Another iPod Competitor 413
rael9real writes "NOMAD has intoduced a new player. It has USB 2 and FireWire (finally), and supports WMA and MP3. It has a 20GB drive like the high-end iPod, and supposedly holds more music because it supports WMA (though why someone would want to use WMA is beyond me). It *is* cheaper than the iPod, though. Looks like a definite competitor. Maybe it'll drive iPod pricing down." Update: 10/14 21:21 GMT by T : Note that the listed specs for the player mention only "USB," not USB 2.
From CDW, price is $399US (Score:2, Informative)
So it's $100 cheaper than the same size ipod, with USB connectivity and WMA capability.
Re:Maybe I'm blind... (Score:5, Informative)
The price info is pretty well buried. Had to "find a retailer" to get it.
guac-foo
Re:20 GB hard drive? (Score:4, Informative)
"Use your Zen to transfer files from your home computer to work or school by using the Zen as a portable hard drive."
And the price is the same as the IPod after "rebate" read 8 months to get your money.
It's not exclusive. was Re:Another thing... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gotta say it... (Score:5, Informative)
specs [nomadworld.com]
Nomads used to be hackable (Score:5, Informative)
I love my Nomad, with the exception of it's size (Portable CD player size), slow transfer (USB only) and battery life (About 2 hours), but this new player seems to fix all of those. As soon as it has been out a while and prices drop, I would definately love to have one of these.
Re:Another thing... (Score:4, Informative)
There's an iPod version made specifically for Windows--three of them actually. With a FAT32 file system, Musicmatch 7.1 for access, and even a 6-pin-to-4-pin adapter for the firewire cable.
http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/02q4/021003/in
A bit about the Zen (Score:5, Informative)
The Jukebox 3 is a hard drive based MP3 player, just like the iPod. That said, they occupy slightly different niches. The iPod is small and very portable. The Jukebox 3 is bigger, but it has much more battery space, recording capabilities, a wired remote, more disk for the price, etc. There are two different markets here, and Creative wants a piece of the iPod's pie. The Zen appears to be a Jukebox 3 without the extra battery space, without the recording features (expect through its external wired remote), without the docking station port, etc. It's smaller, more portable, and easier to carry than the Jukebox 3. It also does less than the Jukebox 3.
Truthfully, it's a wonderful time to be thinking about an MP3 player (especially hd based). Every possible configuration is out there. On the cheap side, you have Archos with it's video player. Creative has a richly featured (and fairly inexpensive) Jukebox and a less featured, more portable Zen. Apple has a very portable and light iPod that's also more expensive. There's a toy for every price range and feature set!
Numbers head-to-head vs. 20 GB iPod (Score:5, Informative)
Jukebox Zen [nomadworld.com]
specs here
Height: iPod =101.6 mm vs. Zen=112.6
Width: iPod =60.96 mm vs. Zen=75.9
Depth: iPod =21.34 mm vs. Zen=24.5
Weight: iPod =7.2 oz vs. Zen=9.5 oz
Display: iPod=160x128 pix vs. Zen=132x64 pix
Output Power: iPod=60mW vs. Zen=100mW
Playing Time: iPod=10hours vs. Zen=12hours
Re:Shock absorbtion? (Score:3, Informative)
They've got 512MB solid-state USB memory keys (think: DiskOnKey) that you can play audio/video from on your PC. I imagine it won't be too long before they've got a decent 1GB+ storage chip that someone could put into a portable audio device like this. I'd hope it would be cheaper too.
I've got an el-cheapo JaMP3 simply because it cost me $20. The 64MB MMC disk cost me another $80, so I've got a whopping 80MB of MP3 storage. Sure, I can shrink the bitrates down using DietMP3 and the quality's going to suck, but I'm not about to shell out $300 for an MP3 player..
Re:This is great and all but what about the softwa (Score:3, Informative)
You're obviously an uninformed zealot (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, how can a codec that's gaining momentum "fade into nothing"? It's not mainstream now, but neither were computers, UNIX, digital audio, etc.
Second, more and more companies are picking up OGG Vorbis support. Why is that? Well, let's see. It's a completely FREE codec that is continually getting better. It's supported by an organization that's dedicated to creating free multimedia codecs for use in open, free, and commercial use -- all without charging a cent. Most importantly, however, OGG Vorbis IS superior to WMA and MP3. If you think otherwise, try looking into some of the various [codecreview.com] listening [internet.com] tests [symonds.net]. Or check out Vorbis' Listen page [xiph.org]. If you're such a blind zealot that you won't actually test various codecs, you have no right to praise or flame any codec for any reason.
Grow up and leave the technology details to people who know what they're doing and talking about.
Re:lot's o room there (Score:3, Informative)
Although your music tastes may be very limited, many people like a VERY wide variety of music
Besides, a portable hard drive, as you propose, would require making the enclosure for the device larger
Also, the batteries may run out using today's batteries, but in a year or so
Have faith in technology
And besides, isn't it better to have extra space rather than not having enough space? This way, 99.5% of the people will not complain about not being able to carry their entire MP3 collection with them every where they go!!! (another good marketing tool)
Re:Gotta say it... (Score:3, Informative)
** Operating System/Firmware support & update will be available via www.NOMADWorld.com
(http://www.nomadworld.com/pr
It looks at though it could possibly be added if demand was great enough. This is just speculation though.
Re:WMA isn't *terrible* (Score:3, Informative)
There's plenty of (unofficial) Linux support for WMA. Both MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] and avifile [sourceforge.net] support most WMA formats. Plus, Crossover [codeweavers.com] provides a plugin for WMA8 that works just fine (granted it costs $25, but it's the best quality/buck ratio in the business).
DZM
Re:Copy Apple... (Score:2, Informative)
That said, I don't see how Apple "stole" anything from PARC. The two systems are pretty different.
Jef raskin been pushing GUIs at Apple for at least a couple of years at that point, and was already a couple of months into the Macintosh project. He had taken his Mac proposal straight to Mike Markula because the Steves had never been excited about his GUI work. In the late sixties at Carnegie Mellon (and long before Star/Alto), raskin did his PhD. thesis on object oriented graphic interface. He even called the system he described in his thesis "Quickdraw."
Steve Jobs got the idea for a new operating system from Jeff raskin and his Macintosh team who were busy developing one. Then he went to PARC to get a different perspective.
The Xerox trip was important to the evolution of the Mac in that it probably influenced some of Jobs decisions. In particular, the choice of a mouse as the pointer device, which raskin opposed. Raskin himself was pretty familiar with PARC's work. He had spent a fair amount of time there before coming to Apple and was friends with several PARC people. IIRC, there was a substantial gap between the PARC visit and Jobs' Mac coup, time he spent working on Lisa.
For the most part, the PARC story is just a Jobs authored mythology designed to paint himself as the spiritual father of the Mac. As with many such breakthroughs, the Mac was an appropriate implementation of technologies and design concepts which had been developing simultaneously in several places.
My guess is the licensing story is an embelishment of the truth that Apple had XEROX's corporate level permission to tour PARC sans NDA.
Re:Interesting....did they say Zen? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Shock absorbtion? (Score:3, Informative)
I can't speak about the Nomad, but the I have taken the iPod jogging, mountain biking, bicycle commuting etc... and have never had a skip. Essentially the iPod has a huge RAM buffer (can't remember how big, but something like 32 or 64 MB). The hard drive spins up briefly and loads music into RAM before spinning down again. This saves battery life, limits the damage to the hard drive, and keeps music from skipping. I looked at a number of MP3 players before deciding on the iPod and I must say I am truly happy with the iPod. The other bonus is that I can take the iPod and almost half of our collection of music with me with the 20GB model after synching it to our home stereo system (iTunes powered). Thats about 13 days of music folks and you can have road trip mixes, exercise mixes etc.... that can easily be updated before walking out of the house.
See scientia et macintosh [applelust.com] for more iPod commentary.
Re:OGG! (Score:1, Informative)
It is my prediction that we will not see a portable Vorbis player for a while. Anything that could play a Vorbis file will need to have a more expensive and more powerful processor, which will drain the battery much faster. This is a big compromise to make just for having the bragging rights of being able to say users can also play OGG files. Two extra hours of batterly life are worth a lot more to the typical user than the ability to play OGGs.
features (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The 20GB iPod is $499. [apple.com]
The Jukebox Zen 20GB player is $349 before the rebate, and $299 after. [creative.com]
Trolling or sleeping? (Score:5, Informative)
You forgot the most important thing (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, DEAD. The "standard" MP3 is not going to improve. Any attempt to improve it will be NON-standard. MP3Pro isn't MP3. Any 'official' enhancements to MP3 will be like MP3Pro--for profit. The MP3 "game" is up; Fraunhoffer and their ilk won't let the next goose that lays a golden egg get away.
Ogg on the other hand is free to change and evolve on it's own, patent free. Our idiot "MP3 is standard and ogg sucks" troll, obviously, didn't consider this. Nor did he consider the fact that major game companies are now using Ogg Vorbis for music formats (NWN, UT2k3, Serious Sam, etc), and NOT MP3.
Also newsworthy: There is alpha-level Ogg Vorbis support for the PhatNoise/Kenwood Music Keg -now-, downloadable from the PhatNoise web site. Looks like the Music Keg is the first one to market with Ogg! (at least for car players, anyway...)
NOT a 1.8 in. drive! (Score:4, Informative)
hard disk -- therefore the Creative player is about twice as big as the iPod.
Not only is this not novel (Archos has been using 2.5 in. notebook
drives in similarly-sized MP3 players for a while), it's also not a competitor
in my book.
Creative supports DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Features & Why OGG is not better supported (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Shock absorbtion? (Score:2, Informative)
According to the specs [nomadworld.com], the buffer is 16 MB SDRAM.
Re:NOT a 1.8 in. drive! (Score:2, Informative)
3 x 4.43 x 1.0 inches
Ipod is 2.4 x 4 x.75 inches
Wider, shorter and a bit thicker.
Alternative to MP3 players... (Score:3, Informative)
I really do wish Sony would get over the stupid DRM bullshit though, as that's really the only major flaw the NetMDs have. Well, that and lack of cross-platform drivers, but that seems to be a problem for a lot of portables. You can pick them up at Best Buy for around $150, but I'm sure with some online searching you could find them for a bit less. The discs are about a buck a pop, but when compared to flash media or a cratered hard drive, it's a steal.
Yeah, I know, a lot of people are going to bitch about how the format is closed and very much proprietary, but personally I don't care so long as it works. If you're just looking for a solid portable, take a look at the NetMDs. Yeah, 10 gigs of MP3s on a hard drive player sounds nice, but I'm not sure I wanna plunk down that kind of cash on something with as many sensitive, breakable parts as are in a hard drive. Aw well, any other MD fans out there?
Re:Trolling or sleeping? (Score:3, Informative)
A PIC16F877 doesn't have the power to decode OGG or MP3. They use a hardware decoder in the SliMP3 to do the actual decoding, the pic just handles the networking and display.
Also, I wouldn't exactly call a 20MHz 8-bit microcontroller "fancy".
Re:Shock absorbtion? (Score:2, Informative)
Shock absorbtion my @ss. Listen, the iPOD is great and I have one, but the 32 MB of "shock absorbtion" memory has got to be the *BIGGEST* mis-direct I have ever seen.
Depending on the encoding rate, the 32 MB can hold upwards of an *HOUR* of music. This has nothing to do with shock protection; generally 30 sec to 1 min works fine for this. The 32 MB is what gives the iPOD its great battery life for a hard disk based MP3 player. The iPOD's disk spins up, loads up the 32MB and spins down. If it had only shock protection memory -- 1MB or 4MB -- the HD would be spinning alot more (or all the time) so you wouldn't be getting the 10+ hours of battery life like we do now. To summarize:
32 MB != shock protection (well, for the most part)
32 MB = battery life extention.
Re:Features & Why OGG is not better supported (Score:3, Informative)
This is quite false. In fact, many of the required decoding operations (IDCT being the primary one) are so close to identical it hardly matters. Moreover, decoding of Vorbis is nearly as efficient as MP3 decoding (give it the same kind of optimization time MP3 has had, and we can revisit the statement.) Since WMA is closed, I haven't seen any good papers on WMA decoder efficiency, but I think there's little reason to think it behaves much different to MP3 or Vorbis.
And there's one key point that makes the CPU power argument fall flat on its face: Encoding into either MP3 or WMA, requires massive (at least to an embedded system) resources; espescially when compared to the amount of processing power needed to decode the same piece. The difference is several orders of magnitude.
If the thing can record and encode to MP3, (espescially in real-time), Vorbis decoding is a no-brainer. Espescially with a fully-integerized decoder freely available.
Frankly, I think the thing should have the following decoders (in order of 'significance')
MP3 -- The de facto standard.
AAC -- The 'new' MPEG standard (MPEG4), which not only encompasses MPEG4, but also RealAudio8+
WMA -- Pandering to Microsoft hasn't been bad for Creative in the past, and since there are millions who just use WMA because it's built-in to Windows, it makes sense to support it.
Vorbis -- The hacker favorite, but also lacks the licencing fees required for MP3, AAC, or WMA.
MP3Pro -- Less popular than Vorbis, but it has the blessing of Thompson and Frauhaufer.
Ideally, it should be able to have decoder 'plugins' that you download, and are stored on the disk with the music (ie. not in firmware).
Nice objectivity... (Score:3, Informative)
zen: yes, ipod no
radio
zen: yes, ipod no
S/N ratio:
zen: 98db, ipod: dosn't say
Re:Ipods are the only way :) (Score:2, Informative)