Archos Gmini 402 Camcorder review

Average user rating

2.0

terrible

Average user rating from 2 users

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Archos Gmini 402 Camcorder user reviews

November 3, 2006

Posted by: Anonymous

"Nice video - shame about the product"

What I like:

The idea

What I don't like:

The product

Review:

Never have I bought a product with so much potential that has been such a flop.

I wanted so much to have a dedicated multimedia centre to free up space on my pocket pc for more business apps - so I foolishly splashed out on this.

Not only is the camera positioned in such an awkward place that you have to hold the Gmini with a difficult grabbing
technique, but there is no flash on it either - rendering it useless for much of the day. Added to this is the poor design of the shutter button, which is located on the back of the device. This means you have to push the device into the field of vision in order to take a picture, so causing unavoidable blur. How many other cameras do you see this on... er, none.

And then my biggest bugbear... after only 4 days usage (of taking pictures and camera clips) the access to the hard disk drive deteriorates rapidly.

From switching on in seconds, it diminishes to about 20 minutes... and now takes about an hour to turn on! And this with 18.5 GIG to spare! I dread to think how long it will take when I start uploading videos or music on it.

You can see why it has a 10 hour battery life as you have to switch it on in the morning just to be able to have it available to use when you most need it.

Want to quickly show your mates a picture/clip you took from yesterday? - forget it.

Archos... on the move!!! - yes - back to the shop I think.

I hate products like these that promise so much but are completely unviable as a usable device. Must have been designed by a group of techies with no end user experience whatsoever.

1 hour to switch on - they are having a laugh.