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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."
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
now I can sit in meetings "taking notes" on my visor and instead be re sorting my playlist.... cool I want one :-)
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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Right, so in total, for the Visor, mp3 player, and battery holder, you will pay $559.
For $499.99 you can get an iPAQ with more RAM, color display, faster processor, and did I mention it plays mp3's out of the box? Did I also mention it will run Linux? Hmmm...difficult choice.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
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.
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.
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.
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Just so you know...
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And you can load up MC (Stephen) Hawking's
latest rap tunes to play on it.
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.
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.'"
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.
[
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.
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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Storage is not the problem.
The Palm series uses what is esentially a 16MHz 68000. MP3 requires a lot more CPU power. You can barely get realtime MP3 decoding from a 30-40MHz 68040.
This add-on is as much for the CPU as it is for the storage space.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Visor Deluxe has 8MB of RAM, and the SpringBoard module mentioned here holds 64MB. Music is played with the module's own processor, freeing the Visor's processor for other tasks.
The iPaq has 32MB of RAM, which is shared between application programs and MP3's. Music is played using the iPaq's processor.
Hmm, 64MB of dedicated MP3 memory versus 32MB of shared memory. With lots of personal data and games loaded, that means that I could play around 15-20 minutes of MP3 at 128kbits. No thanks.
For more information, click here.
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.
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.