Problems with the Archos Gmini 400 and One-Year Later Review

I used to be the greatest advocate of the Archos Gmini 400. Now I am just disappointed in it.

In December 2004, I bought an Archos Gmini 400 from Amazon.com. With shipping and stuff, I paid a good $400+ for it. I bought it because it had a lot of great features: music, video, 20GB hard drive, picture management, and a full wav recording feature.

Please take a minute to note my RAVE Review of the Archos Gmini 400.

I also mentioned the powerful combination it served when you combined the Archos Gmini 400 with the Canon Powershot Camera.

I loved it.

But I got confess, it hasn't all been gravy. In fact, one month (January 2005) after I bought the machine, the hard drive crashed on me and I sent it to Archos to be fixed free of charge. But I was still glowing with love for this device when I got it back in March.

I am a musician. So one of the main reasons for picking this model was that I could record live shows with a machine that had no moveable parts. I wanted to record WAVs. Good quality recordings.

There is a problem with digital audio recording and the Archos Gmini 400. If you want to record using the internal mic, there is a revving sound that comes just about every minute when the hard drive runs.

To record using the line-in, you need an adaptor. I used the Archos Gmini 400 about a dozen times before the adaptor or the machine itself crapped out using the adaptor. So now the whole recording aspect is done.

The Archos Gmini 400 also has video problems. Namely, you have to convert the video to a specific format or else it won't work it all. Consequently, I've watched VERY FEW videos on it.

At the base level, the Archos Gmini 400 is an MP3 Player. And playing MP3s should be an easy task. However, MP3 Playing Problems seems to be how my player got screwed up in the first place. I was listening to MP3s fine one minute. Then the Gmini 400 shut down and asked to be reformatted.

So today, I finally called Archos tech support. They asked what was wrong. We tested a few things. Ultimately, they said, it needs to be mailed in to be fixed.

But here's the kicker. It will cost $120 to get fixed!

Well, at this point and time I've lost faith in the company. Yes, most everyone who buys an Archos immediately raves about it. But what about us who've only had it for a year and in that pathetically short period of time now have to pay $120 to get it fixed because the hard drive was a piece of crap!

Is there an alternative? If there is I don't know what it is. All I do know is that a one-year warranty is not long enough for the Archos Gmini 400, and if their other products are as faulty, then Archos isn't all it is cracked up to be.