After agonizing and whining and bothering you all, I finally made my decisions and I did good. My "review" is not complete as I haven't had a chance to play with some of the functions. I have put comparisons to Apple products in places as they seem to be the most popular/most trendy MP3 players out there so I figure most of you will be able to visualise without having to search.
Here's the short version:
For my mom and sister.
The brief: No photo capacity necessary. Use at gym, on commute, in painting studio. Needed small unit but with good storage capacity so didn't have to muck with reloading all the time. Easy to use as neither wants to mess with anything that would be harder than the cd player to use.
The winner: Creative Zen Micro 5GB
cost: about $240 ish
Pros:
- small & light weight...same size, but different dimensions, as the Ipod mini...very comfortable to hold & use; scrolling etc felt natural and none of us had to distort our fingers/hands to make things work
- 5GB instead of 4GB with the I-mini for the same or less $$ depending on where you shop
- great colour selection...each got the colour they wanted, it's not important, but it is fun
- easy to download to
- easy to use...the pad does take a bit of getting used to but we all got the hang of it after fiddling a few minutes
- great display, very easy to read and well lit
- excellent battery life
- ear buds don't completely suck...probably need to upgrade eventually but were fine and dandy for initial uses
- easy to navigate
- easy to organize
- FM radio
- tough little unit
Cons:
- the pad can be a bit touchy, but it isn't a big deal so far
- can only load from a computer, not directly from any source, but this is pretty standard.
Other:
- fits pretty sweetly into an Ipod Mini case bought at Best Buy. Access to all controls and the headphone jack.-has an arm band that both say works great for working out, walking etc
For me
The brief: small; 20GB or more capacity; memory card slot; download from any source; colour monitor; movie playback
The winner: Archos Gmini 400 20GB
Cost: about $330; I think they are even less now four weeks later
Pros:
- small, virtually the same as the Ipod
- lovely screen
- super easy to download to
- fast downloads
- memory card slot works a treat; has a door on it to keep out dust etc
- good battery life so far; haven't tried with video yet
- easy to create playlists, new folders for photos etc
- simple download from any audio player...cd walkman, stereo etc - perfect for grabbing those disks when you don't have the computer handy etc this is a featuer I used a lot on my first Archos unit and expect to use with this one, too
- battery can be replaced if necessary
- looks too cool...asked quite a few times about the unit and always got oohs and aahhs and wow, I gotta get one of those! My seatmate on one flight was not happy when he tinkered with it...he had just plunked down the readies for an Ipod
- charges fast
- easy to use, buttons good size and out of the way
- have to hold the "off" button down for a few seconds to shut machine off. I like this as it avoids those accidental bumps that can turn other machines off when you didn't mean to.
- good navigation options and pretty self-explanatory
- excellent resume feature...you can leave this thing off for days and hit the resume button and presto it starts from wherever you shut it down last time. I like this as I use shuffle mostly and it doesn't seem to replay the same songs I started with the last time...I know that is all random, but I still like it. I also like it if I am just cruising an album or artist as I get the whole folder then, not just repeats.
- light and so far jog proof...I clip it to the Y on my sport's top and go. Doesn't tug or fall off (cross fingers here). Actually feels secure and didn't find any movement when attached.
Cons:
- screen not as high quality as the Epson, but I didn't need that and the Epson is larger. Size won for my needs. And this screen is still nice. Very bright, nice colours. Perfectly good for most uses...family was impressed when I showed them jpegs.
- no RAW viewing. No other machine supports Oly Raw as of now (or when I bought) so this was a non-issue for me anyway.
- comes with no case and the one from Archos that I bought lacks a clear plastic bit where the screen is. The case will protect from bumps and scratched from other items, but it won't protect from little sand grains etc. This is a flaw for my usage and I really would love to find another case. But this one will work for now. It also only has a belt clip. So far it is fine, but I would like to see something a little more secure...a proper case is my new quest!
- some days too many choices and I forget exactly what I want to do, but that's a blonde thing!
Other:
- viewing my RAW images turned out to be a bit of a non-issue for me. I do not intend to use this device for that purpose. I do use it to download my images from memory card so I can clear the card. It is very easy and fast to load the images from the memory card to the Gmini and then from the Gmini to the computer. This is perfect for me...I don't have to take the laptop on the boat or wherever and don't have to deal with extra cards. Creating folders is a snap and things are organized easily.
Questions? Fire away.
Forget something? Let me know.
Hope this helps...
Here's the short version:
For my mom and sister.
The brief: No photo capacity necessary. Use at gym, on commute, in painting studio. Needed small unit but with good storage capacity so didn't have to muck with reloading all the time. Easy to use as neither wants to mess with anything that would be harder than the cd player to use.
The winner: Creative Zen Micro 5GB
cost: about $240 ish
Pros:
- small & light weight...same size, but different dimensions, as the Ipod mini...very comfortable to hold & use; scrolling etc felt natural and none of us had to distort our fingers/hands to make things work
- 5GB instead of 4GB with the I-mini for the same or less $$ depending on where you shop
- great colour selection...each got the colour they wanted, it's not important, but it is fun
- easy to download to
- easy to use...the pad does take a bit of getting used to but we all got the hang of it after fiddling a few minutes
- great display, very easy to read and well lit
- excellent battery life
- ear buds don't completely suck...probably need to upgrade eventually but were fine and dandy for initial uses
- easy to navigate
- easy to organize
- FM radio
- tough little unit
Cons:
- the pad can be a bit touchy, but it isn't a big deal so far
- can only load from a computer, not directly from any source, but this is pretty standard.
Other:
- fits pretty sweetly into an Ipod Mini case bought at Best Buy. Access to all controls and the headphone jack.-has an arm band that both say works great for working out, walking etc
For me
The brief: small; 20GB or more capacity; memory card slot; download from any source; colour monitor; movie playback
The winner: Archos Gmini 400 20GB
Cost: about $330; I think they are even less now four weeks later
Pros:
- small, virtually the same as the Ipod
- lovely screen
- super easy to download to
- fast downloads
- memory card slot works a treat; has a door on it to keep out dust etc
- good battery life so far; haven't tried with video yet
- easy to create playlists, new folders for photos etc
- simple download from any audio player...cd walkman, stereo etc - perfect for grabbing those disks when you don't have the computer handy etc this is a featuer I used a lot on my first Archos unit and expect to use with this one, too
- battery can be replaced if necessary
- looks too cool...asked quite a few times about the unit and always got oohs and aahhs and wow, I gotta get one of those! My seatmate on one flight was not happy when he tinkered with it...he had just plunked down the readies for an Ipod
- charges fast
- easy to use, buttons good size and out of the way
- have to hold the "off" button down for a few seconds to shut machine off. I like this as it avoids those accidental bumps that can turn other machines off when you didn't mean to.
- good navigation options and pretty self-explanatory
- excellent resume feature...you can leave this thing off for days and hit the resume button and presto it starts from wherever you shut it down last time. I like this as I use shuffle mostly and it doesn't seem to replay the same songs I started with the last time...I know that is all random, but I still like it. I also like it if I am just cruising an album or artist as I get the whole folder then, not just repeats.
- light and so far jog proof...I clip it to the Y on my sport's top and go. Doesn't tug or fall off (cross fingers here). Actually feels secure and didn't find any movement when attached.
Cons:
- screen not as high quality as the Epson, but I didn't need that and the Epson is larger. Size won for my needs. And this screen is still nice. Very bright, nice colours. Perfectly good for most uses...family was impressed when I showed them jpegs.
- no RAW viewing. No other machine supports Oly Raw as of now (or when I bought) so this was a non-issue for me anyway.
- comes with no case and the one from Archos that I bought lacks a clear plastic bit where the screen is. The case will protect from bumps and scratched from other items, but it won't protect from little sand grains etc. This is a flaw for my usage and I really would love to find another case. But this one will work for now. It also only has a belt clip. So far it is fine, but I would like to see something a little more secure...a proper case is my new quest!
- some days too many choices and I forget exactly what I want to do, but that's a blonde thing!
Other:
- viewing my RAW images turned out to be a bit of a non-issue for me. I do not intend to use this device for that purpose. I do use it to download my images from memory card so I can clear the card. It is very easy and fast to load the images from the memory card to the Gmini and then from the Gmini to the computer. This is perfect for me...I don't have to take the laptop on the boat or wherever and don't have to deal with extra cards. Creating folders is a snap and things are organized easily.
Questions? Fire away.
Forget something? Let me know.
Hope this helps...
