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The New Nomad Jukebox, And Handheld Oggs
Tha_Zanthrax writes: "The best portable MP3-player has become better!
The people from Tbreak.com have recieved a Nomad/Creative Jukebox 3. They have yet to write a review but have put up some detailed pics on their messageboard. It's a bit smaller, but the best improvements are the firewire-port and the 2 (!) internal batteries for 22 hours of operation. Too bad I recieved my Creative JB2 last week ..." If you have a hankering to play Ogg Vorbis audio, though, it looks like the first handheld ogg player has finally arrived in the form of a (payware) app for the Sharp Zaurus called tkc Player, available from theKompany. Where's there's one, there will be more. Woo-hoo!
I think the next improvement should be a cynic inside the machine, who would scold you appropriatly if you were listening to N'Sync, or congratulate you for picking Radiohead.
"I only speak the truth"
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.. between this and nomad v2? Basically it's got a firewire port and lithium ion batteries. Some more details available here.
I think the major break-through is that this implementation uses a "fixed-point decoder".
I believe the major problem with ogg was that it was very floating-point intensive, which doesn't suit the processors used in mp3 players and PDAs. theKompany must have developed or implemented a non floating point version of the decoder, thus enabling it to be used on the Zaurus without a huge cpu hit.
.sig (insert funny sig here)
You can find more details about the tckPlayer here - it can be bought as a single stand alone app or it can be bought in a package of 9 applications for (for Zaurus) for $74.95 (details are here)
Hetz (Heunique)
Even though you have to download software seperately if your a Windows user, Apple's 10 GB iPod is by far and away better.
There is no way any objective person could think this unit is superior.
It's got a 10 GB HD, 32 MB of Ram, the battery life is 10 hours, you can store your contacts on it, you can use it as a hard drive, you can even *BOOT* off it. There are also 3rd party apps to extend the functionality.
And still it's less then half the size of this thing!
For me, that's a key feature This thing is way too big for my pocket (the Nomad is *still* discman size!). It's just not practicle, whereas my iPod fit's in my shirt pocket (and isn't nearly as heavy).
The iPod is so small, and it's interface so simple and elegant, that I take it everywhere, even just nipping down the to the shop. I know I'd think twice before taking this thing outside with me.
I guess it depends on how much you like music.
- If your a big music fan, then your better off with something cassete player sized (ThinkGeek has one, though bigger that the iPod, it has slightly more storage, and still of a practicle in-your-pocket size)
- If your not a big music fan and only want something for long journeys then this could be the unit for you. But if you are, you'd be better getting a discman for 30 USD instead...
Even though the player is payware, I'm sure it's worth it. It sure looks like it from the screenshots.
/FS community. They have developed Aethera, Kamera, KDE Studio, Kivio, and Kugar, all of which are available under the GPL for free.
theKompany is a good company which has done a lot for the KDE
Support the companies that support Free Software. Buy something from theKompany.
The iPOD also has the size advantage - ie it will fit in your trouser, or shirt, pockets without any problems. You are going to need cargo pants for the RIO. Size makes a big difference when it comes to usability, and for most intents and purposes the 10Gb configuration of the iPOD is plenty for many people. I don't have either but I would rather put my money down for the iPOD, especially since it looks good.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The Archos MP3 player series at least have this ambitious crowd of hackers working on replacing the firmware with an open source alternative:
http://bjorn.haxx.se/rockbox/
Archos model 500277
Jukebox MP3 Recorder 20 - 20GB HD (USB 2.0)
PriceWatch lists it for $315
Jukebox MP3 Recorders / USB Hard Drives
Can both record and playback MP3s
USB 2.0 is standard on newer PCs
Eh?
Just because you don't like something, doesn't make it "wrong" for others to like it.
The new XP look is nicer than the old Windows look, just like I prefer the "metal2" icewm theme to "warp4." Does that make me a "most vomitous" person?
Never underestimate the superficiality of some people who think that just because someone's taste in what looks good is different, they're stupid.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
another source for news on Nomad JB's has some info too. http://www.nomadness.com/
I don't understand. The posting starts off saying, "The best portable MP3-player has become better!" and then goes on to talk about the battery munching USB wielding Bigger Than A Discman Nomad.
Was there an editorial problem? Shouldn't we have heard about it when the story broke? "The best MP3 player on the planet just got even better." It's small, it's got battery life beyond what I thought possible and the transfer rate over [IEEE 1394|Firewire|iLink] is pretty good.
Of course, that announcement was like a month ago.
And they've shrunk it. It's still bigger than the iPod by a good amount, but it appears to be less-than-CD-player size (see the site)
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Yes. Xiph. They have two decoders. One is free but requires floating point. The other is commercial and only needs integers (and judging from some of Monty's posts, it sounds like the integer player even includes some hand-crafted assembly code specifically for ARM).
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