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Portable Mini-CD MP3 Player / Burner

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shopping-days-till-xmas dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Here is a neat new toy. It is an MP3/CD portable that not only plays music files, it burns them. Called the RipGO, it was just released by Imation and runs about $400. The article includes a photo of the player."

6 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. It burns mini CDs... by swordboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't seen any mini CD-R media laying around but I would imagine that it costs more than regular sized CD-R media. At this point, you'd be better off buying a portable CD burner and getting a separate MP3 player. Neat concept though.

    --

    Life is the leading cause of death in America.
  2. And this is better than iPod, how? by dnorman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Posts slamming Apple for releasing a $399US 5GB Firewire hard drive-based MP3 player that weighs 6 ounces...

    Posts lauding a mini-CD-burning 160MB player that does... Oh, wait, that's all it does. For $400US...

    I'll gladly take an iPod, thanks... And thanks to the Firewire Disk mode, I can write it off as capital equipment that I can use while consulting... Tax writeoff = free... Wait, I guess I could do that with this teeny CD burner, too... Or is it MP3 only?

    --


    It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  3. Sony by atrowe · · Score: 4, Informative
    Sony has had a similar product out for a while now.

    And their's is only $250.

    --

    -atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.

  4. Compatibility? by Ssolstice · · Score: 4, Funny

    the unit works on both Macintosh and Windows (except 95 and NT)

    So, it only works on XP and WFW 3.11?

  5. Fragility and Utility by nyquist_theorem · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First thing, its a CDR drive. In my experience, CDR drives are fragile and flaky and prone to sudden death even while standing still (I'm on my 8th in 5 years). MP3 players are also fragile and flaky and prone to sudden death (scratch two PMP300s and two NJBs - my RioVolt shows up next week along with the replacement HD for my NJB).

    Second thing, related to the first. Who makes it? Assuming IMation has OEM'd the thing out, who did the fab? I would suspect the thing is far from durable.

    Third thing, I have seen mini CDR media but no mini CDRW. Who wants to backup their stuff onto a 180MB mini CDR? I mean once in a while its cool, but if you can't use your CDR to back up CDs, whats the point? The mini media is nice, but a mini burner that wont take fullsize media at all is useless IMHO.

    Fourth thing, its $400. That's enough for an NJB($220), a RioVolt 90 ($89, for when the NJB breaks) and an internal CDR for your computer ($89).

    Based on point four - what advantage does this thing really have over the NJB+Riovolt+CDR-in-your-computer? And if you don't have room in your computer for a CDR, and you're gonna buy this contraption, could you not just buy a USB CDRW and a Riovolt for less? Of course you could. And that way you're not banging your CDR drive around.

    Seems like a silly idea to me. Now if only it had restrictive rights management! :)

    --
    -- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
  6. Where's the mic input!? by sadclown · · Score: 4, Informative
    Am I the only one who misses the audio input on these things? We haven't had a new portable digital recording device superior to the DAT walkman in 15 years! Why don't they just put 1 $15 analog mic input in this thing or the iPod and give musicians, audio engineers and reporters a fantastic new toy.


    I know, minidisc does it already, but minidisc players don't have digital output for PC post-production work and actually doesn't sound as good as plain old WAV files.


    If this had a mic input, you could burn directly to MP3 and have 6 hours of digital recording - 6 times that of a minidisc.


    If the iPod had a mic input, you could burn 10 hours of uncompressed audio or 100 hours of MP3s. Portable 2 track recording studio!