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5.5 oz. MPEG-4/Audio Portable From Archos
An anonymous reader writes "Several manufacturers produce hard drive-based MPEG-4 portables now, but to date they are all big and heavy devices weighing in at around 3/4 of a pound. Archos just announced the Gmini 400, a 20GB video/audio player that comes in at the iPod's dimensions and light 5.6 ounces. Presently shipping, I guess they are ready now for the iPod Video in case that player ever becomes more that a /. myth."
Given the failure rate of IDE in PC computers, where one imagines they've got more than enough space and manufacturing experience going for them, I wonder how long these mini-HDDs will last even without being subjected to drops.
Especially at $400, which seems almost a bargain for this technology.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
The reason the iPod does so well is because of one principle: K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Want to play a song? Mash the huge button on the front of the iPod. That's it.
Other than people riding a train to work (or other stationary activity), who would actually use their device for video playback? I can't use it when I run, I can't use it when I do household chores (vacuuming, cleaning, etc), I can't use it when I draw or paint... What exactly is the point?
It would really surprise me if Apple released a video iPod.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
mpared to the flash-based players. That's the future.
Never send rotating machinery to do an IC's job.
The future, but, don't try to leap there too quickly unless you have, and lots of it. 1GB CF card costs $100.
I think it is useless to consider whether something is "advanced" enough to be cool or something. The right tool for the right job, and while small hard drives are less than ideal, if a 20GB laptop hard drive costs less than $100 and a 1GB Flash card costs $100, which do you honestly think most people will choose for most situations?
The iPod is fine, no flash-based player at a similar size can store 20 to 40GB of anything yet.
CF is also pretty slow and has orders of magnitude fewer rewrites.
However, why on earth would they release a portable video player with a display only slightly larger than the iPod's (2.2 inch vs. 2 inch)? Even the gameboy has a bigger screen (2.9 inch). There is alot of wasted realestate on the new Archos which could have been used for a bigger display.
Sony should add video and audio playback capabilities to the upcoming 4.5 inch w i d e s c r e e n PSP. That would truely be an iPod killer.
Looks like you have to use two hands to control the thing. This isn't a GameBoy, it's an mp3 player, and as such you it needs to be something you can hold in one hand or pocket and operate easily. Plus it still doesn't have iTunes, which is huge.
When someone comes out with flash-based storage that costs less than $10/GB (I'm being generous here) and has infinite read/write life (or at least on par with a hard disk), let me know.
Until then, flash-based players aren't ever going to compete with the iPod on price/capacity ratio, and that's obviously (look at the success of the iPod mini relative to the flash-based player market) what consumers want.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
So looking at the specs in the review I see mpeg4 sp video, but in an avi container and no aac audio. Which is misleading, to say the least.
:-)
I was bitten by this recently when I bought and 'mpeg 4' dvd player, which was nothing of the sort. Would it play mpeg 4 files? Nope.
I'm surprised that mpeg and iso seem to be offering little guidance on this. Is isn't helping them when players badged 'mpeg4' don't seem to be able to play the format.
(sorry - pet peeve
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I don't trust the quality and service of Archos. I had horrible experiences with their jukebox MP3 player. It was a terrible product and their customer service to get you a new one under warranty was also impossible.
The fundamental problem is that they rush to get out the latest cool product without hammering out the details and practicality and interface. I'd rather wait until a more solid manufacturer like Apple gets everything right from the right transfer speed, charging, UI, software, etc. Sure it will be more expensive, but I'll probably buy it in the long run anyway.
can't sleep. clowns will eat me.
RIAA-approved music in compressed form costs about $200/GB. So it would cost $4000 to fill up an iPod.
non-RIAA-approved music, in compressed form, costs about $0/GB. So it would cost $0 to fill up an iPod.
If the RIAA would wake up and realize that it now costs virtually zero to copy bit patterns all over the planet, they would change their business model. Of course, it is easier to buy legislators and try to keep the old artificial scarcity model.
Yeah, you can fill it with legal garage-band crap techno. Nobody really does that.
I don't. You don't. Probably someone does. So what? Don't knock someone else's choices.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Well, the AV500 definately will. It's the PDA with a hard drive player. Not only will it have all the requirements to be fully divx certified (finally! I won't have to re-encode my files!), but it also runs Qtopia (linux) for all my PDA'ing needs.
Does the gmini run some sort of stripped down version of this or something else -- I have no idea? But I can tell you that its likely someone will hack it to make it run linux -- they did it with the other archos models that had much less processing power than this one does.
How much will it cost? Personally, investing $299 to buy an ipod seems a little pricey. If it costs anymore for all of these additions, it will be out of most people's spending range. Who really wants to walk around with a video in their hands anyways?
Besides, how do you know the precision of the original measurements wasn't that good? - There were no error bars on the masses listed in the story, so it's correct to assume they were precise.
If you wanted to be funny you could have suggested the kg values be given in surds but since an international pound (the correct unit to assume given that it wasn't labeled a Troy pound) is defined as 0.45359237 kilograms there seems little point beyond the mathematical fun. Hope you've learned something though :)