New MP3 Portables

An anonymous reader writes "This has been a busy week for the announcement of the latest crop of MP3 portables, probably just the start of many more with the holiday season only a few months away. First Samsung has announced their first jukebox model the Yepp YP-900, a 10GB unit using Toshiba's 1.8-inch drive for storage (same one as in the iPod) and eschewing FireWire (400 mbps) for a USB 2.0 (480 mbps) connection to transfer files. Mambo has also announced a jukebox player called the Digital Media-X PhotoBank Jukebox that is more akin to the Archos Jukebox Multimedia in that it can store and display photo files and possibly video files in the future. The Mambo holds 20GB of memory on a more common 2.5-inch hard drive, making it a heavier unit than the YP-900. Like the Yepp, the Mambo also goes with a USB 2.0 connection, heating up the competition between FireWire in digital music portables. The most interesting feature about the Yepp? It also has a MMC/SD card slot to facilitate trading tunes to and from other digital music players. (Take that SDMI). Finally SonicBlue has started shipping replacements for the Rio 600 and the Nike PSA[play 120 (made by Rio for gym workouts). Both the Rio S30S for the exercise-minded and the Rio S10 come with 64MB of memory and are upgradeable to 192MB through MMC flash cards. The S30S comes with an FM radio, while the base-optioned S10 is claiming 35 hours of running time on a single AA battery. Both players transfer files via USB 1.1's 12mbps port."

Comments

Ogg Vorbis support?

[AsnFkr]

Id buy one in a second that had Ogg Vorbis support. anyone know of a portable player that has flashable codecs support?

I personally only care about sub $100 market

[drinkypoo]

I try not to buy "doodads" which cost more than $100. This includes but is not limited to console video game systems, PC peripherals, portable audio devices, and the like. It does not include complete systems.

I bought the GF2MX when it hit $90 and a GF3Ti200 when it hit $90. I bought my (older) 11 second buffering sony car discman when those hit $90. (It gets like 80 hours play on a pair of AAs, too, and works flawlessly to this day. Very nice.) So any MP3 player I'm going to buy is going to cost less than a hundred bucks.

I also don't want a device where the media costs more than the machine, which limits my choices to a pretty narrow range. Lik-Sang doesn't even seem to be loading, but that's where I'd ordinarily look for a device like that.

Does anyone know of a very thin CDRW/CDR/CD player which does VBRE MP3s and costs less than $100 which doesn't simply fall apart within a week of the warranty's end?

Re:What's with the attitude?

[maggard]

I don't own either, and am not likely likely to.

However you really should look up the current specs. The latest model iPods do offer more then the Yepp, FireWire and USB 2.0 are about tied for market penetraton (their speeds are essentially identical right now though FireWire is going faster RSN), and most agree that the iPod interface & software integration are the best on the market.

While everyone is welcome to choose whatever fits their needs best the iPod is a remarkably good value bang-for-the-buck, particularly in the latest revisions. Comparing iPod Rev. A specs with the latest Yepp isn't particularly valid unless price is also listed (iPods have gotten cheaper quite quickly.)

Re:What's with the attitude?

[Xenex]

"And it transfers with USB 2.0, which is both faster than the iPod's FireWire..."

Yes, because the difference between 400Mb/s and 480Mb/s really matter when connecting an external hard disk. It's 2002. Hard disks do not run at 480Mb/s.

Besides, the "USB2 is faster then FireWire" talk is just Intel's marketing; USB2 is 480Mb/s peak, where FireWire is 400Mb/s sustained.