The XS202, the upgrade to the XS200, while improving only slightly cosmetically, has many improvements internally, and is well-worth the purchase.

I’m going to use Robert’s XS200 review as the format for this one, because I’ve never written an in-depth review before. Also, in addition to being a review of the XS202, I’ll compare it to the XS200 in the different sections.



Accessories:
Unlike its predecessor, the 202 comes in a normal box rather than the everything-proof industrial plastic of the 200. The graphics are the same found on the 202 product page on Archos’ site. The outer box slides off to reveal an inner plain white box. The presentation done, though, is nice, better then the 200, and somewhat reminiscent of the iPod. Under the black plastic are two separate, somewhat-hard-to-open boxes containing the AC adaptor on the right and everything else on the left. The adaptor itself actually looks a bit like the 202, which is quite creative. In the left box, we have the generic Archos earbuds with in-line volume control and USB cable. There’s also a quickstart guide, a paper reminding you to register, the US-specific warranty, a paper advertising Archos accessories, a tech support paper, and the EULA for the software (what that is, I’m not sure, since it’s UMS). Everything is in five or six languages (depending on what paper you’re looking at) which is necessary as Archos is big in Europe.

Only basic things, but then again, this is a basic DAP.



Design:
There aren’t any differences between the 200 and the 202 besides the latter being a bright, silver color which is quite appealing to the eye, and the back sports a different logo. Also, the sticker warning you that loud music can cause hearing loss, which was present on the 200, is gone on the 202. Perhaps they have research proving otherwise?

While the design is quite plain, I actually like it, and prefer to sacrifice design elements in favor of small size. The joystick is very simple to use, and with only three controls on its face, the 202 is the essence of simplicity.



File transfer/management:
The 202 retains its USB2.0 UMS interface. Just plug it into any WinXP or Mac computer, and it’ll be automatically recognized, drivers will be installed, and it’ll show up as a removable drive. Transfer speeds seem to be lower than the 200, at around maybe two songs per second, while the 200 transferred at around three or four songs per second.

The file navigation is quite simple, the same as the 200. You can either browse by folder as on a computer, or use the ARCLibrary to browse by id3 tags, sorting by artist, album, title, genre, or year. Files can also be deleted or renamed. This is the best navigation system I’ve ever seen, as you don’t have to choose between id3 and folder browsing. You can just have both in one device. You do, however, have to manually update the ARCLibrary. This will take a few minutes, depending on how many files are loaded. It will search for and add new tags to its database. This can either be done manually, or it can be set to automatically update whenever you disconnect it from a computer.



LCD:
The screen itself is the same as the 200, apart from gaining a blue backlight which provides very nice contrast even at low contrast settings. While I do prefer blue, I don’t agree with the many people who said the green was ugly. I thought it was quite nice, and not too bright that it hurt your eyes in dark surroundings, such as the white backlight on the iPod. The size in comparison to the unit is amazing, as the screen is as big as any you’ll find on a DAP.

There is also a high-pitched whine which emanates from the unit while the backlight is on, which wasn’t present in the 200. It can only be heard by putting an ear within one or two inches of the unit, though.



Graphical User Interface:
Many improvements over the 200 have been made in this area. Most of the GUI has been redesigned. When first turned on there are the same four icons as on the 200. The status bar has also gotten a clock, which is very useful, and should’ve been there on the 200.

Clicking on the “Music” icon will bring you either to the ARCLibrary sorting options, plus a selection to browse by folder. If the ARCLibrary is turned off in the settings, clicking this icon will bring you directly to screen that allows folder browsing.

The ”Browse” allows you to go the the root directory, which is just like opening your C drive on your computer. Scrolling speed while you are browsing tracks has been improved from the 200.

The “Resume” icon will automatically be highlighted when you first turn the 202 on if you are able to resume from the point at which you last left a song. A very useful function which I’m glad is on the main menu.

The “Setup” icon brings you into the setup submenu, which has six icons, as opposed to the 200’s four.

-“Sound” allows you to adjust the volume, balance, and set the EQ (which is called “Sound Effect”. The volume goes from 0-99 and can be adjusted in single intervals, giving you 100 possible volume levels, the most of any DAP to date. The EQ has five presets (Rock, Techno, Jazz, Classic, and Live), and also has a user-customizable five-band EQ called Custom. Clicking “[Set Equalizer]” will allow you to adjust the different bands (Bass, Mid. bass, Mid. Range, Mid. Treble, and Treble). While the 200 allowed you to adjust in single decibel increments, and had a range of +5/-9 dB, the 202 adjusts in three-decibel increments, and has a range of +9/-9. The modified range makes more sense, but the modified intervals doesn’t, as it allows you only seven possible settings for each band, as opposed to 15 for the 200. “[Reset]” allows you to reset the custom EQ to flat.

-“PlayMode” allows, well, adjusting of the playmode, what else, and control of the ARCLibrary status and updating. You can choose either a Folder (which will play the current folder, then stop), All (which plays all songs on the drive), or Single (which just plays one song. Also, you can choose Queue (think of it as a mini-playlist that can only contain two songs) or Scan (which will play the first 15 seconds of each song, while the joystick can be clicked in to play the current song in its entirety). The these five modes can be modified by setting them to either normal play, repeat (repeats songs) or shuffle (plays songs randomly). A note: the 202 seems to shuffle “better” than the 200 did. I’ve seen a more random play, while the 200 would sometimes pick three songs in a row from the same folder. The ARCLibrary can be set to Off (disabled), On (enabled, manual updating), or Automatic (enabled, automatically updates when disconnected from computer). There is also a selection to manually update the ARCLibrary, which is unavailable if the ARCLibrary is disabled.

-“Clock” allows you to…set the clock. You can set the time format (12 hour or 24 hour), year, month, day, hour and minute. Note that you MUST click “[Set]” for the changes to take effect. It would be nice if they were changed in real-time.

-“Display” allows you to set the language and contrast. You can choose from English, French, German, Spanish, or Russian (don’t usually see Russian as an option, do you?). The contrast ranges from 0-9, with four or five providing excellent readability. There is also a series of four shaded boxes, which, I presume, are to assist in setting the contrast.

-“Power” allows you to adust auto power-off, backlight, and hard drive settings for both while the unit is using battery power, or DC power. The power-off can be set from 1-9 minutes, and does away with the 200’s “never” setting, which I would have preferred to be left alone. Oddly enough, “never” is still available for DC power. The backlight can be set to stay on for 10-90 seconds after the last key press, and removes the “Off” setting of the 200, which I also would have preferred to be left alone. I used the “off” setting on the 200 to conserve power while in a brightly-lit area. The hard drive can be set to remain spinning for 10-90 seconds. Here, too, I would have preferred a “never” option, so I could set the hard drive to spin continually while using DC power, which would decrease seek time.

-“System” allows you to adjust “Show All Files”, and both the firmware and hard drive. Show all files allows you to enable or disable all files being shown (Enable would be all files, disable would be only mp3s, wmas, and wavs, which would be useful if you had other files mixed in with music for some reason).You can update the firmware, see the current firmware version, format the hard drive (don’t worry, it has to be confirmed before it formats), and check the amount of free and used space. It would be nice if you could view how many files you have, and total playing time of all files.

The status bar contains icons for, from right to left, menu availability, current play status (playing, stopped, paused), play mode, play order (repeat, shuffle, normal), volume, battery status, and a clock. There is no room wasted, especially with the introduction of the clock.

The play screen includes, from top to bottom, artist, album, song, file format and bitrate and sampling rate (all on the same line), song order which only shows up while in folder playmode (if there were 11 songs in the current folder, and you were playing the third one, 3/11 would appear), the next song to play, progress bar, and, at the bottom, from left to right, time elapsed, time remaining, and total time. As with the 200, no room is left to waste. The left/right channel bars have been removed, and the song order and next song to play are in their place. Next song to play was definitely a good idea, and song order has its usefulness. Whatever you think of them, they’re more useful than the channel bars, which served no purpose other than aesthetics. Also, the stereo/mono has been removed in favor of the sampling rate. If the menu is activated, you can also view full info (file name, size, date and time created, and id3 tag info).

The same split-screen mode is kept for making on-the-go playlists, which is very easy to use. I tend not to use it much, as I’m usually in shuffle mode, but it’s one of the simplest designs for OTG playlisting I’ve seen.



Sound:
I’m not much of an audiophile, so most DAPs sound the same to me. The 202 gets plenty loud enough, with 69-85 being adequate for most people. The volume still adjusts in increments of three. The EQ does help sound quality, but the 202 is not as capable of pumping out bass as my AV320 is. Still, sound quality is fine, and I don’t notice a difference between the 200 and 202. I’m sure the same audio processor was kept.



Battery:
Before I begin this section, I want to note a discrepancy. On the 202 product page, battery life is listed as 17 hours, but in the manual included on the unit, it’s 12 hours. That is just a typo.
With the 200 being advertised at 10 hours and getting an actual 9 (through my own testing, actual life 8 hours, 58 minutes), Archos has learned from their folly of overstating the battery life. I ran a test of the 202 with the same settings as the test for the 200 (total 10 seconds backlight operation, hard drive operation set to 10 seconds, shuffle off, repeat on, flat EQ, volume 69, varied tracks) and came out with a whopping 18 hours of playback (actual life 17 hours, 53 minutes). At 18 hours, which is one hour more than the advertised life, the 202 has the ability to outlast many current DAPs. Charging time is 3 hours.

The charging sequence has been improved, also. If the unit is turned off and plugged into the DC charger, instead of a single blue light for charge status (constant for charging, blinking for done) there is a graphic that displays on the screen, much like the one on an iPod. A battery displays, and four blocks inside it appear and disappear in sequence. When it is done charging, all four blocks remain displayed. In addition, whether it is charging or done, both the blue lights for power and charge remain constant.


Extra features:
Well, there are no extras. This is a DAP. It does what its name implies. I haven’t encountered anything else I’d want it to do, such as the iPod with its calendar and games (calendar in my head, games on my cell phone), the H10 with its picture viewing, or the X5 with its video playback. I buy a DAP to play music, and that’s it. I prefer simple devices to multifunction devices, as I’d rather have a product do one thing extremely well than 15 things with mediocrity.


Price:
The MSRP listed at Archos’ store of 250$ is high, as I got mine for 223$, including shipping. As of this writing, the 200 is available for 194$, and the 202 for 229$, both prices including US shipping. Both are very good prices for these DAPs, so you’ll have to decide between size or features. I prefer size.

Conclusion:
If you’re looking for a device that plays music, this is it. You get excellent playback, basic features related to playback, intuitive interface design, and high battery life. If you’d prefer attractive styling and features out the wazoo, you’re going to get something either larger, with less capacity, or a higher price. If DAPs were looked at as a whole, I’d have to say the XS202 would be near the top. It may not have fancy touch controls, or simple little games, but it does what it does well. It could sort of be regarded as the industrial DAP, one which chooses function over form. It won’t appeal to the average user, as they seem to care more about aesthetics than internals, as is evidenced by Apple’s sales figures. But, if one is not concerned with what their DAP looks like, and just wants something that plays music, rest assured, you won’t be disappointed buying this. If it underwent some cosmetic changes and gained a color screen, I couldn’t imagine any argument that could show it was a bad choice. I’m going to use Robert’s XS200 review as the format for this one, because I’ve never written an in-depth review before. Also, in addition to being a review of the XS202, I’ll compare it to the XS200 in the different sections.



Accessories:
Unlike its predecessor, the 202 comes in a normal box rather than the everything-proof industrial plastic of the 200. The graphics are the same found on the 202 product page on Archos’ site. The outer box slides off to reveal an inner plain white box. The presentation done, though, is nice, better then the 200, and somewhat reminiscent of the iPod. Under the black plastic are two separate, somewhat-hard-to-open boxes containing the AC adaptor on the right and everything else on the left. The adaptor itself actually looks a bit like the 202, which is quite creative. In the left box, we have the generic Archos earbuds with in-line volume control and USB cable. There’s also a quickstart guide, a paper reminding you to register, the US-specific warranty, a paper advertising Archos accessories, a tech support paper, and the EULA for the software (what that is, I’m not sure, since it’s UMS). Everything is in five or six languages (depending on what paper you’re looking at) which is necessary as Archos is big in Europe.

Only basic things, but then again, this is a basic DAP.



Design:
There aren’t any differences between the 200 and the 202 besides the latter being a bright, silver color which is quite appealing to the eye, and the back sports a different logo. Also, the sticker warning you that loud music can cause hearing loss, which was present on the 200, is gone on the 202. Perhaps they have research proving otherwise?

While the design is quite plain, I actually like it, and prefer to sacrifice design elements in favor of small size. The joystick is very simple to use, and with only three controls on its face, the 202 is the essence of simplicity.



File transfer/management:
The 202 retains its USB2.0 UMS interface. Just plug it into any WinXP or Mac computer, and it’ll be automatically recognized, drivers will be installed, and it’ll show up as a removable drive. Transfer speeds seem to be lower than the 200, at around maybe two songs per second, while the 200 transferred at around three or four songs per second.

The file navigation is quite simple, the same as the 200. You can either browse by folder as on a computer, or use the ARCLibrary to browse by id3 tags, sorting by artist, album, title, genre, or year. Files can also be deleted or renamed. This is the best navigation system I’ve ever seen, as you don’t have to choose between id3 and folder browsing. You can just have both in one device. You do, however, have to manually update the ARCLibrary. This will take a few minutes, depending on how many files are loaded. It will search for and add new tags to its database. This can either be done manually, or it can be set to automatically update whenever you disconnect it from a computer.



LCD:
The screen itself is the same as the 200, apart from gaining a blue backlight which provides very nice contrast even at low contrast settings. While I do prefer blue, I don’t agree with the many people who said the green was ugly. I thought it was quite nice, and not too bright that it hurt your eyes in dark surroundings, such as the white backlight on the iPod. The size in comparison to the unit is amazing, as the screen is as big as any you’ll find on a DAP.

There is also a high-pitched whine which emanates from the unit while the backlight is on, which wasn’t present in the 200. It can only be heard by putting an ear within one or two inches of the unit, though.



Graphical User Interface:
Many improvements over the 200 have been made in this area. Most of the GUI has been redesigned. When first turned on there are the same four icons as on the 200. The status bar has also gotten a clock, which is very useful, and should’ve been there on the 200.

Clicking on the “Music” icon will bring you either to the ARCLibrary sorting options, plus a selection to browse by folder. If the ARCLibrary is turned off in the settings, clicking this icon will bring you directly to screen that allows folder browsing.

The ”Browse” allows you to go the the root directory, which is just like opening your C drive on your computer. Scrolling speed while you are browsing tracks has been improved from the 200.

The “Resume” icon will automatically be highlighted when you first turn the 202 on if you are able to resume from the point at which you last left a song. A very useful function which I’m glad is on the main menu.

The “Setup” icon brings you into the setup submenu, which has six icons, as opposed to the 200’s four.

-“Sound” allows you to adjust the volume, balance, and set the EQ (which is called “Sound Effect”. The volume goes from 0-99 and can be adjusted in single intervals, giving you 100 possible volume levels, the most of any DAP to date. The EQ has five presets (Rock, Techno, Jazz, Classic, and Live), and also has a user-customizable five-band EQ called Custom. Clicking “[Set Equalizer]” will allow you to adjust the different bands (Bass, Mid. bass, Mid. Range, Mid. Treble, and Treble). While the 200 allowed you to adjust in single decibel increments, and had a range of +5/-9 dB, the 202 adjusts in three-decibel increments, and has a range of +9/-9. The modified range makes more sense, but the modified intervals doesn’t, as it allows you only seven possible settings for each band, as opposed to 15 for the 200. “[Reset]” allows you to reset the custom EQ to flat.

-“PlayMode” allows, well, adjusting of the playmode, what else, and control of the ARCLibrary status and updating. You can choose either a Folder (which will play the current folder, then stop), All (which plays all songs on the drive), or Single (which just plays one song. Also, you can choose Queue (think of it as a mini-playlist that can only contain two songs) or Scan (which will play the first 15 seconds of each song, while the joystick can be clicked in to play the current song in its entirety). The these five modes can be modified by setting them to either normal play, repeat (repeats songs) or shuffle (plays songs randomly). A note: the 202 seems to shuffle “better” than the 200 did. I’ve seen a more random play, while the 200 would sometimes pick three songs in a row from the same folder. The ARCLibrary can be set to Off (disabled), On (enabled, manual updating), or Automatic (enabled, automatically updates when disconnected from computer). There is also a selection to manually update the ARCLibrary, which is unavailable if the ARCLibrary is disabled.

-“Clock” allows you to…set the clock. You can set the time format (12 hour or 24 hour), year, month, day, hour and minute. Note that you MUST click “[Set]” for the changes to take effect. It would be nice if they were changed in real-time.

-“Display” allows you to set the language and contrast. You can choose from English, French, German, Spanish, or Russian (don’t usually see Russian as an option, do you?). The contrast ranges from 0-9, with four or five providing excellent readability. There is also a series of four shaded boxes, which, I presume, are to assist in setting the contrast.

-“Power” allows you to adust auto power-off, backlight, and hard drive settings for both while the unit is using battery power, or DC power. The power-off can be set from 1-9 minutes, and does away with the 200’s “never” setting, which I would have preferred to be left alone. Oddly enough, “never” is still available for DC power. The backlight can be set to stay on for 10-90 seconds after the last key press, and removes the “Off” setting of the 200, which I also would have preferred to be left alone. I used the “off” setting on the 200 to conserve power while in a brightly-lit area. The hard drive can be set to remain spinning for 10-90 seconds. Here, too, I would have preferred a “never” option, so I could set the hard drive to spin continually while using DC power, which would decrease seek time.

-“System” allows you to adjust “Show All Files”, and both the firmware and hard drive. Show all files allows you to enable or disable all files being shown (Enable would be all files, disable would be only mp3s, wmas, and wavs, which would be useful if you had other files mixed in with music for some reason).You can update the firmware, see the current firmware version, format the hard drive (don’t worry, it has to be confirmed before it formats), and check the amount of free and used space. It would be nice if you could view how many files you have, and total playing time of all files.

The status bar contains icons for, from right to left, menu availability, current play status (playing, stopped, paused), play mode, play order (repeat, shuffle, normal), volume, battery status, and a clock. There is no room wasted, especially with the introduction of the clock.

The play screen includes, from top to bottom, artist, album, song, file format and bitrate and sampling rate (all on the same line), song order which only shows up while in folder playmode (if there were 11 songs in the current folder, and you were playing the third one, 3/11 would appear), the next song to play, progress bar, and, at the bottom, from left to right, time elapsed, time remaining, and total time. As with the 200, no room is left to waste. The left/right channel bars have been removed, and the song order and next song to play are in their place. Next song to play was definitely a good idea, and song order has its usefulness. Whatever you think of them, they’re more useful than the channel bars, which served no purpose other than aesthetics. Also, the stereo/mono has been removed in favor of the sampling rate. If the menu is activated, you can also view full info (file name, size, date and time created, and id3 tag info).

The same split-screen mode is kept for making on-the-go playlists, which is very easy to use. I tend not to use it much, as I’m usually in shuffle mode, but it’s one of the simplest designs for OTG playlisting I’ve seen.



Sound:
I’m not much of an audiophile, so most DAPs sound the same to me. The 202 gets plenty loud enough, with 69-85 being adequate for most people. The volume still adjusts in increments of three. The EQ does help sound quality, but the 202 is not as capable of pumping out bass as my AV320 is. Still, sound quality is fine, and I don’t notice a difference between the 200 and 202. I’m sure the same audio processor was kept.



Battery:
Before I begin this section, I want to note a discrepancy. On the 202 product page, battery life is listed as 17 hours, but in the manual included on the unit, it’s 12 hours. That is just a typo.
With the 200 being advertised at 10 hours and getting an actual 9 (through my own testing, actual life 8 hours, 58 minutes), Archos has learned from their folly of overstating the battery life. I ran a test of the 202 with the same settings as the test for the 200 (total 10 seconds backlight operation, hard drive operation set to 10 seconds, shuffle off, repeat on, flat EQ, volume 69, varied tracks) and came out with a whopping 18 hours of playback (actual life 17 hours, 53 minutes). At 18 hours, which is one hour more than the advertised life, the 202 has the ability to outlast many current DAPs. Charging time is 3 hours.

The charging sequence has been improved, also. If the unit is turned off and plugged into the DC charger, instead of a single blue light for charge status (constant for charging, blinking for done) there is a graphic that displays on the screen, much like the one on an iPod. A battery displays, and four blocks inside it appear and disappear in sequence. When it is done charging, all four blocks remain displayed. In addition, whether it is charging or done, both the blue lights for power and charge remain constant.


Extra features:
Well, there are no extras. This is a DAP. It does what its name implies. I haven’t encountered anything else I’d want it to do, such as the iPod with its calendar and games (calendar in my head, games on my cell phone), the H10 with its picture viewing, or the X5 with its video playback. I buy a DAP to play music, and that’s it. I prefer simple devices to multifunction devices, as I’d rather have a product do one thing extremely well than 15 things with mediocrity.


Price:
The MSRP listed at Archos’ store of 250$ is high, as I got mine for 223$, including shipping. As of this writing, the 200 is available for 194$, and the 202 for 229$, both prices including US shipping. Both are very good prices for these DAPs, so you’ll have to decide between size or features. I prefer size.

Conclusion:
If you’re looking for a device that plays music, this is it. You get excellent playback, basic features related to playback, intuitive interface design, and high battery life. If you’d prefer attractive styling and features out the wazoo, you’re going to get something either larger, with less capacity, or a higher price. If DAPs were looked at as a whole, I’d have to say the XS202 would be near the top. It may not have fancy touch controls, or simple little games, but it does what it does well. It could sort of be regarded as the industrial DAP, one which chooses function over form. It won’t appeal to the average user, as they seem to care more about aesthetics than internals, as is evidenced by Apple’s sales figures. But, if one is not concerned with what their DAP looks like, and just wants something that plays music, rest assured, you won’t be disappointed buying this. If it underwent some cosmetic changes and gained a color screen, I couldn’t imagine any argument that could show it was a bad choice.