Games, Tunes and Video to Go

By Sean Gregory

Steve Jobs, ceo of Apple, argues that people won't watch movies on (very) small screens. Other companies are betting they will. So, will the new set of portable video players (PVPS), or "video iPods," that are flooding the market catch on like Apple's music gizmo? The Gmini400 from Archos, the French electronics company, speaks well for the pvp's future: the smallest such device, it can store as much as 80 hours of video and 200,000 digital photos, and lets the user play video games--all on a 2.2-in. color lcd screen. At $399, the Gmini400 can also carry 300 hours of music. "It's a sleek, trendy product with a very attractive price point," says Vamsi Sistla, an analyst at ABI Research. "But we think the market will trend towards nonentertainment uses, [adding] applications like videoconferencing." So bosses could track workers on their portable players? Perhaps the iPod is just fine as is. --By Sean Gregory