Archos Gmini400 Review
I happened to be in the market for a portable photo storage solution as well, due to an upcoming vacation trip.
Personally, I would not buy the iPod Camera Connector attachment because the whole point is to have a single self-contained unit and more importantly not to tie up the camera (or its batteries) while transferring images. Besides, I don’t have iPod to begin with.
The Epson P-2000 looked very nice, but also very pricey! Makes for a juicy target for crooks.
Right now I am test driving an Archos Gmini400 from Fry’s (gotta love 30-day returns). Here are my observations.
Performance
CF copy –> HDD copy speed: I measured about 25 Mbits/sec using my slow Viking 1GB CF card. In other words, roughly 4.5 minutes to copy nearly full 1GB card. Faster cards may copy faster.
HDD < --> PC copy speed: I measured about 75 Mbits/sec either read or write directions. In other words, roughly 3.5 minutes to copy 2GB to the PC.
Pros
- Size: TINY! I love the form factor, it is only a little bit wider than my cell phone (Audiovox SMT5600) but otherwise same size length & thickness. It would easily fit in a pocket.
- Display: bright & crisp
- Interface: built-in CF Type I card slot rather than something smaller like SD
- Will not write anything to a CF card. In fact there are no features to make any changes to a CF card (e.g. delete files)
- Adequate MP3 player; shows content by artist, album, etc.
- Voice recorder, in case you need to quickly record some mental notes about the photoshoot
- Compact AC adapter that works anywhere in the world (comes with adapter plugs, no less!).
- Uses common FAT32 filesystem & looks like a standard USB mass storage device to a PC. Automatically mounts as a drive letter.
Cons
- Display: only 220×176 resolution, 2.2 inches diagonally
- Interface: CF Type I only! can’t use CF Type II cards, like MicroDrives. The CF card sticks out almost entirely while inserted, and the CF pins protrude precariously far out (the card guide rails start when the pins start). It seems like a bent pin waiting to happen. Also, CF cards mount upside down in the slot. Go figure.
- Speed: viewing a 6Mpixel image (JPEG) is painfully slow. It takes about 6-8 seconds to display a single image full screen - you can see it being drawn top to bottom on the screen.
- Photo viewer supports 3 levels of zoom, but the re-sampling is atrociously bad.
- Photo viewer file format support: supports only JPEG and BMP files. RAW image file formats such as CRW or NEF cannot be viewed.
- Video viewer file format support: only supports MPEG-4 simple profile (DivX); does not know anything about MPEG-2 or Motion JPEG.
- Will not allow you to change the CF card in any way (e.g. copy or delete files, reformat card, etc.). Some would argue that this is a good thing.
- UI design is somewhat inconsistent (several overloaded buttons, etc.)
- Lame games
- Only available in 20GB capacity, with no upgrade option
- Non-user replaceable Li-Ion battery. When will they learn?
Bottom line & conclusions
I love the form factor, but the CF card slot being Type I only bugs me tremendously. What were they smoking? Otherwise, the unit is a perfectly passable portable storage device so long as you don’t really care about viewing the photos on it. For me, the multimedia (video, music) features are purely gravy.
It sure is cute, but not cute enough to justify plunking down $300 or so. Back to Fry’s it goes…
I haven’t found a local retailer that carries SmartDisk FlashTrax or FotoChute so that I could try them out.
Another alternative would be to get Macally SYNCBOX and use my existing CF readers & USB HDDs. I like the ability to run on AAAs but I doubt it would support a USB HDD power requirements. Plus it would be a total cabling mess.
The CompactDrive PD7X looks mighty appealing. Other than that, I guess I’d have to build my own. I’d rather be shooting photos, frankly.