Digital Music Player Overview 228
An anonymous reader writes "MP3 Newswire just posted its fifth article of its 'iPod Killers' for the holidays list. Most interesting are a bluetooth unit from Aiwa, Sony's Vaio U, and an Ogg/photo/FM broadcast record, flash unit from SAFA." See also I, II, III, and IV.
What is the future of standalone MP3 players? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems that ipod has the total "mental" superiority, as every MP3 seems to be compared to it.
One thing that I wonder about is the digital convergence, will iPod surve with so many the new Mobile phones containing MP3 player functionality. It used to be that MP3 player phones were far between, but seems that all 3rd generation phones will contain it as standard feature.
Re:What is the future of standalone MP3 players? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What is the future of standalone MP3 players? (Score:2, Funny)
Sweet, I wish I had a convertible, I'd be an ipod killer.
Yeah man, the chicks dig ipod killers.
Hey that girl over there's kind of an ipod killer, I'm gonna hit on her
Sorry, but I already have a boyfriend, and he's such an ipod killer in bed.
Damn, she hates me, that totally saved ipods.
Let's go to that new bar, I hear it's an ipod killer.
Yeah, I'll use my fake id, it's a total ipod killer.
oh my ipod killer, look out!
splat
(our heroes were wearing ipod costume
Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
Inevitably, something that wants to be just a "product A killer" lacks the originality that made "product A" popular to begin with.
Creativity can't be mimicked. I for one welcome any products that aren't easily defined by other products. The next batch of iPod-mimicking underlords, on the other hand, aren't so well-met.
Re:Mentality (Score:3, Insightful)
iPods are currently the most popular mp3 player (by far), so it's easy to characterize any mp3 player in terms of an iPod. I could just as easily characterize everything as a Nomad killer, or an iRiver killer, but less people would know what I
Re:Mentality (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they're not marketed as iPod killers, but I suspect they are conceived as such. From a business perspective, winning the MP3 player market quite naturally involves killing the iPod, its current holder. However, more vulnerable than the position of the iPod as the most popular "MP3 player" is Apple's position as the manufacturer of the most popular "portable media player." (Or possibly, "most fashionable gadget.") My point is that no "i
Re:Mentality (Score:2, Insightful)
What Apple have grasped and no-one else in the computer field has is what can be called "product love". That is, the complete opposite of product checklists. It's about real design, design orientated around the user, from both a usability pov, but also from it being something that they enjoy holding and keeping. Apple owners are like Morgan, Mini and Beetle own
Re:What is the future of standalone MP3 players? (Score:2)
If so, the typos, spelling errors and grammar malfunctions add immensely to them.
The only thing missing would have been a dupe of Christmas 2007 entered as Christmas, 2008.
Missing Headlines (Score:2)
January 2013 "iPod: 2012's hottest selling item, AAPL up 25%, Steve Jobs voted Time's 'Man most likely to be the Messiah'. "
No one wants their music player tied into a store. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think a lot of people would drop $200-$400 on a player to only turn around and go pay another $100 to fill it up with songs.
X2 MegaView (Score:3, Insightful)
iPod Killers? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:iPod Killers? (Score:3, Funny)
Design, (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon guys, give us something that's at worthy of competing with an iPod. I'll give you the first killer idea for free: make it just like the iPod but without the stupid glossy, scratch-prone plastic and polished metal.
It's been done (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called the iPod mini.
Re:Design, (Score:5, Insightful)
Geek toys - design unimportant, need 100 impossible to use functions that are cool
Upmarket - Stylish design, ease of use are the important functions.
Massmarket - Massproduced and designed things that have price as most importnt factor.
Ofcourse there are other types too, but most designs can be fitted into one of the three.
RE Story Choice (Score:2)
This "story," submitted by an "anonymous reader" (ie the author of the review), was a complete waste of time. It's nothing but a collection of PR gibberish copied from the product pages of the players being reviewed. There is nothing of any interest in ANY of the blurbs, no evidence that the author has even seen the players he's "revi
addendum to (2) above (Score:2)
Tungsten T3 + 1gb SD card (Score:2)
Decided I'd try one before I went all in on an ipod mini, strikes me as a lot of money to spend for something that just does music - and is very likely to be obsoleted in the near future by a 4gb flash-based iPod device.
It's shiney metal as well.
Re:Design, (Score:2)
It's not the iPod companies have to better! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's not the iPod companies have to better! (Score:2)
Not that big of a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
None of those compete with iTunes. (Score:3, Insightful)
iTunes is merely the interface through which the iPod shines. Nothing about the situation negates the strengths of iTunes->iPod. Or if you want an analogy here, iTunes is to DC, BT, Kazaa, and eMule as a phonebook is to a service directory. iTunes just makes all 200gb of music easily accessible, and the fact that you can synch all this music to the iPod makes the music on an iPod also easily accessible.
Re:It's not the iPod companies have to better! (Score:3, Interesting)
According to Apple, 2m iPods have been sold and 20m iTunes tracks.
This means that for each iPod, there are 10 tracks from iTunes on it.
Assuming each track is 3 meg big and the average iPod is 30 gig, then you are looking at ((3*10)/(30*1024))*100 = 0.1% of a users iPod t
Re:It's not the iPod companies have to better! (Score:2)
Re:It's not the iPod companies have to better! (Score:2)
And it's foolish to think that all iPods (or even half) are full or even close to it.
Re:It's not the iPod companies have to better! (Score:2)
Average iPod is probably closer to 20gig. Less actually when you consider mini's....
And it's foolish to think that all iPods (or even half) are full or even close to it.
True. So if we assume that average iPod size is only 10 gig and only a quarter of it is full, then we're talking 2.5 gig.
(3*10)/(2.5*1024))*100 = 1.18%
Even with the generious statistics in Apple's favour, I still don't think its enough to really influence anyones purchasing.
Re:It's not the iPod companies have to better! (Score:2)
Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:5, Interesting)
My question is - why is this list so short? Isn't writing a plug-in a fairly simple thing? Why have so few of the MP3 player manufacturers bothered to make their players compatible with this program?
iTunes for Windows won't work with any player but the iPod. If Apple makes that decision, to encourage people to buy iPods, that I at least understand. But as long as the architecture is there on the Mac, why don't more player manufacturers take advantage of it?
- Alaska Jack
Re:Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple has refused to the license FairTunes DRM to makers of other digital portables. This way only the iPod can play music purchased on iTunes. Well iPods and any PC using the Mac OS or Windows.
Apperently the Sony workaround was to create a very small PC but i guess there are some limits on how small you can make a Windos / Mac - compatible Pc...
Re:Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:2)
Re:Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:2)
Or have I got this wrong?
Nope (Score:2)
P.S. I'm not.
Re:Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:2)
I do understand that the two assumptions, are quite limiting for you and me, but most non-techie people probably don't seem to mind.
It would also be quite easy to write a program/ script that detects removable drives, looks for a file called 'hi-I-am-an-mp3-player.txt' in the root directory and syncs
Re:Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:2)
I've never bought a single song from the iTunes store, but I've been using the player since it came out. Sound Jam was really nice to use, and iTunes is a reasonable facsimile of it, in some ways even a bit easier.
Anyone who thinks winamp's interface is nice needs to be shot. Sure, it has some nice functions, but crappy, unreadable s
Re:Why so few iTunes compatible MP3 players? (Score:2)
Am I missing something?...
It can and does work just that way, but what you're missing is the fact that you have now compressed the audio twice. The first one, Apple's 128k AAC, really doesn't loose you much at all. It's a decent bitrate for a quality codec like that. But then you burn a standard audio cd. Fine, nothing lost there. Then you rip the audio cd.. If you're ripping with a lossy compression codec like mp3 or ogg or aac, you're losing more q
Electricians: Could iPod use regular batteries? (Score:4, Interesting)
Being able to use just regular, store-bought batteries would really make an iPod a lot more appealing to me, even if they brought with them a small increase in size & weight.
- Alaska Jack
Re:Electricians: Could iPod use regular batteries? (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, an iPod can use regular batteries (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Electricians: Could iPod use regular batteries? (Score:2)
1. If an iPod could just take AA batteries, that doesn't mean I couldn't use *rechargeable* AA batteries.
2. I actually know about the Belkin battery pack and all that. But I just want to know: would it technically be possible to make an iPod that ran on regular batteries, or is there some technical reason it can't be done?
- Alaska Jack
your nick (Score:2)
it's conceiveable... I think. :) (Score:3, Interesting)
Lithium Ion AAA cells are 3V - 3.6V (I think), or so. You could conceiveably take 4, throw a resist
Re:Electricians: Could iPod use regular batteries? (Score:3, Informative)
Aesthetically challenged (Score:4, Interesting)
Compared to the iPod and the mini, these products are just plain ugly. (IMHO). Until the competitors manage to steal or match Jonathan Ive [wikipedia.org], Apple's chief industrial design talent, the iPod will reign supreme.
Since I'm financially challenged and these products are aesthetically challenged, I'll go without an mp3 player for now.
Digital Music Players? (Score:5, Informative)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Digital Music Players? (Score:2)
Re:Digital Music Players? (Score:3, Interesting)
What good is 10,000 tracks in your pocket when your 10 hour battery will only let you listen to 200 of them?
To me the fact that I can change the media with extra discs in my special-bag-for-my-media-player is just icing on the cake. The cake
Re:Digital Music Players? (Score:3, Interesting)
I take my iPod to parties, and with the mains adaptor/belkin battery pack and a headphone->stereo jack lead, I have (checking itunes...) 3 weeks of music. The beauty is, i
Re:Digital Music Players? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Digital Music Players? (Score:2)
Re:Digital Music Players? (Score:2)
Re:Digital Music Players? (Score:2)
Maybe I'll miss the whole iPod thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Though I doubt that's a reasonable alternative for a lot of people out there, I figured it was worth mentioning. I'm really attracted to the idea of having a little 'store all my interesting media' device.
We gots some cool stuff coming around the corner.
Re:Maybe I'll miss the whole iPod thing (Score:2)
How about buying a 4Gig MP3-player and a USB host-capable PDA?
Re:Maybe I'll miss the whole iPod thing (Score:2)
The main reason being that I want one unit. I don't have a strong demand for a stand-alone Mp3 player. I'm near a computer most of my waking life. I already have need for a PDA. Problem is, it's not a big enough need to a.) have it right now and b.) carry it around enough for it to be useful. But if one unit both carried all my music and did my PDA related stuff, that'd be enough to dump the money into it.
Either way, you're right, $300
Re:Maybe I'll miss the whole iPod thing (Score:3, Insightful)
x2 megaview? (Score:3, Insightful)
This device looks like it's got a lot of potential to be an nice portable linux tool. I like the ability to record audio, and the fact that it has a hard disk. This'd alieviate some of the irritation of having to use an SD card for storage, as on a Zaurus. Now, if only it had a host USB hub, or maybe even an infrared port, I'd be set. USB host/client hub would be ideal, though (and, of course, a keyboard that would work with it).
I wonder if I could run opie (or if it already has opie - doubt it, but that'd be cool) on it. I suspect it's quite capable of the task - and that too would be cool.
Would it kill them... (Score:5, Insightful)
And actually, I'm having my doubts that that's a comprehensive comparison/listing they've got on there in the first place.
Rio Carbon (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a fifth installment and we yet to see Rio Carbon - the best player in the iPod mini market segment. I wonder how much Apple hands over so the authors don't mention the player that beats mini in pretty much everything beginning with style, size (both 3d and hdd-wise) and battery life.
And, yes, I know there is a rebranded Carbon in the list, but it doesn't have the original's style and battery life.
Re:Rio Carbon (Score:2)
No. The Rio Carbon is a shitty player. It looks like someone took a Nokia phone and some tinfoil, and put them in the oven for a few hours. Read: curvy lines and selective plagiarism don't always make good design. Of course you're going to dispute this, just get back to me when someone mentions "rio carbon" i
sigmatek dx740 (Score:2, Interesting)
it mentions support for mpeg-2, and if the device has enough power to unpack divx, it should have enough power to run dvds smoothly aswell, and with 40gb drive, you could even play the dvds from the hard drive instead carrying the disks with you
Prices will drop. (Score:2)
Re:Prices will drop. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Prices will drop. (Score:2)
But it will still be a hard drive. The 'flash' version will be, if 1gb cf is $100 today, it will be $400 for 4gb, sans mp3 player. So if it were in a mp3 player it might cost $600 today. So by the time you get a 40gb solid state mp3 player for $10
Modular flash + hard drive player: where is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I would like to buy is a player that comes packaged something like an ipod, but where the top 1/4 of it is a micro size flash based player (with an SD slot!) that contains a 1 or 2 line display, basic controls, and a small battery, and would afford the ultra-portable benefits of the SV-SD80 or similar player. For those times when you want access to your whole library, you would attach the bottom 3/4 would as 'dumb' modular add-on that simply holds a 20-60gb hard drive and a bigger battery to support it all, and the ability to shuttle songs to the flash unit as needed. Maybe even a larger (color?) display. It wouldnt need the player circuitry or controls, headphone jack etc, as that would all be contained in the flash head unit.
Re:Modular flash + hard drive player: where is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, there is a player that does what you want. Over a year ago it was mentioned frequently here on
crap (Score:4, Interesting)
SPAM (Score:2, Insightful)
Killers.. (Score:3, Informative)
I used to hate the iPod.
After going through 4 or 5 other hard drive based mp3 players in two years, I finally broke down when Best Buy said I could trade my 6mo old 20GB Archos Jukebox in for a new 4g 40GB iPod, if I pay another $150.
I have now had an iPod for about 3 months and love it. The battery time is nothing to write home about, but it lasts from when I plug it into the stereo in my car to drive to work, my whole eight hour shift, and the drive back home. I have dropped it on a hard tile floor, and nothing was damaged, chipped or not working.
It's a wonderful little thing, and while I may never get a non-iPod apple product, I do love my iPod.
The only problem I've ever had with it, is how easy the case picks up little scratches while in my pocket, but that's not a huge problem.
To kill you must first catch up. (Score:2, Insightful)
What about iRiver? (Score:4, Informative)
good luck finding a lot of these (Score:4, Interesting)
Just glancing over, these two m:robe players from Olympus, the Aiwa S710BT, and the Toshiba gigabeat haven't been announced for release anywhere outside of Japan. As far as I know, anyway.
Overview? (Score:2)
I got yer iPod killer right here (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Other iPod crimes (Score:3, Funny)
You really want to hear about some trying to stick a 1/4 inch head phone jack in the 1/8th inch port? You sick bastard.
Re:Other iPod crimes (Score:2)
Re:Other iPod crimes (Score:2)
(watch out, being a lickable Apple, she's very smart, and blocks slashdot referrer id's to prevent server rape)
Re:OGG? (Score:5, Informative)
Dammit, at least RTFSlashdotSummary: "and an Ogg/photo/FM broadcast record, flash unit from SAFA."
Re:OGG? (Score:2)
Ogg is well supported (Score:2)
And if your coat-hangers-and-corned-beef format could perform as well as Ogg has in independent, double-blind listening tests [hydrogenaudio.org], then maybe you should be screaming blue murder if people are ignoring it.
Re:OGG? (Score:2)
Anyway,
Re:OGG? (Score:2)
I think someone has the munchies.
Re:OGG? (Score:2)
mind the gap... (Score:2)
On i-Tunes you can link tracks so it's a flowing work that the artist/dj intended. But it's one file.
I want mix cd's to play seamlessly WITH proper track listing. At the moment you can have one or the other. Minidisc can do it, as far as i'm aware mp3/ogg/aac players can't. Does it need a new format? (obviously minidisc uses it's own) or can aac be made to work? As i'm ripping stuff i own a new format doesn't bother me - as long as someone writes a win
Re:OGG? (Score:4, Informative)
and an Ogg/photo/FM broadcast record, flash unit from SAFA.
RTFA, the SAFA SR-M800F can play MP3, WMA and OGG.
I don't know what is sadder: people responding to /. without even reading the one sentence blurb, or the mods who didn't do the same and modded parent up.
I know, this is /., it shouldn't surprise anybody...
Re:OGG? (Score:2)
Re:Bluetooth (Score:2)
The required microphone could be used to record your ideas/todos on the iPod quickly too.
Re:Bluetooth (Score:2)
Re:Bluetooth (Score:2)
Re:Bluetooth (Score:2)
Re:iPod problems on PCs (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure what's so informative about that. I, too, have an iPod that I connect over Firewire to my PC and it works flawlessly, and has for a year without a single problem. Perhaps you should increase your sample size before making assumptions about the PC version of iTunes?
Re:iPod problems on PCs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:iPod problems on PCs (Score:2)
I started off using my iPod with a PC and I always found FW support on the PC to be very hit and miss. Both the cards and the drivers seem vary flakey: I guess a result of FW only really gaining any popularity on the PC since Apple released iTunes for Windows.
Are the other devices you use succesfully with FW powered externally or via the FW cable? If they are externally powered then I'd suspect your FW card can't handle the current drain of the iPod.
Re:iPod problems on PCs (Score:2)
It might be worth applying Occam's Razor [wikipedia.org] here. Which is the more
Re:iPod problems on PCs (Score:2)
A massivley overclocked PC held together with string and duct tape that you've decided is "stable" because you can do basic IO and run SiSoft Sandra's CPU benchmark all the way through without the system crashing.
or
You have some name brand or off brand premade PC that you've never done any maintnence on. You keep it on the floor, the power supply and CPU heat sink have long been clogged with dust and/or the fans have died, and you might even smoke around it constantly...
or
Re:All I want (Score:2)
there are lots of mod players for it.
That's a Picturebook, not a U series (Score:2)
Anyway, it all depends on what your needs and capacities are; I had a Picturebook myself (the first Crusoe one) and had absolutely no problem with the keyboard, speed, or battery life, although I did find the screen a little on the short side at 1024x480. I probably wouldn'
Re:What??? (Score:2)
I have a 20GB HDD unit and five 128MB flash units. I take them to conferences and use them for voice audio recording. One 128MB flash unit recording 160Kpbs MP3s will record for close to 90 minutes.
The 20GB unit is for recording 48Khz WAVs of live music.
I use them professionally and although they have a few odd behaviors, they are overall very solid and excellent little mobile recorders. And they beat out Mini-Disc handily imho.
Lastly, t