The Archos 402 camcorder
By Ryan Block 
posted October 6th 2005 11:55AM
posted October 6th 2005 11:55AM
Shouldn't be much news to ya'll by now, but now the Archos
Gmini 402 camercorder is officially official,
up on the site, and ready to snap 1.2 megapixel shots to its 20GB hard drive at your fancy. Like the
vanilla 402 before it, the 402 camcorder dropped the
CompactFlash slot in favor of USB On-The-Go (aka USB host), and plays back MPEG-4, WMV9 with WM DRM 10, and the rest of
the goodness you've come to expect from Engadget's Gadget of
the Year (2004).
[Thanks JC and booboo]
My only question is....
why put a 20gig HD in a 1.2 megapixel camera?
hopefully they'll come up with some sort of 3+MP camera with 20gig hd in it
because it's a media player with a camera tacked on, not a camera with a 20gb hard drive. You're looking at it backwards.
That said, there's no price posted on the site yet. grr...
D_X,
The 20GB hard drive is primarily for music storage. The Archos 402cc is a music player in the same category as the ipod. The camcorder and other features have been added to make it much more useful than the ipod.
Most people have never heard of Archos mp3 players. That is the major hurdle that Archos faces since the feature sets of their mp3 players already blow away just about everything else. How many people know that Archos makes the worlds smallest 20GB mp3 player (gmini xs202)? Probably not too many.
Spread the word.
Visit their site.
www.archos.com
iPod killer.
well, actually, anything these days beats the overrated ipod.
I would buy one of these if it had at least 3.2MP, oh well I will have to stick with my old FM Recorder.
And I agree with Tom W. on spreading the word, this are awesome MP3 players.
http://www.archos.com
4:3 just ain't for me.
If it ain't 16:9, I ain't buyin'.
Anything. Even vPods.
I agree that archos is an awesome company when it comes to the products it puts out, but i own theri pma430 and their support for it is total trash. Great products but be prepared to do all the know how yourself or search for it. of course that is half the fun, but not for most :-p
I had a first generation Archos multimedia device, with that camera attachment. It was pretty good, and I would have bought a 400, but for the fact that there was no capacity available higher than 20gigs. If Archos can't even hold on to early adopters, it's not promising for expanding their market.
That said, this is a slick unit and if they came out with one in 40 or 60 gig, I'd be all over it.
I've tried Archos three times. Never will give them my money again. Their concept of user interface is atrocious. If you live in the land of "add-up-the-bells-and-whistles," then sure, lots of things "beat the iPod." If you actually want a useable device, it ain't anything with the name Archos atatched to it. iPod killer. Yeah right.
http://www.generationmp3.com/index.php/2005/09/16/1462-exclusif-gmp3-preview-de-larchos-gmini-402-camcorder
Well, my Gmini 400 died earlier this year when the power brick shorted out. I contacted Archos and they sent me out a new player and new power adapter within 2 weeks, So I have no complaints.
The icon/folder based gui is a no-brainer. Very easy to navigate. Most people haven't heard of Archos, then that goes for Cowon, iRiver, Samsung, etc...
What kind of resolution do yoy get from the camera in video mode ? I'm guessing it's not too great. My 2.1mp cameras video wasn't exactly stellar, and my current 5.1mp camera is ok but not great. So basically this extra feature allows you to record up to 20gb (or at least the balance of storage left over after you load your music and movies onto it) of grainy low quality video. Which can be totally adequate for a lot of things. It's cool and all, I just don't think it's too huge a deal.
That said, I too have an old 20gb FM recorder. It's pretty good. Got it for cheap off eBay and it lets me record 3 days worth of 6 hour seminars I go to yearly (they broadcast it wihtin the building over FM so the hearing impaired can bring a radio and tune in with headphones). I just set the frequency, hit record and let it ride all day. Ain't no iPod can do that...
Think Different
Buy something other than an iPod...
Oddmanout, it can record in VGA. I´d think that would satisfy most people. And as to judge the video mode by looking at how many megapixel still pictures it takes... They really have close to nothing to do with each other.
While recording VGA to a big fat HD sounds nice, this is a really bad form factor for a camcorder. That combined with Archos' apparent lack of quality control, and I'm not even going to consider this one. The Xacti is looking good, though.