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Olympus Preps MP3 Player With Cam & Color Display

Posted by timothy on Thu Oct 14, 2004 04:20 PM
from the not-a-killer-just-a-contender dept.
Portables Media Music Hardware
igrp writes "Japan-based electronics manufacturer Olympus just announced their plans to enter the HD-based MP3 player market currenly dominated by Apple's iPod. What makes this stand out from all the other 'iPod killers' are their players' specs. Their top-of-the-line 'MR-500i' model sports a 1,22 MP camera, a 3.7" color touch screen VGA display with a slick-looking red backlight, JPEG support and according to this German newssite weighs in with a battery life of 8 hours. No word on prices and availability in the U.S. yet."
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  • Useful for listening to tunes in the darkroom...

  • Sounds like too much integration for my tastes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Megaweapon (25185) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:23PM (#10529104) Homepage
    So you can take a picture of yourself listening to music? I've never looked at my digital camera and thought "gee, I wish I could plug my headphones into that!".
  • This product is going to be either hit or miss. The camera is only 1.2 mp, which isn't exactly fantastic. Let's hope that the music quality and features don't suck.
    • Yeah, if the camera is an freebie tossed onto the MP3 player, it may be ok.... though I'd guess most people would rather swap the camera out for some space savings. Then again I think the same way about cell phones, so who knows.

      However, if they actually charge extra for the camera portion they'll price themselves right out of the market.
    • Seriously. 1.2 megapixels, what's the point? They don't even need much space. Why no one has come up with still cameras of regular size that can plug in and download to an iPod is beyond me. There are cameras with built in hard drives though. OTOH video cameras are better off sticking with miniDV tapes, which hold about 11gb each. I suppose a camera specifically designed to hook onto the iPod might be a good idea too.
    • Neither wil stay there long and once cell phones (and mp3 players if this convergence takes off) hit the 3-5 Mp range (~2 years), the need for a dedicated digital camera is eliminated for all the point-n-shooters out there.

      It will be interesting to see how they will be marketed once this happens. Is it a camera with an mp3 player or vice versa?

  • Specialized devices tend to work better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PIPBoy3000 (619296) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:25PM (#10529131)
    For the most part, I've found that separate devices for separate functions tend to be cheaper, smaller, and more effective. Imagine if you had to haul along your laptop, camera, and electric toothbrush if all you wanted to do was listen to some music.
    • That's why I have a printer and a scanner, the all-in-one units are quite good but I wanted a really good scanner and a printer that could do a great job printing photo's. That's not to say there are not features that can be combined. I think music and video could go together well, especially with the larger hard drives in the players these days.

    • Re:Specialized devices tend to work better (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The-Bus (138060) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:46PM (#10529355) Homepage
      This is completely correct, of course. And the reason for this is that with all of these devices you need to make them as small as possible. Besides the obvious engineering feat of putting in laptop circuitry, camera circuitry, and electric toothbrush circuitry all inside one cellphome, the fact is, it just doesn't make sense.

      This is why, I think, there will never be a wildly popular laptop/pda combo. The PDA is supposed to be small. The laptop is supposed to be large enough to be functional. Then idiots like QOQOQOQQOO (or whatever that's called) make something in between that doesn't really do everything. I'd rather have a kickass music player instead of it having the ability to take crappy pictures as well.

      • Re:Specialized devices tend to work better (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bill_kress (99356) on Thursday October 14 2004, @05:52PM (#10529933)
        Actually, you brought up the biggest point to do this kind of thing. Most of these items have a certian minim usable size. Suppose you take a digital camera, to hold it steady it should be fairly large and have a little weight to it.

        So if you can take the same package and drop in a HD, all of a sudden you can reuse the controls, battery and display for an MP3 player.

        Same with a cell phone. Although the form is different, you can already have a phone that is way too small to use, so what are you going to do? stuff extra plastic in there?

        The reason for the complaints here is probably that they haven't found the right form factor yet, hard drives don't fit into a good cell phone form, and the cameras they choose are usually low-res "bonus" items, but these things will change.

  • Sounds like a great idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by wvitXpert (769356) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:29PM (#10529168)
    1. Find hot girl

    2. Ask hot girl to listen to song

    3. Take picture of hot girl's boobies while she listens to music

    4. Profit!

  • When in doubt... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BaldGhoti (265981) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:31PM (#10529188) Homepage
    Ah, the greatest electrical engineering principle of them all:

    Low on features? Install a shitty camera.

    On ANYTHING.

  • Here's the actual site for this device (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xmas2003 (739875) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:33PM (#10529212) Homepage
    www.robe-gate.com [robe-gate.com]

    Now how is your Japanese?!?

  • Prices were already anounced.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by keepper (24317) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:36PM (#10529249) Homepage
    249 for the 100i
    499 for the 500i

    http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1097689832. ht ml

  • Amazing! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Noehre (16438) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:37PM (#10529254)
    Now I can have a digital camera in my cell phone, PDA, digital music player, underwear, toast, milk carton, and pencil.

    We get the point, CCDs are cheap and small now. Isn't technology grand. Now stop shoving shit into places they shouldn't be.

  • Been there, seen that. (Score:3, Informative)

    by eddy (18759) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:38PM (#10529264) Homepage Journal

    MP3 player + camera + color display. I think iRiver already did that [tbreak.com].

  • I'd say this is the closest to an iPod killer I've seen so far. It's not locked into WMA but can play them if you have DRMed WMAs.

    Style is the killer part here... this thing just looks great. It easily competes with iPod on style... as llong as the UI is as easy to use as it looks...

    my 0.02
  • This is good write up from PC world dealing with the Olympus MP3 Player

    http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,53123,00 .asp

  • Did anyone else have their brain spontaneously go into Christopher Lowell [christopherlowell.com] mode when reading that press release?

    With phrases like "The m:robe brand derives its name from the fact that m:robe products can be carried anywhere, anytime, allowing users to 'robe' themselves in their favorite music wherever they go." and "Their white signature color reflects the timeless beauty of white porcelainware, which, rather than making a strong style statement of its own, tends to draw attention to the beauty of the flowe
  • Small disclaimer on the Olympus website:

    The information contained in this news release applies only to the Japanese market.

    This will probably go over big in Japan. CNET [com.com] has an article about how gadget-hungry they are there.
  • forget the shitty camera, what's the point of this? I don't buy the "cool looking" coment; I want my color displays to have white backlighting, not red. Why have a color display if the backlight is red?
  • Smaller, cheaper

    a 1.22 mp camera and a VGA screen don't kill the iPod, that is not what the iPod is for.
  • Until someone can come up with something equivalent of Click Wheel... Ipod has the best UI and it shows. When I'm running around with an MP3 player, I don't have time to use stylus to tap on the touchscreen nor do I have the patience to marvel at the color VGA screen in its full glory... just let me play music quickly and easily...
  • Adding additional feature to a good product would be a good idea, which is what Apple is doing to the iPod now. Making it great at one thing, then slowly improve it.. Trying to stuff a camera, mp3 player and digital picture viewer together isn't going to threaten the stronghold iPod have. Unless it does both of them better then the iPod does. And with a 1.3mp camera.. don't think it will do much.

  • Yeah, but does it do gapless? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by erik_fredricks (446470) on Thursday October 14 2004, @05:16PM (#10529638) Homepage
    My Rio Karma still trounces everything else, if for no other reason than the fact that it plays tracks back without the annoying gaps that every other player out there puts in. It's even smart enough to eliminate the tiny gaps that the mp3 format includes by default.

    Show me any other player that can do gapless playback, and I'm there. Until then, I won't consider any DAP that doesn't play back music the way it was recorded.

  • Wow, JPEG support, eh? (Score:3, Informative)

    by ScrewMaster (602015) on Thursday October 14 2004, @05:22PM (#10529689)
    What is the maximum data rate it supports for JPEG playback, since most of my JPEGs are recorded at 320 kp/s (kilopixels/second.) I know that some JPEG players can't play back images that are recorded that quickly.

  • convergence? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by StateOfTheUnion (762194) on Thursday October 14 2004, @05:41PM (#10529846) Homepage
    Why does convergence in the small device world so often seem to mean slap to vintage 5 year old technology camera on the device? 1.2Mp?

    What am I supposed to do with these images? 1.2Mp today is like including 8 track functionality or minidisc digital input on a stereo system . . .

    I think I'd rather pay less and have a smaller device that didn't have substandard features included . . .

    • Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Oliver Wendell Jones (158103) on Thursday October 14 2004, @04:41PM (#10529297)
      Because, if you're like most people, you carry your phone with you everywhere you go, and leave your digital camera behind - unless you know in advance that you'll need it.

      I use the camera in my phone all the time for those times when I didn't know I'd need my camera with me (i.e., a co-worker falls asleep at his desk and starts drooling).

      You need to shift paradigms and stop thinking of it as a full-feature camera being shoe-horned into a product and start thinking of it as the equivalent of those disposable cameras you can buy (because you forgot to bring your nice camera), only without having to buy anything...
    • Hey, us troubled loners need our coffee, too!
    • The problem with sticking a digital camera on another consumer device (like a cell-phone or PDA or, in this case, a digital music player) is that you have to make the optics very small and fixed focus. Which means you'll never be able to get very good pictures out of it.
    • I must genuinely be the only person on the planet who doesn't wander around going "Hey, wish I could get a photo of that". I carry a digital camera (a very small digital camera, I might add) to parties and events, and even then don't take that many photos, and it's not unusual for me not to take any.
      • that there are cheaper (possible) alternatives doesn't mean it's overpriced. the fact you (personally) don't see the benefits of some of the features (including things like designs) doesn't mean it's overpriced. i think the fact that the masses are buying iPods in bunches cast serious doubt on your (and many others) almost cliche-ish assertion that iPod/Macs are overpriced.

        if apple was once the dominating mp3 player but now on the decline, then your claim that apple is being stupidly stagnant holds water.

        • As I said, Apple isn't making poor business decisions, it's just unfortunate for the consumer that they leave out features. I also said the the iPod was overpriced *as compared to the rest of the market*... The average price of a player is much lower than that of the iPod. It's not a personal feeling that $300 (for the smallest model) is quite high, there are only a few other players that expensive. Most of the 20GB models from Creative, Archos, DI, Rio, Dell, Phillips, etc. are closer to $200. Just lo
          • You get what you pay for. Using an ipod is simplicity itself. You find the one song you are looking for using only one hand. You get synchronisation of your music with itunes, the best music cataloguing program there is. You get pretty good quality, pretty good service and a machine that does exactly what it says it does very well, no more, no less. You might be interested in ogg playing, fm radio stations and all that, but 95% of the market is not.

            I looked at everything in the market trying to avoid buyi

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