LeoR
Forum Enthusiast
Hi all,
I've had my Gmini 220 for about 6 weeks now and I must say I am VERY pleased with it.
Have used it extensively for listening to MP3's (about 10 gigs loaded on board) and the sound quality is very good. The included earbuds lack any bass so you must use a better pair of phones. I use a pair of Sennheiser PX-200's for airline travel and am very happy with that combo. Still looking for a decent set of earbuds for use while walking around or exercising.
Recently went on a 2 week family vacation so put the Gmini through a good field test. It performed flawlessly. To avoid mixing up flash cards and potentially losing images, my rule is that any flash card that comes out of a camera gets immediately offloaded into the Gmini. When a card goes into a camera, it gets formatted. Simple and effective and I never needed more than two cards. A pro sports photog shooting 8fps would fill cards quicker than they could be downloaded, but this is not me
Set the Gmini up with backlight off, power down in one minute. Kept the Gmini and one flash card in a pocket and (obviously!!) had the other flash card in my 10D (or S30 when travelling light). When full, insert the card into the Gmini, three quick button presses to begin download and pop the Gmini back in my pocket to let it do it's thing. Pop the second card in my camera, format and I am ready to go again with very little downtime. When the Gmini is done it just shuts itself off.
Now, as an extra precaution, I would also note the number of the last photo before I pulled the card from my camera. When I had to switch cards again, I would power up the Gmini and use the browser to check that the last photo on the card had been downloaded. While not foolproof, it at least tells you the Gmini did not crash or run out of juice halfway through a download, although this never happened. Always a good check before wiping out the images on a card.
Battery life seems quite good. After a full day of holiday snaps (somedays up to 200 RAW images), indicator still showed full charge. Topped up the charge every night. Since I have had my Gmini, I've shot RAW exclusively as space is no longer a problem. If I was going to be away from power for an extended period, I would probably switch to JPEG to conserve space and battery power.
Quick tip for Canon users. When dumping cards onto the Gmini, dump them into the root directory, not the photo directory. When you get home and hook the Gmini to your computer, Zoombrowser recognizes it as a camera (same as when you hook your camera direclty to the computer) and it will (slowly!) offload everything into dated subdirectories. Works like a charm.
I think of the Gmini as a little freedom machine. I don't need to have multiple gigs of flash cards nor do I have to carry them around and keep full and empty cards separated. Not having to lug a laptop along on a family vacation (believe me, we had enough stuff already!) was great. Getting back to the hotel late at night and tired meant going straight to bed, not firing up the laptop and downloading a bunch of CF cards. For pros who must do daily reviews, edits and uploads, this may not be an option but, for this dad on holidays, it was great.
Two weeks, over 2000 images, not a single image lost or corrupted. So small you don't even notice it in your pocket. No laptop to lug around and portable tunes as a bonus. Consider me happy!
-----------
LeoR
I've had my Gmini 220 for about 6 weeks now and I must say I am VERY pleased with it.
Have used it extensively for listening to MP3's (about 10 gigs loaded on board) and the sound quality is very good. The included earbuds lack any bass so you must use a better pair of phones. I use a pair of Sennheiser PX-200's for airline travel and am very happy with that combo. Still looking for a decent set of earbuds for use while walking around or exercising.
Recently went on a 2 week family vacation so put the Gmini through a good field test. It performed flawlessly. To avoid mixing up flash cards and potentially losing images, my rule is that any flash card that comes out of a camera gets immediately offloaded into the Gmini. When a card goes into a camera, it gets formatted. Simple and effective and I never needed more than two cards. A pro sports photog shooting 8fps would fill cards quicker than they could be downloaded, but this is not me
Set the Gmini up with backlight off, power down in one minute. Kept the Gmini and one flash card in a pocket and (obviously!!) had the other flash card in my 10D (or S30 when travelling light). When full, insert the card into the Gmini, three quick button presses to begin download and pop the Gmini back in my pocket to let it do it's thing. Pop the second card in my camera, format and I am ready to go again with very little downtime. When the Gmini is done it just shuts itself off.
Now, as an extra precaution, I would also note the number of the last photo before I pulled the card from my camera. When I had to switch cards again, I would power up the Gmini and use the browser to check that the last photo on the card had been downloaded. While not foolproof, it at least tells you the Gmini did not crash or run out of juice halfway through a download, although this never happened. Always a good check before wiping out the images on a card.
Battery life seems quite good. After a full day of holiday snaps (somedays up to 200 RAW images), indicator still showed full charge. Topped up the charge every night. Since I have had my Gmini, I've shot RAW exclusively as space is no longer a problem. If I was going to be away from power for an extended period, I would probably switch to JPEG to conserve space and battery power.
Quick tip for Canon users. When dumping cards onto the Gmini, dump them into the root directory, not the photo directory. When you get home and hook the Gmini to your computer, Zoombrowser recognizes it as a camera (same as when you hook your camera direclty to the computer) and it will (slowly!) offload everything into dated subdirectories. Works like a charm.
I think of the Gmini as a little freedom machine. I don't need to have multiple gigs of flash cards nor do I have to carry them around and keep full and empty cards separated. Not having to lug a laptop along on a family vacation (believe me, we had enough stuff already!) was great. Getting back to the hotel late at night and tired meant going straight to bed, not firing up the laptop and downloading a bunch of CF cards. For pros who must do daily reviews, edits and uploads, this may not be an option but, for this dad on holidays, it was great.
Two weeks, over 2000 images, not a single image lost or corrupted. So small you don't even notice it in your pocket. No laptop to lug around and portable tunes as a bonus. Consider me happy!
-----------
LeoR
