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.
Gotta say it... (Score:5, Insightful)
iPod fun not just music... (Score:5, Insightful)
And oh yeah...what about ogg? (sheesh)
guac-foo
OGG! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we just need to give OGG time to become more pervasive.
you confuse me (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhm, because it holds more music?
geesh.
If It Supports .WMA.... (Score:2, Insightful)
WMA isn't *terrible* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OGG! (Score:1, Insightful)
Ipods are the only way :) (Score:4, Insightful)
Any competitor is going to have to do a lot to beat Apples domination of the market.
If they do bring the ipods price down, it wont be a bad thing. Yes ill probably feel resentful cause i paid more, but what the hell. The morepeople that have iPods the better.
Oh and if you have a Windows Ipod, dont use the enclosed software, use Ephpod [ephpod.com], a fantastic bit of free software which is so much better than Apples bundled Music Match Jukebox.
This is great and all but what about the software? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:iPod fun not just music... (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple innovates? (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep clinging to the fantasy, that everyone wants to be as innovative as Steve tho.
Re:20 GB hard drive? (Score:3, Insightful)
To do this, why not just get a USB external drive enclosure for IDE drives or for old laptop drives(around $25-$30) and an old el-cheapo laptop hard drive from a computer show? For about $50, you can get several megs of file jockeying. No need to barf up $300 for an audio device to do this. Maybe to kill two birds with one stone, but just for sheer jockeying, it's not worth it.
guac-foo
Re:Why not Ogg Vorbis? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's because you're radically over-estimating the number of sales that such support would garner. I don't see any reson to doubt that the manufacturers do their homework and weight out whether adding such support would be a financial gain, a loss, risky, etc. A bunch of nerds on slashdot don't have access to the kind of market data that these guys have.
Or at least one would think that they are doing their homework. Is there reason to believe that they haven't? I mean besides a bunch of slashdot nerds claiming that the first manufacturer to build in Ogg support would be rocketed to the top of the heap through the sheer volume of previously untapped sales?
Re:WMA isn't *terrible* (Score:4, Insightful)
...or implements DRM measures to lock you out!
Re:From CDW, price is $399US (Score:5, Insightful)
With a 90 day warranty, instead of one year. Perhaps they have less confidence in its shock resistance.
A little of both (Score:3, Insightful)
I also like to record the MP3's at a fairly high quality so it's nice to have the space to store a lot of quality MP3's.
Of course, what I'd like even more is a player that supported OGG and loading software that supported bitrate reduction so I could squeeze more songs on the thing at a bitrate that made sense for a portable player.
Re:OGG! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not so sure about that. A large portion of the typical portable player audience is probably geeks. If there was a single popular player out there that was the only one to offer Ogg, I can bet a significant number of the millions of Slashdot readers would take notice. Maybe it would only cause a 2% increase in sales the first year, but would the extra revenue be worth the firmware changes? Apparently not, according to Nomad, but I think there is something to be said about being the only OGG product on the market with any sort of brand recognition.
You gotta remember too, when the average customer talks to a typical blue shirt at Best Buy, the salesperson will say "Well, this one gives you an extra hour of playback at a *higher* quality than the others." Even though the customer may have no clue what OGG is, the salesperson does.
Contrary to popular belief, that computer salespeople at Best Buy are not all nitwits. Most of them know what they are talking about but are hindered by corporate policy.
Re:lot's o room there (Score:2, Insightful)
I have an Archos unit upgraded to a 30M drive. It stays in the car, and instead of copying my CDs to CDR (so they don't get damaged) and carrying 100 CDs around with me (still not my entire collection by far) like I used to do, I carry my Archos unit. I don't worry about what CDs I want to listen to on a long trip, I don't worry about grabbing the stuff my son likes but I wouldn't carry all the time, I just have a single, small unit.
Battery time? Who cares -- it's plugged into the car.
So, for me it's a matter of better selection -- I really like knowing that if I get an urge to hear a paticular CD, it's ready for me. And if I want to play a CD for friends, again, it's with me. One of the two best gadgets I ever bought. (The other was a ReplayTV unit.)
Oh, and yes, the Archos can be used as a portable hard drive, but I don't have a use for that.
Sean.
Re:Copy Apple... (Score:2, Insightful)
> Hey now, Apple is just as happy to steal from
> other people (ever heard of Xerox Park?) as other
> people are happy to steal from Apple.
Yawn. This has been answered too many times. Please search Slashdot comments for
apple licenses "xerox park"
and you will have your reply (in there somewhere).
"His return is near..." Godzilla 2000 trailer
G Countdown: 15 days (www.godzillaoncube.com)
Re:20 GB hard drive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that there's anything wrong with that
a grrl & her server [danamania.com]
Probably no price competitor (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a common misconception that Apple in the business of selling hardware and software, much like people think that Nike sells shoes.
But Nike does not sell shoes and Apple does not sell computers. They are first and foremost Image companies, selling themselves -- they are their product. This is not a commant on quality, speed or anything of the sort, but it is on price. When you buy and iPod, you are first anf foremost paying for the the fact that is not simply a hard drive, decoder and DAC, but that it's a work of art put together by skilled Apple designers.
This is why Apple won't bother to match prices, because they don't need to. Though brand names may be little more than stories we tell each other, they are more than enough to justify a higher cost on an equal product. If the iPod does the same but looks better and has a better backstory, people will have little trouble justifying the extra cost.
So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OGG! (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I totally agree that
Re:Apple innovates? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, 5GB+ players existed when the iPod was released. But, the iPod is much more than that. I'm not privy to Archos' sales figures, but I imagine they'd love to have sold as many of their players as Apple has sold iPods. Just a guess
Why it supports WMA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well.. without even needing to think about it, I can tell you one huge great reason why this player supports WMA over say OGG.. think of all the new users of Windows XP (of which there must be millions) all discovering the new features, which includes the ability to rip music from a CD and store it locally on their machine. What format does Windows Media Player encode in by default unless you buy an 'Addon' pack from people like Cyberlink? Bingo.. WMA.. and as most people use their system 'as is' without changing settings, chances are there are a fair few users with a harddrive full of WMA encoded tunes.
Re:So... (Score:0, Insightful)
I *DO* want an FM Tuner. I can't figure out why no one else adds one.
Because radio sucks ass, that's why.
Re:Numbers head-to-head vs. 20 GB iPod (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, just like with laptops, size matters and weight matters, or else we would all be dragging around an Osborne-1.
How long before Apple gives up? (Score:4, Insightful)
So my question is this the end of their lead in portable electronic music? Sure, the iPod seems to be right up there now but how long before someone makes a product that is "almost good enough" but that is a) hell of a lot cheaper b) supporting the latest whims of the market (Ogg support for example).
Apple seems to have a bad habit of being a Dad: "Oh no, silly user! You don't need that! haha! Trust my judgement!" Then everybody goes off to more friendly shores. Any evidence they won't do it this time?
Re:Apple innovates? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, they failed to jump in and define a new market (e.g. the Newton). Instead, this time, they waited for a market to develop, saw what was needed (instead of trying to predict it all), and came out with a clearly superior product, albeit at a premium price. No, not as innovative as inventing the portable MP3 player, but still innovative product design.
Re:You're obviously an uninformed zealot (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Numbers head-to-head vs. 20 GB iPod (Score:2, Insightful)
VS. build quality of creative products - crap
Vs. customer service at creative - shite
Vs. UI of creative products - obtuse
there's probably more...
yeah, but what about the interface (Score:1, Insightful)
To list just a few defects.
The software required to transfer mp3's to the unit is amazingly unstable. especially if you use it for ripping. The slightest scratch on your disk will put the software into an infinite loop that drags your computer to a halt. All nomad products have used the same software so far, so no reason to doubt that this one will.
There is no way to have the unit randomly select whole disks while playing each track on the disk in order. This is a crucial mode for driving, in my opinion.
The nested menus are impossible to navigate while driving, forcing you to drive unsafely or relinquish the idea of controlling your mp3 player on the road. The Ipod suffers from this to a certain extent, too.
If similar to the jukebox 3, the unit is unlikely to allow access to the entire list of mp3's installed without building a complex playlist, which can only be done from their custom pc software. I recently uploaded about 5 gig's of mp3's that were not previously installed. I tend to drive with the unit in random mode. I got about 10 miles from my house before I realized that I forgot to add the new tracks to any of my playlists. This made it impossible to have any of the new tracks show up in the list of randomly selected tracks, since there is no way to add every track to the current playlist from the device interface, only the pc software. You'd have to manually add each disk (450+) to the current playlist. Random play can only be applied to a playlist. There is no way to tell the unit to play every track on the drive, which is a common enough mode.
You have 4 views of your material...artists, albums, genres, and tracks. If viewing albums, you cannot see artist name, or genre of the albums. How many albums do you have called 'greatest hits?' You must guess which one you are selecting. If viewing genres or tracks, you see just a list of tracks, once again, no album or artist information. I would want to use the genre view to shorten the search for a particular artist or album, not just to play all of my 'jazz' tracks. Dumb.
The transfer software can extract id3 info from tracks being imported, or it can make assumptions based on directory location (you specify how the different categories are represented by your directory structure). However, it cannot do both. I have a directory containing 60gigs of music, some of which were ripped with id3 info, and some without. I could choose either to import each cd separately, or force id3 tags to be rewritten on each track based on directory info. There is no way to tell it to use id3 info if available or write it based on directory if not. Stupid.
There is no way to cause the ripping software to emulate your previously established directory structure. It can import it just fine, but if ripping, it will ONLY create a top level directory that can be named after album or artist or both. I use a genre/artist/album structure, so after ripping, I must rename the directory, then remove the tracks from the library and reimport it from its new location.
So, the long and the short of it is that I absolutely HATE everything about my Nomad Jukebox 3, except the fact that it can accept a second battery, allowing 22 hours of play time without charging. This means I don't need to bring the power cord on a 3 day road trip, which is pretty cool. Also, the sound quality is excellent. The PC software and the interface to the hardware itself both stink. Stick with the Ipod, which, my brief use at CompUSA recently seemed to show, has a far superior interface, and I-tunes gets rave reviews for usability. Price is a drag, though.
Re:You're obviously an uninformed zealot QWZX (Score:2, Insightful)
Specs, specs, specs... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right, nobody seems to care about frequency response, distortion, output power, all those other specs that actually determine how likely you are to actually enjoy listening to the damn thing. Nomad vs. iPod, fine, whatever... does anybody have a clue which one actually sounds better? Or does that matter any more?