for $19.00 or about £10 and yet costs £35 in the UK) it works really badly. For a start it ruins the sound. When you have it plugged in you get loads of bussing and hissing that simply isn’t there without it. It also has terrible radio reception and is insanely difficult to use. It also has a cable that is about 4 times the thickness of typical headphone cables so it is VERY obvious when you are waring it.
Like the official Archos carry case, owever, it looks great. It also shares bad design with the Archos case. The official Archos case is very expensive and very badly designed. I wont go into all the details but you’d do much better looking at alternative cases and there are more of them coming onto the market now.
To sum up, the Gmini 400 really is very very good and I really can’t see any reason why you would buy an Ipod over one of these (unless you are more interested in Image than substance). The accessories are a little flakey and you should look around for a 3rd party case rather than the Archos one.
One last thing, I have ordered things from Archos and contacted their support department and found them to be responsive and helpful. Having said that they are very expensive to buy directly from.
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
with this who needs an i pod
By: zakcb
January 5, 2005 @ 6:42 AM
with the archos there is no need for an ipod a dvd player or a digital camera for all of those are on this one brilliant machine. its sleek design and easy to use controls it is perfect. exept with all good things there is a flaw, the screen is only a 2.2 inch screen where as music is not affected by this veiwing pictures and movies are, but this is not a problem the fact that 80 hours of movies can be stored on there and 200,000 pictures are available to you at the touch of a button where ever you are.
do not be put of by some people that do not give good reviews for this machine it is amazing and well worth the £200 instead of the 400 pounds you could pay for an ipod photo or similar products
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Brilliant
By: Anonymous
January 5, 2005 @ 6:33 AM
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
kokoriko
By: MaRioN
January 1, 2005 @ 7:03 PM
for ijkern : i’m french and the worth car i’ve ever had was a Ford… like all products, there are some defectives…this product is just the better for a 20Gb at this price
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Excellent Products
By: dfranks
January 1, 2005 @ 1:20 PM
This device is easy to use. Within a day, I had over 300 CDs and 4 movies loaded on the Gmini 400, and still had almost 7GB of space left. Good MusicMatch software, or you can install the supplied plug-in to use Windows Media Player. For most operation, I just treat the device as a hard drive, and use drag and drop. That way, I can manage the file structure the way I like it, as you can browse on the Archos. The remote with FM is great for listening to and recording radio shows like Car Talk, and playing them back on airplane flights. The microphone on the remote seems much better than the one on the unit, and makes pretty good recordings. I use my Sennheiser earbuds, instead of the supplied headphones, and the sound is outstanding. This unit blows the ipod away for features, and accepts more file formats. The color display is excellent, and allows you to see the album cover image while listening to songs. I would ignore other comments about quality and customer service, as most of the companies outsource CS to third world countries. HP does it and their service sucks. I’ve emailed Archos with questions before buying this, and they were prompt and curteous in their reply.
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Beware of Archos
By: ijkern
December 29, 2004 @ 1:25 AM
This is a great looking, innovative product, but based on my fairly extensive experience with products made by this company I would be very cautious about purchasing any of their products.
I have owned four Archos jukeboxes, beginning with their original, pre-Ipod, 6gb jukebox. All of them had great features, but all were marred by manufacturing or design defects. One could put up with these, however, since Archos had a responsive, if informal and sometimes disorganized, customer service organization.
Times have apparently changed. My last Archos product was an AV320 I bought a few months ago. Within four months a small but vital part–the joystick controller–fell off. When I asked for a replacement, I was told I had to send the whole unit back. After going through a lengthy return process, I was sent a replacement unit with a smaller hard drive than the one I had installed in mine. When I asked for the return of my hard drive Archos initially refused, claiming (incorrectly) that since I had voided the warranty by replacing the hard drive, they would not return my drive unless I paid for the “service” they had performed. The price of the service? $125. To repair a defective part after three months of normal use!
If you buy an Archos product, just be aware that it will probably have a malfunction of some sort. If you are lucky it will occur during the warranty period and Archos will honor their warranty (though there are some documented cases of Archos refusing to honor the warranty, claiming that the unit was not “normally used” without any evidence for this). If you are unlucky, the malfunction will occur (or recur) after the warranty has expired, and you will have to pay an exorbitant service charge to make a repair that should never have been necessary if the product had been properly manufactured in the first place.
You might want to check out the various Archos forums in Yahoo! Groups before buying. While many participants are still enthusiastic about the products, there are a lot of dissatisfied customers ready to sue Archos for their abysmal customer support.
Did you ever own a French car? Kind of the same experience.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
this is better than an ipod
By: tino
December 27, 2004 @ 8:26 AM
this is way worth the money as you can watch dvds and photos as well as listen to music
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No