One of the first devices to do this in a meaningful way is the Archos Gmini 400, no half hearted attempts to bolt on a colour screen and make do with a pokey little flash storage  drive the Archos Gmini 400 boasts a 20gb 1.8" drive similar to that used by the apple Ipod. This gives the 400 enough capacity for some 300 hours of MP3 music and more importantly 80hrs of MPEG 4 video.

The Gmini 400 is clad in sleek silver and houses a 2.2" LCD colour screen which is used for all device navigation and also for viewing the video output, it measures 106 x 60 x 17 mm and tips the scales at 160 grams which makes it a little bulkier than the Ipod but not by much. From the early photographs the Archos Gmini seems to have evolved into a stylish gadget and most of the rough edges that existed in the earlier range have been smoothed off leaving a polished looking device which has an excellent user interface.

In fact what was the weaker element of the older Archos Gmini's (the UI) has been completely transformed with the new AVOS interface which looks more and more like a mini windows explorer the more screen shots we see, all aspects of the device can be seen through the AVOS interface and it makes MP3 playback and play listing a breeze.

Now we expect most users will be attracted to the Gmini 400 for its video replay, the device can handle MPEG-4 SP with MP3 or ADPCM stereo sound with a resolution up to 640 x 400 pixels and 30 frames per second, it can also decode DivX 4.0 and 5.0 and XviD. The decoded images are then displayed on the 220 x 176 pixel LCD screen which displays 262k colours, which should be ample for some mobile video viewing but does seem to be a low screen resolution when compared to many of the new "smartphones" on the market some of which will already replay video.

Audio replay is set to challenge the dominance of Apples Ipod, the colour screen interface is something apple decided to park for its 4G revamp of the mighty pod and this may be a crucial error, the ARClibrary view of the Gmini 400 looks fantastic giving an easy way to build play lists on the fly enabling you to DJ parties LP styleee and also a real favourite of ours storing album covers to help find the tracks you are after amongst the huge list of MP3 files.

Sounds good so far? well Archos always like to give you that bit extra and we are pleased to report that they retain the CF card interface for connecting external data sources via the optional 4 in 1 adaptor, despite being behind a rather flimsy flap on the rear of the Gmini it gives the 400 the ability to directly read photos from a Digital Cameras CF card. These can the be viewed through the AVOS interface and even zoomed on the 2.2" LCD screen, a really good way to review the days photographs and see what ones you want to keep, of course the whole card can be downloaded to the Gmini's memory which at 20gb will take a lot of images!

The Archos Gmini 400's disk can be used as a USB mass storage device with windows XP plug and play, the USB 2.0 connection gives a rapid data throughput and is also backwards compatible with the USB 1.1 standard for older devices. Battery life is not the best with approximately 10 hours for music replay and dropping to 5 hours for Video replay, the lithium ion batteries can be recharged via an external DC adaptor.

And for those of you who can't have a gadget without it having some eighties throwback games on it then the Archos gives you iceblox plus a range of games that can be purchase as extras if you feel the need? also on the options list is a nifty little remote control which also contains a FM radio, this looks like a good thing to have and its a shame that this is not included as standard.

So crunch time, why would you buy the Archos Gmini 400? the pro's include an excellent colour interface, good quality MP3 playback, CF card interface, 20gb hard drive, USB 2.0 connectivity, the downsides are an average battery life and a small screen for a video player and the lack of a carry case to protect the screen which we're sure will scratch easily.

But here's the killer for about the same money as a 4G Ipod 20gb you can have the Archos Gmini 400 which will do all the things the Ipod does, plus play video connect to your digi camera and its got a nice colour screen too, as always if you can see your way past the lack of the Ipod badge this looks like a real winner.

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