Nomad Jukebox 3 Officially Out

An Anonymous Coward writes: "It seems that the long awaited Jukebox 3 is officially out. Features include time scaling, to play files at different speeds without affecting pitch, multichannel effects, optical input, wireless remote and two battery ports. Probably not an iPod killer yet, although it has many, many more features and welcome firewire port. Now when will this thing be available?"

Comments

Paid Avertisment???

[VonSnaggle]

Is this one of those paid advertisment/article things????

I really don't understand

[madenosine]

why people buy mp3 players shaped like cd players; the circular design is not nearly as convanient as a small rectangle. is there something I'm missing here?

Re:I really don't understand

[Zeinfeld]

No, my archos jukebox is a hard drive. it holds 20 gigs and is much smaller than this one (btw, hard drive cases are rectangular)

Looking at the software side the Nomad device looks pretty febble. You still have to download software into the thing. The Archos device is just a USB hard drive that will attempt to play any file with a .mp3 extension if you tell it to.

There are a bunch of drawbacks with the Archos. First the idiots hardwired the batteries into the case. So even though the batteries are standard AA NiMh batteries you have to carry arround a screwdriver and void your warranty to change them. I get about 4 hours actual use from the things so I often want to change batteries in mid flight and I doubt my scrwdriver is compatible with the new security regulations.

It would be much better if Archos et al adopted a common standard form factor for a smallish LiIon battery. Nikon have already developed a camera battery in a form factor that matches one of the new alkaline battery form factors.

The other problem with the archos is that mine skips tracks frequently and often. It is just not robust enough. It appears that errors or what it thinks are errors in the mp3 encoding cause the thing to stop playing.

The other problem with the archos is that the numbskulls have a 20Mb version and a 6Mb version that records but no 20Mb version that records. Also it is not apparent whether the recording version has a microphone input so that it can be used as a dictation machine. The guys appear to be concentrating on the MP3 market and ignoring the tens of millions of people who buy dictation machines. I would like to be able to dictate into the machine and then play back the recording into dragon dictate or Office XP for analysis.

Re:I really don't understand

[jimbolaya]

Who's ever seen a circular hard drive? Yes, the disks themselves are circular, but every drive I've ever seen has been rectangular. Don't forget that a hard drive also includes the read/write heads, a motor, connections, RAM for the buffer, ICs, and all that other good stuff.

And, yes, note that the iPod, which also contains a hard drive, is rectangular.

no vorbis?

[bani]

no sale...

better luck next time, creative.

Re:Exactly

[Jeffrey Baker]

Someone has to manufacture an ASIC to decode vorbis. You can't do it on a general purpose processor because the usual embedded processors like ARM are not fast enough and processors that are fast enough use too much power. I don't think anyone will produce a vorbis ASIC until a huge market for portable, low-power vorbis players exist.

The only likely scenario would be an existing MP3 ASIC manufacturer adding vorbis support to their product. At least that wouldn't require (much) more space on the circuit board.

So, to sum it up vs. the iPod....

[jht]

Reasons the iPod rules over the Nomad:

-iPod is way smaller.
-iPod software (iTunes) rocks.
-The iPod is a pretty rugged little box.
-Proven to be extensible.
-Works as a standard IEEE 1394 external disk.

Reasons the Nomad rules over the iPod:

-Holds 20Gb of MP3 data (as opposed to iPod's 5 or 10GB).
-You can add a second battery and double the life to 22 hours. The iPod only is good for 10 or so.
-Safe assumption - the Nomad works better with Windows, no 3rd party software needed. No Linux drivers for either.
-Both USB _and_ 1394 on board. Hopefully the port isn't some kind of funky "almost-standard" version.

Reasons the Nomad may kind of suck anyways:

-Size. Why make it look like a CD player if it relies on a hard drive?
-Ruggedness - every Nomad I've seen yet has been kind of flimsy. Until proven otherwise, I'll assume this one is, too.
- It uses a Sound Blaster for "enhanced MP3 encoding". Requiring an add-on product for best results is lame. Though I guess to some a Mac is an add-on product for an iPod...