Treó 10: Another Portable Mass Storage Device

mblase writes: ""The Treó 10 is a lightweight, pocket-sized, digital music jukebox with the capacity to store over 3,000 songs - that's 150 hours of music." It's got twice the hard-drive space of Apple's iPod, but also half the RAM, half the battery life, and uses a much slower USB connection instead of FireWire. However, it's PC-compatible using MusicMatch Jukebox right out of the box, and costs only $250 instead of $400 for the iPod. CNet's article compares the two further."

Comments

Not to be confused with...

[tswinzig]

...Handspring's Treo. (The logo even has a flat line over the 'e' indicating a long 'e' sound.)

I'm sure lawyers will not be involved in this.

Re:iPod User's Opinion

[Phroggy]

The cost is a major factor. Like many people I can't drop more than maybe $50 at the drop of a hat, so the lower the price the better. The fact that for the lower price, you get 2x the storage is great also.


Cost is an issue. However, the higher transfer rates, better interface, smaller size etc. definitely make the iPod more appealing.

The Treo is 2.5 cents per meg, while the iPod is 8 cents.

Ah, but how much data can you transfer to the device in half an hour?

That plus the fact that it works with Windows out of the box will probably give it very good sales.

It would be nice if the iPod had at least limited Windows support. However, since most PCs don't have FireWire anyway, the software support isn't a really high priority.

This is also good because USB is quite ubiqutous, unlike FireWire.

FireWire is quite ubiquitous on Macs and Sony Vaios.

The last good point that I'd like to touch on is the fact that it only has enough memory for 8 minutes of continuous playback. I have to say that I can't think of any way to use a MP3 player that would be so abusive that it would not be able to read a few megs off of a hard drive every few minutes. Are people planning on settings their MP3 players on those paint mixer things at hardware stores that shake paint cans like mad?

No, but if you load 20 minutes of music into RAM and spin down the hard drive, I bet you can really save on batteries.

Also, it's a serious bonus not to have to buy a Mac or some piece of software to be able to use my new MP3 player; of course if you already have a Mac, that's not a problem.

Exactly. And, you should buy a Mac anyway, not just because of the iPod. ;-)

I think that while USB is good, they should have included USB 2.0 for a number of reasons:

USB 2.0 would have been more expensive to use, probably run hotter and use more battery power (just a guess) compared to USB 1.1. Since nobody has USB 2.0 support right now (I remember hearing Windows XP doesn't have USB 2.0 support), there is no benefit to anyone right now, a possible benefit to a handful of people later, and obvious drawbacks.

USB 2.0 is backwards compatible, so as more computers get USB 2, more people will get faster transfer rates. Let's face it, transfering 10 gigs at USB 1.x speeds would be mind-numbingly slow

Yes, and that's exactly what the Treó does.

FireWire is just too rare (in the wintel arena anyway) to be able to ship and expect good sales without bundeling a FireWire card with the product, IMHO

FireWire is less rare than USB 2.0.

USB 2.0 is supposed to be faster than FireWire (or at least the current implementation of FireWire as seen on a Mac I could go out and buy today, correct?), so if USB 2 was availible you could transfer files to the Treo faster than the iPod

I don't recall what USB 2.0 is supposed to run at, but I think it's comparable to FireWire. That's why they're working on GigaWire or whatever it's called, which might be available before USB 2 (I really haven't been paying attention).

blah, that's enough from me.