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Handhelds Media Music Hardware

Gateway Portable MP3 Player 284

Posted by michael from the black-and-white-spots-optional dept.
dcsmith writes "Gateway has announced the Gateway Digital Audio Player, a 1.5-ounce USB device that also provides portable storage and voice recording. The device is curently available in a 128MB model priced at $129.99, with a 256MB model priced at $169.99 scheduled to debut on 14 August." The Gateway store has a picture. No mention of DRM.
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Gateway Portable MP3 Player More

Gateway Portable MP3 Player

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  • Well, 20GB external USB 2.0 hard drives tend to run about $150 USD, like this one: Archos MiniHD [buy.com]

    A decent MP3 player, 128MB with FM/AM tuner, tends to run between $100-130 USD: iRock 830 [buy.com]

    So basically, this Gateway offering is no more impressive then your run-of-the-mill 128MB MP3 player. All it adds is voice recording and the ability to use it for portable storage (which is handy, but at only 128-256MB doesn't impress me enough to buy it). However, you could buy a 20GB portable USB HDD and any other 128MB

    • Re:Put into perspective (Score:5, Informative)

      by kmak ( 692406 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:51PM (#6620361)
      In fact, the Archos Jukebox records as well, and the newer versions have a little movie player!

      Ya, when I saw the specs, the first thing on my mind was, "What were they thinking?"

      Truly two years too late..

    • Re:Put into perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:58PM (#6620429) Journal
      For 250 bucks I can get a gig of SDRam for my PDA/Smartphone which can play mp3s.

      Whoopity do. This article was only posted so michael could add his "wah wah DRM" comment to the end.

      It's not really news or at all thrilling, just another in a sea of "me too" products.
      • For 250 bucks I can get a gig of SDRam for my PDA/Smartphone which can play mp3s.
        How fast does this kill the battery?
      • Regarding DRM, here is what I read in the article;

        I looked between the lines as always looking for what they are not saying. I found it.. It says Write and Delete files. That takes care of the serial copy problem. It does not say READ. My between the lines discovery indicates there will be no way to get the MP3's back off the device except delete them.

    • your perspective is skewed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SweetAndSourJesus ( 555410 ) <JesusAndTheRobot@yahoo . c om> on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:59PM (#6620446)
      These are Gateway customers we're talking about. Basically, people who have no idea how to buy a computer or computer accessories. When a friendly Gateway sales representative says "would you like to throw in an mp3 player for just $129.99?", lots of people are going to go for it.

      • Re:your perspective is skewed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dr.badass ( 25287 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:51PM (#6621978) Homepage
        When a friendly Gateway sales representative says "would you like to throw in an mp3 player for just $129.99?", lots of people are going to go for it.

        Good.

        No, really. I'm all for the proliferation and popularity of easy-to-use MP3 players. But they aren't going to be as ubiquitous as CD players until they get as cheap, as simple, and as rugged.

        Most of the people here are obviously saying "It sucks, the iPod/Zen/Archos is better.". Well, yeah, but not everyone needs the power of one of those enough to justify spending $300 or so on it.

        If you could get a car that does everything you need for $20,000, are you an idiot for not spending $40,000 on one that's "better"?
    • An 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive is $100 [coolerexpress.com] (just an example, there's many, many more for a similar price, check http://www.pricewatch.com [pricewatch.com])

      Anyone who's paying $150 for a 20GB drive is throwing their money away.

  • No more music hardware technology updates... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DeltaSigma ( 583342 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:51PM (#6620356) Journal
    ...until the blurb includes "ogg vorbis."

  • NEWS FLASH! (Score:2, Informative)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) *
    Every company under the sun makes an el cheapo MP3 player. Even Nike!

  • Trying to figure out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stinkwinkerton ( 609110 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:53PM (#6620369)
    Why this is frontpage news? Is it the size or is it the fact that is records voice as well? I'm not trolling, really honestly trying to figure out what the supercool part is.

  • Oh yeah, this'll dethrone the iPod (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alexander ( 8916 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:53PM (#6620372) Homepage
    What Product Manager OK'd this?

    Imagine, People at Gateway actually sat around a table with a white board in a conference room someone that probably smelled like day old coffee and stale garlic bagels, and thought that this functionality, at these prices (!) would launch Gateway competitively into the MP3 player market.

    It makes the mind hurl...
    • There are tons of MP3 players out there, the iPod is just one more player. This gateway device is firmly in the middle of the pack, not any more or less competitive then other devices out there...
    • No, it was:

      "Muvo says we can license their player for a few bucks."

      "Oh, cool. Then we could put it in the gateway store with some huge markup and fleece morons."

      "Right on. Should be done in a week."

  • looks like a repackaged muvo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by utexaspunk ( 527541 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:53PM (#6620374)
    looks like a repackaged version of creative's muvo, which means it uses its own proprietary USB key that has the controls on it. why can't someone make a little mp3 player that is basically the buttons and headphone jack into which one plugs an ordinary USB-keydrive? that way one could keep a couple keydrives around and swap them.

  • Gateway Recommended (Score:3, Funny)

    by super-momo ( 691644 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:54PM (#6620390)
    so Gateway products have two categories. Gateway recommended and Gateway not recommended.

  • Shows up as a Drive letter (Score:4, Informative)

    by sker ( 467551 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:56PM (#6620405) Homepage Journal
    The article doesn't mention DRM because there isn't any to speak of. The device shows up as a drive letter and any MP3 or WMA in the music folder is seen by the player. It doesn't even ship with any special software aside from a voice file converter and an icon editor... pretty decent.
    • From the info provided I expect it will work with any OS than has USB storage drivers.
    • that probably(99% chance) means that it works with Linux 2.4, OS X, etc.

      Having an MP3 player act as a usb drive has the advantages of being cheaper, easier to develop, and multi-platform compatible.
    • Then it was not. Later Rio's claimed that the drag and drop features would not work and that you had to use their silly client. So, USBFS can be gimped by M$, now or in the future through some kind of WMP "update". Did you try using it before you loaded those inocent looking voice file converter and icon editor software packages? If not, I would not say this thing is DRM free.

      Any USB device is suspect, as far as I'm concerned. At a honking 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), they might as well have u

      • I noticed the article mentioned Write and Delete files. Somehow, Read seems to have been missed. Can you realy drag MP3's off the device?

        If you can't, that would take care of any legal entanglements regarding serial copy control.

  • Price.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by I_am_Rambi ( 536614 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:57PM (#6620413) Homepage
    Why spent $170 for 256 megs of space? I can spent less than double and get a faster transfer (firewire compared with USB 1.1) and 10 gigs of space with an iPod [apple.com]. That just doesn't make cents. An iPod is a much better deal.

    • Re:Price.... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SunBug ( 31218 )
      Or you could opt for a Creative Nomad Zen [nomadworld.com] that has 2x the storage of your iPod, costs less than any iPod, and has Creative's legendary sound quality.

      If you really must have the nifty white look, there is the Creative Zen NX [nomadworld.com] that holds 30 GB and has even more features.
      • Those do look pretty sweet. Some drawbacks: software seems to be windows-dependent; no firewire (except on a 20G version that also has USB 1.1); also as an OS X user I will tolerate nothing less than seamless integration with iTunes. My 20g iPod was stolen by LAX security recently, so I'm in the market and looking around at other players, since I don't really want to spend another $500.... But honestly I don't see anything out there topping the ipod for my needs. The one thing I want that the ipod does

    • Re:Price.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @06:14PM (#6620596)
      Two Reasons
      1.Size
      2.Battery Life

      1.Is the iPod the size of your thumb? No, only solid-state mp3 players are.

      2.Does the iPod use a single AAA battery for 12 hours? No, only solid-state mp3 players do.
    • Size battery and shock resitance. Nothing beats Solid state flash memory for shock (as in impact) resistance. It is not practical for the unit to be any smaller. There are a number of applications where this is better.
    • Many people have given you excellent reasons, but they skipped one: Compatibility.

      With USB storage, you can be virtually assured that wandering up to a strange computer will allow you to load the files. Firewire isn't common enough for that to be a safe assumption.

  • Missing features (Score:5, Funny)

    by nother_nix_hacker ( 596961 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:57PM (#6620418)
    No mention of DRM
    Does DRM have better sound quality than MP3?

  • What the appeal is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LamerX ( 164968 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:57PM (#6620420) Journal
    The appeal is the size. Look at it, it's 128mb and 1.5 ounces. It's so super light, it could actually be put into your pocket without a big square lump. I haven't seen a lot of MP3 players, but this looks to be one of the smaller ones out there. And the fact that it can double as your geek-kit-driver-holder is pretty neat.
    • When you can get 1.5 ounces of weed for the same price, it's hard to justify buying the MP3 player. ;)
    • How about this one [mpio.com]. Not only is it same size, weight, and price, but it supports an FM tuner and FM recording as well, which the Gateway does not.

      It also supports the Mac, which I don't expect the Gateway to do, either.
    • There are several that are this size or smaller. I have the 256MB iAudio CW200 that is 40g(1.4oz). It is GREAT for loading up the 'Rocky III' soundtrack and some other tunes and going out for a 10k run.
    • With stated dimensions of 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), either you have a different idea of a lump in your pocket or you have bigger pockets than me.

    • Do the math (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:08PM (#6621633)
      The appeal is the size. Look at it, it's 128mb and 1.5 ounces.

      Math time, kids!

      128/1.5 = 85 MB per oz
      10240/5.6 = 1826 MB per oz

      Oh, but it's cheaper, you say?

      128/129 = ~ 1MB/$1
      10240/299 = ~ 34MB/$1

      Thanks for playing. The Gateway player is just Yet Another Mp3 Player; the non-hard-drive players are all pretty damn small and light. Some are cheaper than this, too. And no DRM.

      I agree with the other posters- it's completely yawn-inspiring, and reminds me of all the other suspcious stories we've been seeing recently...like that Tivo-like unit that randomly got three paragraph's worth on the front page for no apparent reason. When are slashdot editors going to realize they're being taken advantage of?(I'm politely assuming they're not doing product placements).

  • I Pod (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lostinchicago ( 692439 )
    Im not even a mac fan and ide rather buy an ipod.

  • I'll take a look when... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PeteyG ( 203921 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @05:59PM (#6620440) Homepage Journal
    I'll take a look at this as soon as it gets to 5 gigs in capacity.

    If it gets to 10, then I'll really start paying attention, and start comparing it to the iPod.

    But sheesh. If you've experienced a player with capacity measured in gigs, then it's hard to seriously consider devices that are measured in (albiet high) megabytes.

    256 megs? I couldn't fit more than 3 albums and a few big audiobooks on that. Which is still a lot, I guess... But still not nearly as wonderfully flexible as my 15 gig iPod.

    Helluva lot cheaper though!
    • Hows jogging, or any other impact sport, with your ipod?

      Thats what I thought....
      • Hows jogging, or any other impact sport, with your ipod?

        I've never heard my ipod skip or had a problem with it.

        I've dropped it twice on the treadmill while jogging (non-consecutively) before i bought a case for working out. Must be that huge [caller2.com] 32meg buffer. The new ones are very light as well, though not near as light as the Gateway. I happen to wear mine around my bicep with an arm band (just un-velcro the cover) [marware.com] that leaves it easily accessible to switching tracks, virewing the name of a song, etc. No p

      • I think the iPod prevents problems with this by storing like a half hour of music in cache, so even jiggling the hard drive has no effect on playback.
      • Dude, you should borrow one. My iPod has never skipped - and I drive on Michigan roads...

        The iPod precaches 20+ minutes of music in RAM - effectively making it a solid state player.

    • "But still not nearly as wonderfully flexible as my 15 gig iPod."

      A lot of people, including myself, use this during fitness training. A 10GB iPod weighs 158g, these units weigh around 35g. 158g is a lot of weight to have in your pocket if your are running several miles.
      • Maybe if you were in better shape... [said as he ducks and runs. Well, doesn't run because he's fat and lazy...]
    • iPod works okay during physical activities.

      The only trick is securing it adequately.
    • you sound like the guys that bitched about cassette players... "Let me know when they get auto reverse" sheesh, call me when they have T-180 casettes...

      If you want something that small that is like an Ipod then wait for fricking forever.

      and Ipod is a delicate LARGE mp3 player.... let me take your beloved ipod and beat it against a railing while it's playing... oops, it's now hosed. I cant take one of the memory units and if I dont crack open the case..... it still works perfectly.

      They are two differen
      • Delicate? You're looking at the iPod with blinders on. Get off the anti-Apple high horse.

        I've seen the iPod survive numerous falls - one of my coworkers is notorious for dropping everything of his, and I've dropped my iPod twice. No issues. No skips, no problems.

        Learn before you speak.

  • 128 meg vs 5 gig? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by azav ( 469988 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @06:01PM (#6620459) Homepage Journal
    Honestly, what good is 128 meg? This is barely a CD or 2 at high quality MP3.

    Compare this to the original iPod with 5 Gig of storage.

    Seems like it's only good for short trips to the gym but not much else.

  • Plenty of these... (Score:5, Informative)

    by LamerX ( 164968 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @06:02PM (#6620473) Journal
    There are TONS of other small mp3 players like this... it's really nothing new...

    RipFlash http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 06RVH3/104-5806291-7855108?v=glance&me=ATVPDKIKX0D ER

    Irock 520
    http://hardwarecentral.dealtime.com/dealtime2 000/R eviews/product/read_product/1,7235,3310,00.html

    Sony NW MS9
    http://sudhian.dealtime.com/xPR-Sony_NW_MS9

    The list goes on and on...

    Just search google... Like I did....

  • Just in time! (Score:5, Funny)

    by amorico ( 40859 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @06:04PM (#6620497)
    A friend of mine called from 2000 looking for a state of the art mp3 player. Even at 1.5 ounces the shipping is going to be hell.

    -a
    • Funny you mention that. I hear they're teaming up with Sony for a "tape backup" system that will also be portable. I think they're gonna call it a "Walk Man" or "Walkman" or something funky like that.
    • IIRC, back in 2000, if you had an MP3 player, you were locked into using whatever crappy proprietary software came with it. And if you were extra lucky, you had to plug it into a proprietary USB cable, too.

      With this (and the Creative MuVo), you plug it to the USB port (no cables) and and it shows up as a drive letter. No software bullshit. Huge difference. What they don't say on the box is that this will work on MacOS and Linux just as easily.

      Don't act like this isn't a big improvement from the previ
  • Heard this [nomadworld.com] is a smimilar product minus the LCD screen. They make it a point to print "No drivers needed" on the box. Works like a Flash Memory key too.

    Anybody who has this care to comment?
  • I have one of the original 5GB iPods and still enjoy it very much. I could not imagine having anything less than 5GB in an mp3 player because I don't want to deal with changing out tunes every other day. As far as size is concerned, smaller size is better to a point. Like the palm OS watch, smaller can be bad. The size of the iPod fits nicely in my hand, it's easy to access everything and the weight is substantial - giving a sense of quality. I always thought the palmV was about the best form factor for the

  • Ok, we get it the IPOD is a great player BUT (Score:3, Insightful)

    by shaka999 ( 335100 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @06:26PM (#6620711)
    Can you do impact sports with one? Even running isn't recommended. For me, and many others, one of the biggest uses of a portal player is for running. While there isn't anything fantastic about the Gateway player it is in a different class than the ipod. Hard disk based players and flash based players shouldn't be compared on storage...
    • I do both walking and SOME running with one of the older iPods. There is something like 20 minutes worth of skip protection built in, which has always been plenty for me. I assume that the iPod buffers to some kind of solid state memory, but I don't recall the details. It's also my playback device for music in the car (fed into the car's audio system), and my driving has never been bad enough to cause a problem with skipping yet. :-)
    • Even running isn't recommended.

      Er, isn't recommended by whom? Apple's iPod FAQ [apple.com] (warning: low signal to hype ratio) says running is fine, and by my experience with mine, I'm inclined to agree.

      I do agree that a solid state player is preferable under some circumstances, but the iPod and other hard disk players I've seen do pretty well with running/exercise. I think the main difference in my mind is that it's much more difficult to build a small durable hard disk player than it is to build a small durable
    • No, I got my iPod for running. The first few weeks ran with it held in my hand, and have yet to have a problem. Prior to this, I ran with a portable CD player that advertised skip protection. The CD player I could make skip, something I haven't yet been able to do with the iPod.

      Last week, I broke down and bought one of them fancy fanny packs designed for the pod. Running with that is a dream, you could forget the ipod is there if not for the headphones (and this is where you really appreciate the wir

  • Gruvstick (Score:2, Interesting)

    by barjam ( 37372 )
    This looks very much like the Cenodyn Gruvstick. Apparently the internals of the Gruvstick are in a ton of products, I wonder if that ist he case here.

    The Gruvstick is a great MP3 player, for what it is worth (replace the headphones that come with it though).

  • Wow! (Score:3, Funny)

    by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @06:35PM (#6620799) Journal
    This is much better than my $100 CD MP3 player that holds 700MB at a cost of $0.20 per media and has never skipped even while jogging, thanks to loading songs into cache RAM and spinning down! /sarcasm
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • DRM (Score:2)

    by Remik ( 412425 )
    From the Gateway store:

    "Incredibly easy to use, this audio player requires no special software - just drag and drop music and data files directly onto the device."

    Looks like it works like the Archos, just like an external USB harddrive. There's no software required, thus, DRM is likely absent.

    -R

  • Apples and Kumquats (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tbase ( 666607 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @06:49PM (#6620945)
    I don't understand why so many people are comparing this to hard drive or CDr based mp3 players. It's like comparing SATA Hard drives to DDR Memory. Sure, the hard drive based players are a "better deal", but only if you're willing to cart around the extra weight, and aren't the clumsy type.

    Personally, I prefer my car deck that plays mp3s from CDr's, because I don't need to listen to music when walking from my car to my home or office (yes, I know, I should jog/bike/walk more, sue me). But I can't compare it's price or features to any other type of player.
  • With innovation like that, they should go back to their old name.

    iPod... the second-sexiest thing you can hold in the palm of your hand (I shamelessly ripped that off from a sig somewhere along the way)

    RP
  • What's funny about Gateway is that they think they actually have a following and a brand loyalty like Apple does. Apple caters to loyalty (not as much as some would like) - No one I know of says, I only buy Gateway!!!

  • Wrong shape/size (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thogard ( 43403 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @07:51PM (#6621500) Homepage
    This looks like the MP3 player I just got for AU$200 (US$130). Teh only place I listen to MP3s anymore is in the car and for some reason the car has a cassette deck. I've got a cheap walkman to cassette adapters but it makes me wonder why someone hasn't made an mp3 player the right size to fit in a car radio. With the right sensors, you could trun the tape direction control into a skip to the next one, and turn off when the caspin stops spining. That way I could take the MP3 player in to the house, load it full of stuff and when it was in the car, it would work like a smart cassette.
  • Gateway offers an MP3 player that essentially is $679.95 per GB of storage while Apple's 30GB IPod essentially works out to $16.67 per GB from Apple.com.

    Hmmm, seems like an easy decision to me.

  • Does it support Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com], like these other players [xiph.org] do?

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