PC Mag harshes on Archos XS100

There are bad reviews and there are bad reviews. And PC Mag's take on the 3GB
Archos Gmini XS100 definitely falls into the latter category. The magazine hits Archos' low-end hard-drive player for, among other things, "mediocre sound quality ... marred by terrible earbuds" and the lack of a bundled charger (you can still charge it via USB). While we agree with some of the dings, we think PC's going a little too harsh on this one. Sure, it's no match for the iPod mini — which seems to be the review's basis for comparison — but given that the XS100 is smaller, cheaper and lighter than the mini, it might be better to compare it to the shuffle, in which case the 100 comes up looking a lot better, given that it's got a display, three times the storage and will support Napster to Go and other subscription services via an upcoming firmware upgrade. Put another way, for a street price not much higher than many flash players, you get a hard-drive player that'll still fit in your pocket — along with industry-standard cheapo earbuds that you'll want to replace anyhow.