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MP3 Player Released For Handspring Visor
JeffMagnus writes: "EETimes is carrying this article about a new MP3 player extension for the Handspring Visor. The MP3 player fits into the Visor's Springboard expansion slot or can be used as a separate device. The MP3 player is built by Good Technology, Inc."
there is another, perhaps better known (at least in the Visor community) Springboard MP3 player. The MiniJam from InnoGear uses removable MMC cards for storage. There is a user's review of it (with plenty of pix) here. That same site, VisorCentral also lists an announced-but-not-shipping Rio Springboard module from Diamond.
That's not the price of the PDA, it's the price of the module. The highest end Visor (the Visor Deluxe) runs $250.
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Tim Wilde
Gimme 42 daemons!
I'd disagree pretty strongly about OS 7. It was a very nice upgrade from 6.0.x. The new Finder was leagues better than the old one. What happened was Apple started to lose focus on 7, and started working on various never-shipped next generation OSes. By the time 7.5 came out, there were all of 2 software engineers working on 7; the rest were working on Copland.
When Apple refocused on the old Mac OS, things got better. 7.6 was nice and stable on my PowerBook 1400, even though it left my 32-bit dirty SE/30 behind.
I'm not saying that I'm not drooling over OS X, but 7.0 wasn't quite a joke.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
If so, very cool. If not, most laptop carrying geeks still need the laptop.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Wrong. Both are accessries for the geeky and trendy.
I agree. But I have to add to that.
<p>
Whenever I see something that gets <i>combined</i> with another product/device, I raise a few warning flags. I question it's abilites far more than that which is specialzed for such a use. The Nomad, Rio and all their competitors (I would assume, not based on fact) may have a better sound quality, and more features. And it's not like they're that much more expensive.
<p>
Why on earth would one find advantages to useing their Handspring instead of a Rio or some other player?
<p>
The argument that if the Palm user wanted more power they'd buy a laptop doesn't sit well with me. I don't get it, why would you buy both a Palm and a laptop when you can just buy a PocketPC and have all your needs covered?
I am assuming this is an honest question, and not just bait.
The palm does the PDA functionality nearly flawlessly, and it has the size, cost, and battery life factors necessary to be able to strap it to my belt day in and day out, and completely forget about it. I can't count the number of times during a day I use it without even thinking about the fact it is a computer.
A PDA that is not at your fingertips and does not need to be tethered to a PC every evening is (IMHO) the only usefull PDA. You can get a fully functional Palm for $150 to $250 depending on RAM.
For about $700 or less, you can pick up a used laptop like my Sharp Actius A150. It has a pentium 266 cpu, an 8 gig hard drive, 64MB of ram, a built in modem, USB port, and a PCMCIA slot. I added a $40 10/t ethernet card, a $75 wireless ethernet card, and a $99 24x CDRom.
It dual boots both Linux and Windows (depending on my needs at the time). It holds plenty of MP3's, runs ALL native Linux and DOS apps perfectly, has a real live keyboard with fantastic touchpad. It includes a 800x600 24 bit LCD that is to die for. It is less then 1" thick (a cheaper VAIO knockoff), and weighs less then a pound.
The newest versions of these Sharp Actius's (Actium?) adds a 1023x768 resolution (XGA) screen, built in 10/100 ethernet, and second PCMCIA and USB slots, and sells new for less then $2k. The whole package fits nicely in a backpack or briefcase with lots of room to spare for books, etc.
A palmtop would be a toy... you can't do real work without a real keyboard and real screen (800x600 is already getting awfully tight for many of my activities as a web developer).
The palmtops are too heavy, too big, too expensive, and have insufficient autonomy (battery life primarily) to strap to my hip and forget about until I need it... I would have to tether them to an outlet every evening and carry them every day in a briefcase or backpack.
The palmtops have too small a screen, too weak a processor, not affordable enough memory, and too limited battery life to be used for any real productivity. (IMHO)
Bill
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
When I get the DRAM controller integrated with the rest of the design, I'm expecting to get at least 6 hours from four AA size NiMH batteries, perhaps more... I think 10 hours will turn out to be the upper limit I could get from my design. My testing is based on the NiMH 1500 mAH rated batteries that are available from Radio Shack.
The really cool part is that the DRAM controller is implemented in a firmware configured FPGA chip, so a no-buffering board can be flash upgraded to have a hardware based DRAM controller and high speed DMA (req'd to minimize the time the drive is sucking 5 watts from the batteries).
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I don't think they misjudged the price point for the market, but I do think they misjudged the market. What makes PocketPC's good for playing MP3's is that they _already_ have a good processor, like a StrongARM blazing away at 200MHz. PalmOS devices don't. They've been optimized for the Dragonball (Motorola 68xxx family) at 16MHz and the Dragonball EZ at 20MHz.
Component costs for an add-on like this are going to be much higher than for a device where the processor also does other things. And any types of static RAM these days are outrageous. Shortages aren't predicted to let up till 2001. Everyone in the industry (including Palm) is feeling the crunch, and the only ones getting their chips are first-tier vendors that can place the 7- and 8-figure orders and get cozy with their suppliers. That list doesn't include any springboard module makes.
So when most companies sat down at the drawing board last year these components were cheap, and MP3 playing abilities were the rage. But now, no one wants to buy a $300 accessory for a $150 device; sprinboard modules are supposed to be in the $50 - $99 range. Hopefully these prices will come down.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
I'm almost certain the 96bits
number given refers to the D/A converter.
CD players, at least recently, also
have a 96 bit D/A converter.
It has nothing to do with the
bit rate
:)
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
Okay, I realize this is probably massive flame-bait, but all the palmtop WinCE devices (CE 2.11 and PocketPC) have had this capability for a while. There were/are several MP3 players around that work on these, the newest and most noteworthy being Windows Media Player (which is free). It also plays WMA files, which, for all practical purposes, are much better suited to this application ("this application" being playing music on a storage-constrained device--WMA files tend to sound a bit better than MP3 files at lower bitrates and frequencies, allowing smaller file sizes). Right now on my Cassiopeia E-100 (still running CE 2.11), I've got 18 WMA files, all encoded at 40KBps and 32KHz, taking up a total of 24MB (stored on a 64MB CF card). These are all 3+ minute songs, and they average around 1.3MB each. They sound pretty good over headphones. They don't sound as good as the original 128K MP3's, but we're not talking about a high-quality audio playback device, either. That being said, I really don't understand the infatuation with PalmOS devices. I've really wanted to understand it, and I've done a lot of reading trying to figure out why these devices are so enormously popular (thinking that they must in some way be superior to the WinCE devices). I keep coming up with nothing. Can somebody out there explain why the /. crowd likes these things over the CE devices without falling back on the old "M$ sucks!" argument?
$269 for a 64Mb MP3 player? Better look at what thinkgeek has for us! a 6Gb personal jukebox ...
.iMMersE
codegolf.com - smaller *is* better.
It is a simple hack really....
1) Go to e-bay and sell your visor deluxe.
2) Go to www.trgpro.com and buy a trg pro ($329)
3) Go to buy.com and get the 64, 128, or 340 MB compact flash card and plug it into said TRG Pro.
Done. The perfect hack. Other Palm devices have some memory expandability. The AxePac will add smartmedia to a IIIx, the visors have memory and backup modules for the springboard, and the Sony Clie has a memory stick slot.
Only the TRG Pro however has a working and delivered OS tweak that allows many applications and databases to be stored on the compact flash and transparently swapped into memory on demand.
If you want to hack a palm, a much nicer hack is to get the M100 for $149 and add 8megs to it for another $39 (if you do your own soldering).
Bill
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
2 x 0.35-inch MP3 module around a 74-MHz ARM7 processor from Cirrus Logic Inc., 64 Mbytes of NAND flash memory and a 1-bit D/A converter from Cirrus' Crystal division, at 24-bit resolution and a 96-kHz sample rate.
There is also the one from InnoGear called the MiniJam that just came out as well. This one uses Multimedia Cards (MMC) that store the MP3s. Looks like they have cards in 32 and 64MB sizes and the player can hold 2 of those cards. While it is a little bigger than the SoundsGood, but it is only $249.00. You can read a review of the MiniJam here VisorCentral
The mp3 player is more than my visor deluxe cost! What is up with that!??!!? When I first read about this about a year ago, I was really excited about it, when I got my handspring I got even more excited, when I found out how much it cost, I was devestated. I can't afford that much for a player that doesn't have ANY memory built into it at all. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome idea, but $269 is way too much.
-motardo
Why waste your money?
Speaking of wasting your money. Why waste your money on a HandSpring or a Palm for that matter? Really! Like the macintosh in its 'glory years', the Palm was ahead of its time and was (is) very useful. But like the mac, the Palm didn't evolve. The Palm still uses a slow processor lacking a MMU and uses a dead-end OS. Yeah, I've had a couple palms. However, in less than a years time my Palm will sitting next to my old slide rules.
In the not too distant future you will soon be able to buy handhelds much more powerful than the HandSpring/Palm, that play mp3 files out of the box, and of course they will run linux.
Oh wait. The future is now (almost). Already you can put linux in the vtech Helio (~$150), Yopy, Ipaq, and soon the Agenda. Although still beta quality, these devices will be ready for everyday use in a matter of months.
The future is not in proprietary operating systems like WindowsCE and Palm OS. The future is now [or very soon]. The future is Linux.
. ._ _ .__. ___ ___ ._ _. _.. _. .. .
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
. ._ _ .__. ___ ___ ._ _. _.. _. .. .
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
THe battery holder will probably have to fit into the visor-compatible connector, and thus requires more than your average battery adapter. Not cheap, but not ridiculous.
There is an MP3 Springboard module for the Visor that plays on the Mac called the MiniJam.
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James Hromadka
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
I'm doing handsprings!
>...affordable player that can handle cds...
These do exist, and IMHO, they rock. The MPTrip, for example, plays 'em off of a cd-r/cd-rw and costs only $115.
Without the pad, it's not Dance Dance Revolution, it's Listen
Looks like its time to buy a Visor....
Honestly, I don't get it. This would more than double the price of my Visor, when I could just spend $115 on the MPTrip that plays 'em off a CD-R/RW.
Sure, I could pretend to be working while I rearrange songs on a playlist, but for the money, I could get the MPTrip and, say, a cheap GPS receiver or something, heh. It just doesn't seem cost-effective, even compared to the other flash-based players.
Without the pad, it's not Dance Dance Revolution, it's Listen
-Adam
It's a general low-CPU-power market thing. Every try to play a mp3 on a 486? Even a DX4/100 can't really cut it, especially if you're trying to do something else at the same time. A Pentium 100 running windows can just barely handle the task, and when you do anything else it stutters. This may be due to the Windows architecture, but I'd be on thin ice to speculate. Certainly on my P133 linux box I could get it to stutter without much trouble.
What's really slick is that you can take a 386 or similar, stick one of these on it, and add some sort of display - Bang, you've got a pretty good-sounding mp3 player. If you were inclined to find some sort of GPS-to-map software, you could get a 486 board from Advantech which is pretty small (90 x 96 mm.) Stack their PC-104 GPS Module on top of it, add a 6" TFT Daylight Viewable LCD (From Sharp, perhaps) to it, and stick it in your car. The entire package would be very small, very low power, and with the addition of the lp3, could play mp3s as a background task, fueled by the operating system of your choice, since it's a standard (more or less) x86-based PC. I'd guess the total cost of such a thing would be about $1100 in parts, counting the SBC, GPS, LCD, and the Cabling kit. It runs off +5 volts, so it should be trivial to regulate down the power from your car and get nice clean power out of it. You'd also need, of course, either a CompactFlash card or a laptop drive for storage. Make that $1200. Still not bad for a complete solution with a display.
Can you tell I've put a lot of thought into this? :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That price is nuts. Especially for a PDA that's marketed as a low-cost alternative to Palm.
now I can sit in meetings "taking notes" on my visor and instead be re sorting my playlist.... cool I want one :-)
Another key is inexpensive memory sticks. It isn't really convenient to keep deleting / uploading mp3s to the same memory stick every time you want to listen to something different.
Do you mean "memory stick" (generic stick-shaped storage media) or Sony MemoryStick? Not only are MemoryStick products proprietary to Sony, but Sony is a member of both RIAA and MPAA (yes, both four-letter words) so you probably won't be able to put plain old MP3 files on them.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think that was the point, the module is more than the price of the original device (which was designed as a lower cost alternative to the palm).
This MP3 company completely misjudged the price point for their target market. I think people are mostly interested in the Visor b/c of its low price and promise of future expandability. However most modules are ~$50, this module costs more than the original cost of the PDA and offers functionality which can be gotten much cheaper elsewhere (Rio) without being significantly larger.
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There's still a big difference between announcing and shipping. The Mini-jam has been annonunced for almost a year, and I should know because I've been waiting all that time for them to ship it.
--
"A witty saying proves nothing" - Voltaire
The crowd who buys a Palm device usually wants a personal organizer that's a little tweakable and compact. The fact that it's expandable is just a plus. I've used both PalmOS and WinCE devices, and I personally don't see that much overlap.
Windows CE users often bash Palm devices, claiming their device is superior because they can use Pocket Excel and Word to create or view documents and, in some models, listen to mp3s. That's cool, and WinCE makes a nice palmtop for those functions. I myself would rather have a compact laptop like a Sony VAIO for those functions, but the price range and size is obviously different.
Basically, Palm devices are fairly cheap tweakable personal organizers, and WinCE devices are more expensive palmtop computers.
they'd make a PDA attachment for my hard drive MP3 player
Or just incorporate some PDA functions into the player itself.
But I guess I'll have to wait.
__No, that is not my real address__
If it's capable of running as a separate unit, then what the heck is the reason for designing it as a Handspring module at all? Editing playlists? Or is the Visor just a very expensive power source? Pretty weak functionality to be paying $100 more than a "conventional" MP3 player for.
They've just found a way to duct-tape a Nomad to a Visor. They've created an MP3 player that is at once more expensive, far larger (with the Visor, after all), and less convenient than a dedicated player.
What would have been impressive, would have been creating a "smart" DSP/NVRAM card that used the Visor's CPU and connectivity to cut costs on the MP3 player extension. Bingo, you get a big 64M chunk of memory to keep all kinds of data in, and a DSP that all sorts of applications could make use of. The MP3 player would be just be the included killer app.
- It came with a development kit, or other sufficient information, to write my own firmware code for this device, and
- It comes with a detailed pin out and explanation so that I can make my own "addons"
I mean with a 24bit 96kHz D/A playing usual MP3s is a waste. It should be doing cool DSP synthesis and such things. If only the space req. didn't require the lack of a swappable memory modlue (like compact flash, or [shudder] sony's memory stick).Also the fact that its currently hosted with windows and such too sucks. There's gotta be at least a workaround for that.
-Daniel
Not to mention $250 for the visor itself.
What 96 probably means in this case is a 96 KHz 1-bit digital to analog converter. 1-bit DAC is 100% linear (high-bit-count DACs aren't) and do not need expensive precision resistors. It works by dithering the sound down to 1 bit per sample, but because it moves the quantization noise way out of the audible spectrum (a low pass filter at 20 to 22 KHz helps), it sounds nice.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
How do I hook this MP3 player up to my kid's Rock and Roll Elmo?
Visual Bloat++ probably won't fit on a PocketPC, but I could definitely see some porting group produce Pocket GCC like another group (a Cygnus splinter group) produced DJGPP, the DOS-based GCC we know and love.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'd like to contest your claim that a p100 can barely play mp3's. Before purchasing a p400 celeron through stock trading company rebate, as a student, I had a third-hand stock dell p90 w/32 megs of ram. Dialing up to aol, i could not play my mp3's, I had to pause them, and then resume once the winmodem (sucks cpu) was done dialing. After that, the computer would run relativly slowly, but I could still chat online and surf the web while listening to mp3's, only having the sound "burp" occasionally (2-3 times an hour). If you manage your system resources well and keep windows slim, the early pentiums are quite capable.
moox. for a new generation.
The MP3 player CPU is programmed to obey SDMI. SDMI is a buzzword that means, in effect, that portable digital audio media is write-only except through a DAC. Because a user program stored to the ARM's address space might send music data back to the Visor, any hacks that allow this might violate copyright law as amended by the Digital Millennium* Copyright Act.
*Yes, it has two L's and two N's. Learn to spell.<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why is the above comment moderated up?
Are we all supposed to be suprised that this device comes with a software license that is similar to the licence included with almost every piece of software sold?
Did you expect these people to include the source code?
Are you shocked that a software license agreement says "...or removal of the Software from the Product.. is expressly prohibited, except to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law..."?
Are you concerned that you will be prosecuted when you decide to port doom to your mp3 player? Try overwriting or appending your software to the device without "removing" the software you licenced. Or... try getting a life or a better job or something besides worrying about this...
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
MP3 Players have been designed and announced for the Visor for a year. One was announced to be on shelves August 00, others earlier, others later. This article is highly biased, it mentions 3+ times "the challenges in designing this was in the form factor, the complexities of the Palm platform, and the odd voltage the visor supplies" so, the competators had to face this too? Do I care what history this creator has had? No. Do I care that this product has been announced? No. I've seen way too much vaporware in this field to care. for info on other modules and stuff for the visor, go to http://www.visorcentral.com
no comment
Visor Central has a review of it. I couldn't even find the story on EETimes...it looks like they have a database problem...(SlashDotted?)
The transfer speeds for the MiniJam (that's its name) seem to be its major problem. If you wanted to fill only half of the 32MB module it wouls take somewhere around 7:30 to complete.
I'm not saying that this is a bad piece of hardware. As a matter of fact, I belive that the handheld market will be pushing technology further and further in the future. But, most ppl won't be willing to wait that long. Think of it this way...
* 1MB MP3 ~ 1 minute of CD quality music.
* So, that means that the 64MB unit comes to right about the same size as 1 CD.
* It takes ~ 15 minutes to burn a CD on my $130 4X4X24
* This thing costs $259 and at the reported transfer rate, it takes about the same time to fill it up with MP3s as it does to burn a CD.
Now, I got a pretty good deal on my CD-RW...I have seen similar units in the $179 range. Now, if we do a little math...that is a difference of $80. Now, if we buy our CDs in bulk, we get somewhere around $.50 a piece. That makes 160 CDs. Do we see where I'm going now. Now, many people talk about the anti-skip features of a solid-state player...ok, so go buy one of the cheaper stand-alone units out there. There's no reason I would buy this unit...however, a better solution might be to make a cable+software combo that would let you transfer MP3s on one of the 320MB (or even the 1GB) MicroDrives to one of the portable MP3 players.
But how many MP3s can you really hold? It says 10 hours, but at what quality?
According to their website:
Holds 64MB of state-of-the-art digital audio (That's a little over an hour*)
* Using standard 128 kbps
see here. The 10 hour thing is a misprint (or they think you want to listen to music recorded at 12.8 kbps).
The MiniJam looks a lot better in my view - according to the FAQ:
If you already have MMC cards, it will cost around $100
(Looks like it's $200 with one 32 meg card)
plays MP3s at any bit rate from 32K to 320K
should be software upgradable to support additional codecs in the future
lets you store programs/data on the MMC cards
it has a LED alarm
Looks like a much better deal to me - I'll probably get one.
--
Just so you know...
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I'm already turned off by it. No wonder they have to charge $40 for $0.05 worth of plastic and a $0.10 connector. How much do you think they had to pay to get "good.com" for a domain name? If you buy one of these things you're subsidizing the fact that they paid too much for their URL.
Not to mention, it seems that the whole Springboard thing _still_ hasn't really caught on. It sucks (IMO) that you can only put one thing in the slot at a time. Hmmmm, what I do I want to do? Use this 8MB memory expansion module, listen to some MP3's, or plug in my GPS and figure out where the hell I am? So now you've got your small PDA and a card deck of springboard modules to carry around with you. Gack, screw it...
-This sig intentionally left blank
"D00d, like, you've got that new Chemical Brothers track I've been looking for!"
"Yah, I'll beam it to you"
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
I'd agree that the iPAQ is sufficiently "capacious" from a CPU, and possibly battery, perspective to cope well with MP3; it's still not got enough RAM to do the job well.
And that ignores any concerns of interoperability I might have; the PalmOS apps interoperate with PDA apps on Windows and Linux, whilst the same cannot be said of the iPAQ set of apps... Whether it matters to everyone, this does matter to me.
If I wanted to be a "conspiracy nut," I'd say that the folks that make stuff like CompactFlash RAM cards are striving hard to keep the prices high. (I don't want to start the rumor, but could believe it to be true...)
These units will be a whole lot more interesting, particularly for storage-hungry applications like MP3 playing, when you can get a 256MB "flash card" for $200, or they otherwise can have that kind of quantity of storage onboard.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Only the TRG Pro however has a working and delivered OS tweak that allows many applications and databases to be stored on the compact flash and transparently swapped into memory on demand.
Correct. The Visor doesn't need that tweak, because Springboard memory is mapped directly onto the Dragonball's memory bus.
I don't know why anyone would want this MP3 player, but the other one that's being made for the Visor is definitely very cool. It does natively allow you to use its MMC cards as Visor storage.
Of course, I won't buy it; I don't want an MP3 player. Nor do I need more storage; I've berely come close to filling up the 8M I have.
One think I DO envy about the TRGPro, though, is its killer speaker. That rocks.
What I think would be ideal would be if TRG licensed the Springboard from Handspring and made a TRGVisor with a good speaker, and THEN offered a Springboard CF reader. The best of all worlds.
-Billy
How come companies keep wasting their time putting out crap like this? Why doesn't Sony re-engineer the mini disc players to decode MP3s? Or has someone hacked one to do this? Minidisc, like betamax, was a good idea that didn't have the market behind it. MP3s could be the perfect use for minidisc. Anyone?
Long live the HUD!!
Now why would I want to sell my VDX? The TRG Pro uses CF, but CF -- for all of its 'industry standard' mantra -- is useless except for storage of data and modems. If I want to *do* things, I've got to stick something on the outside of my TRG Pro like with the Palm III and V series.
The MiniJam, however, will be software upgradeable so that you can use the MMC memory (it comes with 32 or 64Mb) as flash storage as well as MP3 storage.
Makes sense to me. Multi-function device that knows how to specialise. That's why WinCE machines aren't useful but PalmOS machines -- and especially the Visor -- are.
Ni bhionn an rath achx mar a mbionn an smacht (There is no Luck without Discipline)
My justifications for purchasing the Visor are complete. Now I finally have somewhere to stash my metallica collection..
On the upside I wonder if I should build a gnapster app for H'Spring for swapping tracks with other Mp3 users.
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.
Nope. The 10 hour thing they're talking about is the battery life. I guess you could listen to the same hour of music for 10 hours, but if you wanted to do that, why not just turn on the radio?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Check out http:/linuxslate.tripod.com, read the Rationale section.
The point it to create a portable system that is highly useful, not a mere replacement for a paper organizer or an email reader.
In addition the LinuxSlate project is about having fun putting a system together, it's about hardware tinkering.
I bought a Palm because I wanted the coolest organizer. If I want word or Excel, I'll buy a laptop. They're only a few hundred dollars more than PocketPCs here in Toronto anyways...plus they suit the task or word processing much better since it has a keyboard a nice big screen.
PocketPC does a bunch of features OK.
Palm does very little features, very well.
That's how I see it.
Or for 500 dollars (450 ipaq+50 CF Sleeve) you can get a very powerful computer with a 206 Mhz cpu, very portable, which besides playing mp3's and wma's (which are smaller and sound quite well), you can browse html files, use excel, databases, or do more sysop stuff like terminals and other tools. Yes the OS is done by the company every one loves to hate, but I have found Win CE 3.0 to be absolutly stable and fast. Most stable (only stable) windoze I have used. The sound quality is very good, it has a loud little speaker, lasts 4 hours or more playing mp3's with a rechargable lithium ion battery, and uses an industry standard for memory expansion. Ah, you can get compact flash up to 1Gb of storage, using a microdrive, or almost 200 megs using silicon. Or a modem. Or a network card. Very cool toy. Check out the compaq iPaq guys! http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/ipaq-review.html http://www2.pdabuzz.com/Reviews/Detailed/Compaq_iP aq_H3600.html after a month with it I find my palm V utterly boring. Just the screen, juck, with a Pocket PC you get 4x the pixels @ 12 bit colors. Yes yes, palms are cheap, and there is a lot of software available. But now, win ce is amazingly stable, fast and beatiful. In a month, I have gotten absolutely no crashes, frozen, blue screen, whatever, nothing of the usual sh%t you get on windoze.
See you guys! Play with an ipaq on compusa, best buy, but remember, it is plain and simple, it gets more exciting and useful as you get more software.
I think the selling point is that it is a Springboard module, and not a separate gadget you'd have to carry.
There will be some people who will jump on this thing because they are happy with PalmOS, and they want an MP3 player, and they don't want ANOTHER freaking gadget to fill up pockets and belts with.
Question is, are there enough of these people to make this product successful?
IMHO it costs too much... if it was 128MB for about that price, I *might* go for it... but not without listening first. Man, that Rio 300 I bought was a mistake. It sounds like AM radio.
Just a notion that crept in my mind: Considering that the CPU on board the MP3 player is probably significantly more powerful than the main CPU (70 Mhz ARM7 as opposed to 20 Mhz Dragonball), wouldn't it be great if you could use that processing power for other things?
I guess the springboard interface can't support this, but just think of this kind of CPU power as the Visor's main CPU. It could enable some things that were previously impossible due to the Visor's weak CPU, like software FAX emulation or running Liberty with sound on. But maybe it is possible to at least remote control the ARM to do useful background tasks like uhh rc5des or SETI or something like that.
bateries and life?
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Lyra?? Yuck! You must enjoy having to *encrypt* all your MP3s using proprietary software (RealJukebox) before loading them into a portable music player. I'd never buy that piece of shit.
Perhaps the question should be: Is the MP3 player an accessory for the Visor, or is the Visor an accessory for the MP3 player?
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No Laughing Allowed!
agree, but I got mine cheep.....celavi
Dirty Pirate Hooker
If I were going to get an mp3 player for the HandSpring slot (Instead, I personally have the OmniRemote module from Pacific Neotek) I would want one that was flush with the case of the already-sizable Visor. It's worth it to me to only have the reduced storage. Of course, I have a car, and I generally listen to music while I'm in it, or in my office. In neither case do I need a portable mp3 player.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yep - to write an MD is like recording in "real time" - that is, it's like recording an audio tape. There are some recorders out there that accept a CD on one side and an MD on the other - that record at 2x or 4x speed, but I've not personally handled those, so I can't comment.
I had naturally assumed that people would be using some custom logic instead of doing all this nonsense with CPUs and whatnot. Sure, you're going to need some sort of microcontroller to talk to the bus and memory, and shovel data at your mp3 decoder, but that's cheap.
There's a parallel port dongle for PCs called the LP3 which plays mp3s in hardware, including VBRE mp3s. It does everything, basically; The C source for a dos app to use it to play mp3s is here (Note that this is on the lp3music.com site in the downloads section. Does this disclaimer free me from future litigation over deep hyperlinking?)
Basically, though, you just shove data out the parallel port at it, and it buffers it, then decodes frames and does a D:A convert. There's also a linux "driver", a winamp output plugin, and a Windows DLL, and source for all of them is available. It has both line-level and amplified (headphone) output.
Why do I bring this device up? Because it's $99. I would guess that a device based on this with some simple-stupid microprocessor in it and some memory could easily be as cheap as $200. So what's the justification for making this other device cost $269? Just because they're lazy and wanted to use an ARM chip rather than develop something technically sweet? I don't buy it - In more than one sense of the word.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If anyone is interested, I am trying to start a project called Linux Slate. The idea is to create a portable computer that runs Linux for about $300. Yes, it will play MP3s. Interested parties should go to the main website: http://linuxslate.tripod.com
Looking at the two MP3 units that are for Handspring, here's my thinking:
The price of the abovementioned Good.com SoundsGood module is too high for what it is. I just walked through Best Buy, and there's a lot of 32Mb and 64Mb standalone MP3 players that are competitive on price.
You're paying for the features that may be presented through the Visor's screen interface. There's just not that much indexing you can do with an hour or two's worth of music.
The formfactor of the delayed competitor, InnoGear MiniJam module is way too blobby. It won't let you keep your Visor in a standard case, because it extends behind and above the basic Visor case.
The SoundsGood appears to have the formfactor right. It stays flush within the space allotted in the main case. Even the headphone jack doesn't appear to interfere with the Visor's clip-lid (either open or closed), it is a bit to the left side. My standard case actually uses one of the clip lids to grasp the Visor, so this is good news for the SoundsGood. I could leave my zippered case open a little on the top edge, and jam.
I'm interested to know whether either of these units will draw many CPU cycles, or block the use of the Visor for its main task, which is to keep me organized.
Both the deluxe and cheap versions of the Handspring Visor come with a microphone built into the case. I still have yet to see ONE application that can use it, whether through software or Springboard hardware. Not even a bundled app makes trivial use of it.
[
Why was the link made to EETimes, and not to the actual product page on good.com?
I smell an advertising hit ploy.
[
I tried my Rio 300 with Sennheiser and Nakamichi headphones, both in the $100 range. It still sounds like stink. Maybe mine is screwed up. But, like someone said, it was cheap...
I use my Visor to do exactly what is intended to do, and I love it because it does it so well. I do think some games would play better on a CE thing, but I only play about an hour a week or so on my Handspring, and if I really wanted games I would get a color GameBoy.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
They are just taking orders. They are supposed to deliver later this month.
i just dropped $150 on the eyemodule. a fun toy, but as is well documented on usenet, if you ain't drowning in cash you should probably save that money for a digital camera that will be functional in better resolutions than B&W 160x120. (you can forget about the larger images). is the same true of the mp3 module? is the diamond rio a better bang/buck? but like i said, a fun toy. specially for covert public transportation images.
now $2XX for an MP3 player? maybe thats above my stupid threshold. i may be wrong.
never mind the fact that i'm replacing my batteries once a week these days. i'll probably have to change the 3 batteries every 2 days with one of these babies. also, how long to sync the whole mp3 module on a serial port? 2 hours?
on a side note, does it have any limitations? i know the MpTrip player couldn't decode anything higher than 192kpbs. what about VBR?
Actually, I was thinking that at first, but then I realized they mean you can listen for 10 hrs before having to change the batteries. Since the 64 megs only holds about an hour of music (unless you use a lower bitrate), you'd have to listen to the same stuff over and over 10 times.
So, they basically took a STAND ALONE mp3 player, and added a connector to it so you could plug it into your Visor.
Gee. Wow.
What's next, and mp3 player add-on for my toaster that fits into the 'single-slice' slot?
Give me a fucking break.
But unfortunately the Aero only supports mono sound. Even the stereo plug has output only on the left channel. The quality isn't very good either. All of this makes this machine a bad choice as an MP3 player.
The good news is that because the sound is so grotty anyway, it doesn't get much worse even when you go down to mono 48 or 32 kb/s MP3s. Many people use WMA files which tend to be smaller still at comparable quality. This way you can carry a few songs with you without the need for a CF memory card. And have the Aero standing on your desk sounding much like a transistor radio.
I have a SoundsGood right now that I'm reviewing, and is more than capable of playing all of those Mettalica songs of yours. And I'll have a review of it up next week.
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James Hromadka
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
There is a driver for USB synching under Linux. Instructions can be found here.
http://www.agendacomputing.com/
668: Neighbour of the Beast
This means that you can use it with Visor to sort through your playlist without a computer, and then remove and use it a standalone MP3 player. Lets put it this way -- you buy a portable MP3 player at a regular price (MiniJam is not more expensive than Rio with the same size flash card), but you can also use your Visor to edit the play list _and_ store PALM OS programs on a flash card to use on your Visor. You can also think of it as a Flash card reader that is also an MP3 player.
Sounds like a nifty little toy. But only if I already owned a Visor. over all, the Rio players are smaller, cheeper, and don't use as much power. I can certainly see several exec's I know picking these up. Wonder when the law is going to go after the manufacturers of hardware designed to play copyrighted materials (again)..ect...
Dirty Pirate Hooker
But how many MP3s can you really hold? It says 10 hours, but at what quality?
Not to mention battery life of the Visor...
Why? We've had portable mp3 players before, just not integrated with a palm...I guess now we can take these into meetings and not only pretend to be taking down notes with them, but also pretend to be listening! Pretty snazzy...
trb
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Here's something I didn't know about but now desperately need!
Yeah, its MSFT, but they're much better than previous WinCE versions. Compaq's iPAQ is a lot cheaper than a Visor+MP3 module, and does a lot more.
$269??? Man, they should have just designed a plugin for an external HD! 10gig external HD with USB, $164!!! Sheesh, do they THINK we are fools?
Sig it.
Yet Another Stupid Windows-Only Product....although it does use USB, so it shouldn't be too hard to support it under Mac OS or Linux (not sure what level of USB support is in the BSDs off the top of my head).
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
The company that makes these things is here.
Not exactly a cheap battery holder... an example of insanse marketing and pricing, but I guess the springboard market is somewhat a niche...
However, this is quite an amazing total for an MP3 player: $309... How's come you can spot this kind of stuff like the $40 battery pack a mile a way? I thought this was the *new* economy... but they're doing the old "lets find something otherwise cheap, make it special, and charge out the ass..."
I think I'll get the CD mp3 players, and to hell with the visor integration... I'm not an organized person anyway so a PDA won't do me any good.
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If the mp3 player plugs into the expansion slot, where do you put the mp3s? AFAIK, the Visor has around 2M on-board, and that's expandable by using the slot. The sweet part about the expansion was that was where you could put more space. 2M (or even 8M if you can put in an upgrade chip like a palm) isn't much space for moozik.
Please reply if you have more 411.
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"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
Not to be a complete schill for handspring, but isn't your visor's display a little bit bigger than the rio?
Read my post above... since you already own a visor, the choice isn't $500+ or a Rio, it's $269 or a Rio, and it's possible that the springboard beats it on convenience and useability (does the Rio have a touch screen?).
Think about it. For the springboard mp3 player to meet your approval, it would have to be priced at $0! The springboard is a marginal cost, the visor's price is already sunk and you already (hopefully) acknowledge that the price you paid for the visor was for its PDA functions and upgradeability.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Umh, only if you're willing to hold your visors perfectly still for like 5 minutes or something...it's a good idea, because IR is VERY slow.
The only way to transfer files between them at any reasonable transfer rate might be with some sort of hacked hotsync cable.
You don't need to hack anything: here are some features of MiniJam from http://store.innogear.com/promo/index.cfm?CFID=371 66&CFTOKEN=80828898&source=firstweb
Utilities include: Megabyte Flash memory expansion, Mass storage of Palm OS Applications and Database files, and Programmable flashing LED Silent Alarm.
Wouldn't one rather use a dedicated DSP for MP3 decoding rather than a general purpose CPU?
I would think that the power requirements would be lower.
Assuming that I'm thinking as your typical consumer, I can't imagine why I would be paying more money for a mp3 player that requires me to already own a visor(which I do). It can't sync by itself, it has no LCD and yet I pay more(despite my $180-$260 inital visor purchase). Oh and it I want to run it without my visor it costs my an extra $40!!? It doesn't any sense? Anyway, there is another mp3 player for the visor coming out but it looks like it's going to cost roughly the same amount.
MP3 players work so well 'cause they get a LOT of life out of a AAAA batery, thanks to no moving parts. The harddrive module is a good idea, except that you would have to change bateries once an hour. Harddrives and LCD panles are the chief reason laptops still can't go more than ten hours, max, without recharging their 2 1\2 pound batteries!
Dirty Pirate Hooker
. ._ _ .__. ___ ___ ._ _. _.. _. .. .
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
there's a giant chasm of sound between 96bits and 128bits. I don't know why anyone would buy a $269 mp3 player that couldn't perform as well as standalone mp3 players for less.
That HP Jornada (which has a color display as well!) Has been able to do that for a really long time! It also has way better features, like that little IBM 300MB hard drive. The only thing that's so special about the Handspring is that it's way cheaper...I've never used one, are they really shoddy? Either way, it's not like it's some incredible new thing that no one has ever done before. What's the hype for? If I want an MP3 player that works standalone, I'll buy a REAL one, like the Lyra.
I've got a Visor, and have been anxiously awaiting the release of this for months now, but at $269 there's no way I'm touching it with a 10' pole :(
I seriously doubt they'll sell many units at all - most people (like myself) opted for the Visor over the Palm because it was cheaper with roughly the same functionality. If I'd wanted to spend $500+ I'd buy a separate Rio and have a proper, fully functional mp3 player with LCD panel etc.
It's a very nice idea but they've sadly misjudged their market...
Quite honestly, I'm pretty happy with a minidisc player... I'm in no immediate rush to buy anything with MP3. It's small, lightweight, digital, compatible with my home stereo, the media is MD-RW...
The bigest issue I have with the CE devices is, the damn thing is too small to be a decent computer, and too big to be a convienient PDA. its a techie toy without a home. Most people I know who have had them have returned/sold them and bought a laptop or palm like device. Yes the iPAQ is cheeper, but is it realy more convieniant or easier to use?
Dirty Pirate Hooker
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
That's a review of Innogear's MiniJam, which is not yet released (though close). This article is about Good Technologies' SoundsGood player.
There are actually several companies working on MP3 players for the Springboard slot.
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
(I'm not convinced of the value of a parallel-port MP3 player either - why not just use the CPU and sound card? Is this a laptop market thing?)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The point is that it's tiny. If you look at a Visor module, you'll notice that's it's about the same size as a GameBoy cartridge.
The other point is that if you normally carry your Visor around with you, and want an MP3 player, this thing doesn't make your Visor any bigger and you don't have to lug around another unit.
I think it's a great piece of technology, albeit a $40 dollar battery holder? Should be $10.
Just think of how many years of appointments you could store, then!
In all seriousness, though... Why the heck would you buy one of these? I was discussing this with one of my friends yesterday, actually, but visualization and the other visual goodies you get with Winamp on your PC don't justify spending at least a hundred bucks more than I have to on an MP3 player.
There is also the Mini -jam from Innogear
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Having a card with an ARM processor and 64meg of memory would be much more useful if you could use it for other purposes as well. Imagine buying an MP3 player add-on and then downloading software that turns it into a Psion5mx emulator!!! Or maybe use the card as a seperate linux machine and the Handspring as just a terminal. Bizzare but possible if you have what are basically two self-contained machines connected together.
Bob.