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Another iPod Competitor
rael9real writes "NOMAD has intoduced a new player. It has USB 2 and FireWire (finally), and supports WMA and MP3. It has a 20GB drive like the high-end iPod, and supposedly holds more music because it supports WMA (though why someone would want to use WMA is beyond me). It *is* cheaper than the iPod, though. Looks like a definite competitor. Maybe it'll drive iPod pricing down." Update: 10/14 21:21 GMT by T : Note that the listed specs for the player mention only "USB," not USB 2.
Will it support Ogg Vorbis?
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
...part of the fun is doing other stuff with it and the community/culture of hacking it to do other stuff besides just play MP3 files. How much fun will the Nomad provide, and will it be able to generate the same sort of interest?
And oh yeah...what about ogg? (sheesh)
guac-foo
Lots of petrified grits
One of the nice things about the iPod was the fact that it is essentially a firewire hard drive. You can put anything on it. It also has a very weak system to prevent music from being copied from the iPod back to the computer. How about this player? Will I be able to jockey files back and forth between my friend's computer and my own?
I would buy this as soon as possible if it played OGG. I suppose we need to make it clear to the manufacturers that OGG support would be beneficial to sales.
Perhaps we just need to give OGG time to become more pervasive.
I wonder how shock absorbent this guy is -- if I take it running and shake it around a lot, how long is this thing going to last before I mess up the hard drive or something?
It's worth pointing out that, if you're just ripping your own CDs, WMA isn't a *terrible* format. It's reasonable size, reasonable quality. It can't compare to a quality ten ogg vorbis file, but then again I don't believe it's meant to. For portable devices, it almost makes sense - except, of course, for the lack of linux support. And if you want to do anything involving sharing music and putting it on your player, than of course the WMA DRM features can be - but aren't always - a problem.
I'm the stranger...posting to
that's all anyone ever does. Gateway with their commercial of their computer jumping over imacs, ms copying apple's switcher ads, everyone comparing their MP3 players to an ipod... if nothing else, apple innovates ...
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
per Creative, it is $299+s/h after a rebate.
The price info is pretty well buried. Had to "find a retailer" to get it.
guac-foo
Lots of petrified grits
It's not exclusive. they have an official windows version now. not to mention all the unofficial unix clients.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
"You can charge the NOMAD Jukebox Zen via the USB port too!"
hmm. is this a wise thing?
Aside from that, if it IS cheaper than iPOD, then i'm game.
thelikesofwhich.com
I can't figure out whether this unit features those features, because they're both listed, but "require an optional remote control". Does that mean that the features are built in (and therefore I'm paying for them in terms of extra hardware costs and weight), but can only get to them by buying a stupid remote? Or is the actual functionality built into the remote?
I have a first generation Nomad Jukebox. There are several newsgroups & websites devoted to hacking these, so I'm assuming that the newer ones will be hackable also.
I love my Nomad, with the exception of it's size (Portable CD player size), slow transfer (USB only) and battery life (About 2 hours), but this new player seems to fix all of those. As soon as it has been out a while and prices drop, I would definately love to have one of these.
I recently bought a ipod (windows 20gb version) after years of using minidiscs. All i can say is they rule. 1 hour charge time to 80%, firewire connectivity, ability to jsut use it as a external harddisk, the interface rocks. And above all they look sweet as well.
Any competitor is going to have to do a lot to beat Apples domination of the market.
If they do bring the ipods price down, it wont be a bad thing. Yes ill probably feel resentful cause i paid more, but what the hell. The morepeople that have iPods the better.
Oh and if you have a Windows Ipod, dont use the enclosed software, use Ephpod, a fantastic bit of free software which is so much better than Apples bundled Music Match Jukebox.
Anotherng that will hold the iPod is it's exclisive Macintosh support.
d ex.html
There's an iPod version made specifically for Windows--three of them actually. With a FAT32 file system, Musicmatch 7.1 for access, and even a 6-pin-to-4-pin adapter for the firewire cable.
http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/02q4/021003/in
The reason iPod is such a great product is because it integrates perfectly with iTunes. Not only does the hardware interface become a pleasure to use but the software-hardware interface is seamless as well. The real question here is how well thought out is Creative PlayCenter 3. Assuming that Creative made the hardware intuitive AND made organizing/transfering your music to it just as good, then they may have something here, at least for PC users. God knows that the iPod for Windows and MusicMatch Jukebox is just embarassing to use.
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
The average car can hold you and four supermodels, or you and three dozen rabid, incontinent weasles.
So you want the weasles, right? More of something is automatically better.
At least with regard to the iPOD, Apple was late to the game. Archos had products on the market LONG before Apple released the iPod.
Keep clinging to the fantasy, that everyone wants to be as innovative as Steve tho.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
I've been lurking in various Creative boards, largely because I just bought the Nomad Jukebox 3. Anyway, the general belief is that the Zen is a somewhat stripped down Nomad Jukebox 3. When you think about it, this makes sense.
The Jukebox 3 is a hard drive based MP3 player, just like the iPod. That said, they occupy slightly different niches. The iPod is small and very portable. The Jukebox 3 is bigger, but it has much more battery space, recording capabilities, a wired remote, more disk for the price, etc. There are two different markets here, and Creative wants a piece of the iPod's pie. The Zen appears to be a Jukebox 3 without the extra battery space, without the recording features (expect through its external wired remote), without the docking station port, etc. It's smaller, more portable, and easier to carry than the Jukebox 3. It also does less than the Jukebox 3.
Truthfully, it's a wonderful time to be thinking about an MP3 player (especially hd based). Every possible configuration is out there. On the cheap side, you have Archos with it's video player. Creative has a richly featured (and fairly inexpensive) Jukebox and a less featured, more portable Zen. Apple has a very portable and light iPod that's also more expensive. There's a toy for every price range and feature set!
iPod specs here
Jukebox Zen
specs here
Height: iPod =101.6 mm vs. Zen=112.6
Width: iPod =60.96 mm vs. Zen=75.9
Depth: iPod =21.34 mm vs. Zen=24.5
Weight: iPod =7.2 oz vs. Zen=9.5 oz
Display: iPod=160x128 pix vs. Zen=132x64 pix
Output Power: iPod=60mW vs. Zen=100mW
Playing Time: iPod=10hours vs. Zen=12hours
Why not Ogg Vorbis?
I think it's because you're radically over-estimating the number of sales that such support would garner. I don't see any reson to doubt that the manufacturers do their homework and weight out whether adding such support would be a financial gain, a loss, risky, etc. A bunch of nerds on slashdot don't have access to the kind of market data that these guys have.
Or at least one would think that they are doing their homework. Is there reason to believe that they haven't? I mean besides a bunch of slashdot nerds claiming that the first manufacturer to build in Ogg support would be rocketed to the top of the heap through the sheer volume of previously untapped sales?
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I've used Play Center 3 a good bit because it came with my Sound Blaster Audigy, and I can't stand it. Version 3 is better than the older versions, but it's still clunky and over complicated. That's just my opinion of course and others may have had better experiences. Having used both Play Center 3 and iTunes though, I would say that iTunes is much better than Play Center. iTunes just has a ton of thought put into makeing the user interaction with the software as simple as possible.
So it's $100 cheaper than the same size ipod
With a 90 day warranty, instead of one year. Perhaps they have less confidence in its shock resistance.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
slogg vorbis is shit. Stop whining about your fucking audio codec that no one will ever fucking suport because no one wants it. MP3 is the standard and ogg will fade away into nothing.
Firstly, how can a codec that's gaining momentum "fade into nothing"? It's not mainstream now, but neither were computers, UNIX, digital audio, etc.
Second, more and more companies are picking up OGG Vorbis support. Why is that? Well, let's see. It's a completely FREE codec that is continually getting better. It's supported by an organization that's dedicated to creating free multimedia codecs for use in open, free, and commercial use -- all without charging a cent. Most importantly, however, OGG Vorbis IS superior to WMA and MP3. If you think otherwise, try looking into some of the various listening tests. Or check out Vorbis' Listen page. If you're such a blind zealot that you won't actually test various codecs, you have no right to praise or flame any codec for any reason.
Grow up and leave the technology details to people who know what they're doing and talking about.
I have a mere 5gb iPod, and yearn for the 20GB - then I would only have to change out content once a month or less. As it is right now, I swap out some songs from time to time as I get tired of them...
I also like to record the MP3's at a fairly high quality so it's nice to have the space to store a lot of quality MP3's.
Of course, what I'd like even more is a player that supported OGG and loading software that supported bitrate reduction so I could squeeze more songs on the thing at a bitrate that made sense for a portable player.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Although your music tastes may be very limited, many people like a VERY wide variety of music
Besides, a portable hard drive, as you propose, would require making the enclosure for the device larger
Also, the batteries may run out using today's batteries, but in a year or so
Have faith in technology
And besides, isn't it better to have extra space rather than not having enough space? This way, 99.5% of the people will not complain about not being able to carry their entire MP3 collection with them every where they go!!! (another good marketing tool)
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
I'm waiting for them to come out with one that supports .mid, so I can fit MILLIONS of hours on the drive. My dream is to listen to music constantly for the rest of my life without repeating a song once.
And those horrible video game music loops don't count. ;)
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Comparing the volume of the 20GB offering from each company gives:
iPod: 132 cc
Zen: 209 cc
The Zen is 58% larger.
Given the overall dimensions, I suspect that the Zen is using a 2.5" HD vs. the iPod's 1.8"
On another note, after almost a year of heavy use / abuse, my 5GB iPod's battery life sucked - only about 3-4 hours, and it would be dead if left unplugged for a few days. I brought it to my local (Schaumburg, IL) Apple store and they swapped it out for a new (?) unit which has a kickass 11 hours of playtime. I have no experience with Creative Labs, but I wonder what level of warranty, and in my case out of warranty, support they give.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Although it appears to be the same spec, 'SB1394 FireWire' is really just a fairly weak attempt to hijack recognition of the spec and attach it to the 'SoundBlaster' line. From Creative's website:
...in other words, they think it'd be neat if the sheep associate FireWire with them, and they claim that the oh-so-powerful brand recognition of the Creative and SoundBlaster brands will serve as an advantage.
--What is the purpose of the SB1394 Certification Program?
There are differences among IEEE-1394 connectivity relative to performance and overall ease of use. Creative engineers developed the SB1394 Certification Program to ensure optimal performance and usability of SB1394 connectivity for digital entertainment consumers.
--How does SB1394 Certification Program benefit my product?
A SB1394-certified device is eligible for joint promotional opportunities, such as in-box cross-promotion, joint soft bundle channel opportunities, e-mail campaigns, on-line exposure, joint presence at selected trade shows, and much more. That is, an SB1394-cetified device has the opportunity to tap into the huge Sound Blaster installed base, leverage the strength of the powerful Sound Blaster brand, and expand market reach in the PC marketplace.
--cut--
Sigh.
On a more technical note, while it may be handy to have both USB and 1394 on the box, it does involve additional hardware and (most important) additional plugs. I have found through my history of players (Original Nomad Jukebox, 64MB flash player, iPod 5GB) that the common point of failure during daily use has been with the plug integrity itself as well as with the entry of dirt, lint, etc. into the plugs. One of the attractions of the iPod is that it only has two ports - one headphone and one FireWire - and both (along with the only edge-mounted control, the lock switch) share the top edge of the unit. this means that only that one side need be carefully protected from FOD and etc.
The primary advantage of this unit seems to be the ability to create and edit playlists on the machine itself. While this is a nice feature, I can say from my two years with the Nomad Jukebox that the art of UI design is SEVERELY LACKING in Creative's hardware dept. Although one could edit and manupulate lists on that player, it would usually take around 4 or 5 menus to add a single track...
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
While you may understandably think that a cheaper feature-for-feature iPod competitor would cause apple to drop the price on the iPod to match, there is reason this won't happen.
It's a common misconception that Apple in the business of selling hardware and software, much like people think that Nike sells shoes.
But Nike does not sell shoes and Apple does not sell computers. They are first and foremost Image companies, selling themselves -- they are their product. This is not a commant on quality, speed or anything of the sort, but it is on price. When you buy and iPod, you are first anf foremost paying for the the fact that is not simply a hard drive, decoder and DAC, but that it's a work of art put together by skilled Apple designers.
This is why Apple won't bother to match prices, because they don't need to. Though brand names may be little more than stories we tell each other, they are more than enough to justify a higher cost on an equal product. If the iPod does the same but looks better and has a better backstory, people will have little trouble justifying the extra cost.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Seems no one has noticed that the Toshiba Mobilphile (what used to be known as the gigabeat in Japan) is now available.
G 50 AS.html
:)
:)
http://www.toshiba.com/tacp/portable/current/ME
It's SMALLER than the Zen but bigger than the iPod.
Has an ejectable card instead of haveing to HACK your unit when you want to upgrade.
Though in only comes with a 5gb drive as standard so after selling it on ebay and buying the 20GB drive would run you more.
RUNS LINUX!!!
Suposedly lasts 18 hours!
Does not have as good of a S/N ratio as the Zen.
Does not have Firewire (USB 2.0).
Cheaper than either of them (but only 5gb).
This is the player I'll probably get. Longer battery life and the chance to try to hack the Linux OS on the thing!
--- tracer.ca
Don't use them. I *DO* want an FM Tuner. I can't figure out why no one else adds one. I use my MP3 player at the gym a lot. When doing cardio I'd like to watch the news or the game on the TV, but to hear it I need an FM tuner. That's another device to bother with.
Archose didn't innovate anything. They put a bigger storage medium onto mp3 players.
Apple brought functionality and un-matched system integration with a first class application (iTunes). They have managed to turn the device into a personal organizer as well. The only thing out there that I have seen that comes close to this is the PocketPC devices, but the storage and battery is dismal on those devices.
I would say that Apple delivered the full widget where other manufacturers have failed. I consider that strongly innovative and even more progressive.
It says:
,
Bring over 8,000 songs (WMA/80kbps) or 5,000 songs (MP3/128kbps) everywhere you go with this cutting-edge compact 20GB player.
But then it also says:
"The Zen offers up to 12 hours of continuous playback using the quick-charge battery, and the sleek aluminum body makes carrying your music even more fun."
Forget about how a "sleek aluminum body makes carrying your music even more fun", but 20 GB would offer around 400 hours or so of music. Obviously the batteries cant keep up with that, but enough battery life to listen to more than a tiny fraction of your music would be nice.. I guess this goes back to the whole batteries arent progressing fast enough argument....
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
And the price is the same as the IPod after "rebate" read 8 months to get your money.
The 20GB iPod is $499.
The Jukebox Zen 20GB player is $349 before the rebate, and $299 after.
"And like that
..though why someone would want to use WMA is beyond me.
Well.. without even needing to think about it, I can tell you one huge great reason why this player supports WMA over say OGG.. think of all the new users of Windows XP (of which there must be millions) all discovering the new features, which includes the ability to rip music from a CD and store it locally on their machine. What format does Windows Media Player encode in by default unless you buy an 'Addon' pack from people like Cyberlink? Bingo.. WMA.. and as most people use their system 'as is' without changing settings, chances are there are a fair few users with a harddrive full of WMA encoded tunes.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Nope, no sig
Not to be an ass, but Apple has a bad habit of giving up on a market they have early dominance in (lot of topics on it recently... Newton for one. I guess you could say the same about the GUI based PC).
So my question is this the end of their lead in portable electronic music? Sure, the iPod seems to be right up there now but how long before someone makes a product that is "almost good enough" but that is a) hell of a lot cheaper b) supporting the latest whims of the market (Ogg support for example).
Apple seems to have a bad habit of being a Dad: "Oh no, silly user! You don't need that! haha! Trust my judgement!" Then everybody goes off to more friendly shores. Any evidence they won't do it this time?
What is music when you despise all sound?
Ogg sounds better than MP3, yes, but: OGG will continue to improve, while MP3, for all intents and purposes, is effectively DEAD.
Yes, DEAD. The "standard" MP3 is not going to improve. Any attempt to improve it will be NON-standard. MP3Pro isn't MP3. Any 'official' enhancements to MP3 will be like MP3Pro--for profit. The MP3 "game" is up; Fraunhoffer and their ilk won't let the next goose that lays a golden egg get away.
Ogg on the other hand is free to change and evolve on it's own, patent free. Our idiot "MP3 is standard and ogg sucks" troll, obviously, didn't consider this. Nor did he consider the fact that major game companies are now using Ogg Vorbis for music formats (NWN, UT2k3, Serious Sam, etc), and NOT MP3.
Also newsworthy: There is alpha-level Ogg Vorbis support for the PhatNoise/Kenwood Music Keg -now-, downloadable from the PhatNoise web site. Looks like the Music Keg is the first one to market with Ogg! (at least for car players, anyway...)
The iPod uses a 1.8 in. hard disk; the Creative uses a standard 2.5 in. notebook
hard disk -- therefore the Creative player is about twice as big as the iPod.
Not only is this not novel (Archos has been using 2.5 in. notebook
drives in similarly-sized MP3 players for a while), it's also not a competitor
in my book.
Let's not forget that the company that makes this, Creative Labs, hopped on the DRM bandwagon.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
People are complaining about features? The Nomad does have features over and above the iPod. Most notably recording. Many people in the live & location recording circles are exploring the Nomads as a replacement for DAT and Mini Disc recording. Creative engineers have been quite active with end users on some of the message boards I frequent with refining the firmware of the Nomad III to enable bit accurate recording and data transfer, so they will listen to a relatively small customer base to improve their product. That said I think I remember reading an article that discussed why so few portable devices support OGG and other codecs. It basically comes down to CPU power. Most of the embedded chips do not have enough processing power to support OGG decoding. Any device this small makes a tradeoff between battery and processing power. Finally 10-12 hours of nonstop music is a lot, maybe I can't listen to EVERY song on a player in that time, but do you always know what songs you listen to before you leave the house? I don't, so it's nice to have a large selection to choose from. And the ability to recharge from a USB port or an AC adapter sounds pretty nice to me. Competition in this market will drive innovation and lower prices. The iPod and Nomad are both prime examples of that, so let's hope for our sake the battle continues.
I've actually just recently gotten hooked on MiniDiscs. Yes, I know, the DRM sucks, but it's easy enough to get around (besides, I usually rip straight from CD anyway so it's not a big deal.) The NetMDs are way cool, the MDLP4 format can hold about 4 full length CDs on one MD (albeit at a reduced bitrate, but with the headphones most people use with light portables, you'd never be able to tell the difference.) The thing is impossible to skip, the battery life is insane (60+ hrs on a single AA,) plus it's small and the media's cheap.
I really do wish Sony would get over the stupid DRM bullshit though, as that's really the only major flaw the NetMDs have. Well, that and lack of cross-platform drivers, but that seems to be a problem for a lot of portables. You can pick them up at Best Buy for around $150, but I'm sure with some online searching you could find them for a bit less. The discs are about a buck a pop, but when compared to flash media or a cratered hard drive, it's a steal.
Yeah, I know, a lot of people are going to bitch about how the format is closed and very much proprietary, but personally I don't care so long as it works. If you're just looking for a solid portable, take a look at the NetMDs. Yeah, 10 gigs of MP3s on a hard drive player sounds nice, but I'm not sure I wanna plunk down that kind of cash on something with as many sensitive, breakable parts as are in a hard drive. Aw well, any other MD fans out there?
... that one of the most appealing aspects of the iPod is the hardware design? Looking at the Zen reminds me a lot of the Nomad MG (which I own). A great player, but the fact that there are buttons on BOTH sides of the unit makes it a huge hassle to hold onto (always pushing buttons by accident). At least the MG has different button layouts on each side -- the Zen has identical button layouts on each side, making the situation even worse. The iPod's wheel and push button method of interacting with the UI is much more intuitive than having to remember two sets of buttons located on the side of the unit, which you can not see while looking at the screen.
I don't own a Macintosh, or any Apple product for that matter, but THIS is the reason why Apple is still around. You can talk about things like Ogg support and the ability to hack a device with custom apps until you are blue in the face. At the end of the day, those things don't sell product, but making thoughtfully and intelligently designed products will.
That said, I do think the Nomad MuVo looks interesting for active MP3 listening (running, snowboarding, etc).There are a lot more specs then that on those page: recording capablity:
zen: yes, ipod no
radio
zen: yes, ipod no
S/N ratio:
zen: 98db, ipod: dosn't say
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
That's right, nobody seems to care about frequency response, distortion, output power, all those other specs that actually determine how likely you are to actually enjoy listening to the damn thing. Nomad vs. iPod, fine, whatever... does anybody have a clue which one actually sounds better? Or does that matter any more?