Archos Gmini 220

Cut-price sounds from the latest iPod challenger

To turn heads with an MP3 hard-disk player, you have to make it small. In this department, the Gmini 220 really is light years ahead of previous players from Archos, but crucially it's even relatively petite by the standards of the iPod.

The other bonus is the massive 2.5-inch mono LCD that fi lls up most of the front fascia. Such brownie points, however, are cancelled out by the design - it's so boring.

Still, this 20GB player is nothing if not versatile. As well as being able to play MP3 and WMA files, you can use this jack of all trades as a voice recorder and MP3 encoder. There's also a CompactFlash memory card slot on the left-hand side, so you can quickly offload pictures onto the hard disk from your camera. Images can be viewed on the LCD, but - as it's only a mono unit - doing so is of limited use.

Despite all the extra features, the Archos still loses out to Apple's iPod in the usability stakes.

The interface, although good, isn't as polished as the iPod's, and there are some major annoyances - you have to update the track library on the device's hard disk manually in MusicMatch after transferring fi les across. The unit also locked up a number of times during our test period, and battery life was only around eight hours.

It may not tempt the style-conscious away from Apple, but for those who are a little bit more tech-savvy, this represents good value for money.