Gateway Portable MP3 Player

dcsmith writes "Gateway has announced the Gateway Digital Audio Player, a 1.5-ounce USB device that also provides portable storage and voice recording. The device is curently available in a 128MB model priced at $129.99, with a 256MB model priced at $169.99 scheduled to debut on 14 August." The Gateway store has a picture. No mention of DRM.

Comments

Put into perspective

[mao che minh]

Well, 20GB external USB 2.0 hard drives tend to run about $150 USD, like this one: Archos MiniHD

A decent MP3 player, 128MB with FM/AM tuner, tends to run between $100-130 USD: iRock 830

So basically, this Gateway offering is no more impressive then your run-of-the-mill 128MB MP3 player. All it adds is voice recording and the ability to use it for portable storage (which is handy, but at only 128-256MB doesn't impress me enough to buy it). However, you could buy a 20GB portable USB HDD and any other 128MB MP3 player for about $250 USD all together, which is only $80 more then their 256MB model.

Verdict:
A. For $170 you can get a 256MB MP3 player with a voice recorder.
B. For $250 you can get a 128MB MP3 player and a 20GB external drive.
C. You could just buy a 20GB MP3 player for $240 USD: Archos Jukebox Recorder 20

Re:Put into perspective

[kmak]

In fact, the Archos Jukebox records as well, and the newer versions have a little movie player!

Ya, when I saw the specs, the first thing on my mind was, "What were they thinking?"

Truly two years too late..

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you clip that portable HDD to your belt and walk around town? Do you go jogging with it? Does a single AAA battery last for 36 hours of playtime? None of the above?

Re:Put into perspective

[stratjakt]

For 250 bucks I can get a gig of SDRam for my PDA/Smartphone which can play mp3s.

Whoopity do. This article was only posted so michael could add his "wah wah DRM" comment to the end.

It's not really news or at all thrilling, just another in a sea of "me too" products.

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes. And yes... sort of. It's called an iPod. Portable hard drive, 5-30 GB, fine for jogging thanks to the 32 MB RAM buffer, and a single charge (it's rechargeable) lasts about 10 hours.

Re:Put into perspective

[way2trivial]

and a little movie recorder too!
(hell is defined as watching the winamp second counter so I make 20 seconds)

Re:Put into perspective

[espo812]

For 250 bucks I can get a gig of SDRam for my PDA/Smartphone which can play mp3s.

How fast does this kill the battery?

Re:Put into perspective

[Shaklee39]

I'll take a look at this as soon as it gets to 10 gigs in capacity.

If it gets to 15, then I'll really start paying attention, and start comparing it to the Archos Jukebox.

But man. If you've experienced a player with capacity measured in gigs, then it's hard to seriously consider devices that are measured in (albiet high) megabytes.

256 megs? I am an audiophile and I couldn't fit more than 3 albums and a few big audiobooks on that. Which is still a lot, I guess... But still not nearly as wonderfully flexible as my 15 gig Archos Jukebox.

Re:Put into perspective

[Kevin DeGraaf]

So basically, this Gateway offering is no more impressive then your run-of-the-mill 128MB MP3 player.

No joke. I wish the Slashdot editors had even a smidgen of journalistic integrity; if they did, obviously paid-for advertisements would not be posted under the guise of "news for nerds".

How about creating a story category for blatantly unlabelled advertisements posing as real submissions? Since that would deprive Malda of his fifth new Porsche, I think we'll see that happening right after SCO reveals the infringing code in the kernel...

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Another way of looking at it is that for $130 you get an MP3 player and spend the other $120 that your plan entails on scotch and cheap hookers.

So what if I can get a 20GB hard drive for $150? I want a cheap MP3 player, not a hard drive, and I only want to spend $130 (or less) on it.

And so what if you can get a 20GB MP3 player for $240? That thing is more than twice the size and weighs 12 times as much, has moving parts, and is way the hell more capacity than I need for my morning jog.

Re:Put into perspective

[cujo_1111]

2 things:
1. Anyone who labels themselves an audiophile is usually a wanker...
2. You call yourself an audiophile (see point 1), yet you still listen to MP3s. The compression makes them sound better to you, right? Most of my ripped albums are in the region of 90-95 megs, it would be impossible to fit 3 of them into 256 megs, let alone alone adding a few big audiobooks as well.

If you are looking for a very portable player that lasts for ages on it's batteries this is an ok choice. Add in the crappy bud earphones and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a 128 kbps and 192 kbps MP3 anyway...

Re:Put into perspective

[MegaHamsterX]

Hey they owned the Amiga for a bit too, it was two years too late then too, seems to be Gateway's M.O.

Re:Put into perspective

[Technician]

Regarding DRM, here is what I read in the article;

I looked between the lines as always looking for what they are not saying. I found it.. It says Write and Delete files. That takes care of the serial copy problem. It does not say READ. My between the lines discovery indicates there will be no way to get the MP3's back off the device except delete them.

Re:Put into perspective

[shellbeach]

Yeah, this Gateway player is nothing new - it probably uses the same SigmaTel chip that just about every other player on the market uses. It's still USB 1.1 which is pathetic, and 128Mb - while much better than 64Mb - is similarly ridiculous when you consider that USB 2.0 512Mb flash-drives are both cheap and readily available.

What I'd really like to see is a mp3 playing module that doesn't contain any memory, but allows usb flash-drives to plug into it. That way you could keep upgrading the usb flash-drives as storage becomes cheaper, and not have to pay for the mp3 decoding part again ...

... which I guess is the reason why no company will ever produce such a device :(

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, mp3s didn't skip.

Wrongo, Mr. Smart Drawers. Remember, the iPod has a hard drive in it, not solid-state memory. Hard drives, being mechanical devices, can skip just like a CD player. The iPod protects itself against skipping with a giant RAM buffer, and it protects itself against shock damage by keeping the hard drive spun down almost all the time.

Who's the idiot here?

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had a full sized, non-buffered hard drive in my car as an audio system (in a pc) and while I've gone over some very rough road, the hard drive has NEVER messed up.

It doesn't surprise me that you're unfamiliar with the dynamics of jogging. Since you're posting on Slashdot so religiously, it's a safe bet that you've never been.

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't surprise me that you're unfamiliar with the dynamics of jogging. Since you're posting on Slashdot so religiously, it's a safe bet that you've never been.

I can tell you're unfamiliar with the mechanics of SLAMMING A HARD DRIVE REPEATEDLY ON A DESKTOP. Apparently you believe that a person jogging, with a hard drive secured to their person, will cause more shock to a hard drive than slamming it on a desk. Brilliant, that. I didn't 'tap' it or 'jostle' it, I freaking SLAMMED it, over and over, onto a wooden desk top. Next time, perhaps you'll read the ENTIRE post before dashing off a knee-jerk idiotic reply. Unless you simply weren't able to comprehend the entire post? Since you're posting on Slashdot so anonymously, it's a safe bet that you have no reading comprehension skills.

I.A.N.A.T.

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

1. No you didn't. I have no reason to believe you did any of these things.

2. Apply impulse perpendicular to the axis of rotation and see what happens.

3. As I suspected: idiot.

Re:Put into perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me your address, and I'll even send you a free hard drive to test it with.

3232 McKinney Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204. That's my work address. It's a post house called Charlie Uniform Tango. Address it to "Yogi."

That's exactly what I did. What happened? Nothing.

No, you didn't. You didn't do anything at all. What you described was impulse parallel to the axis of rotation.

You couldn't have just said 'hit it on one of its edges and see what happens', you had to say 'apply impulse perpendicular to the axis of rotation' blah blah.

That's right. I was being precise.

Do you really think you impressed anyone?

Oh, probably. Some people are easily impressed.

I'd like to apply impulse perpendicular to YOUR axis of rotation, coward.

Since I'm not rotating, that wouldn't work.

Yes, you are, but perhaps your mother loves you anyway.

My mother died last winter. Asshole.

Now where's that hard drive you promised?

Entry-Level

[Luigi30]

I guess it's true. It really is a Gateway drug.

No more music hardware technology updates...

[DeltaSigma]

...until the blurb includes "ogg vorbis."

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Hatta]

Indeed, this is YANMP3P. FLAC support would also be acceptable.

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Tired of seeing inferior technology coming up as "news".

I wonder why this is mentioned on Slashdot. You can get cheaper players elsewhere. And if you're willing to pay more, go right ahead and get yourself a real player, which supports good codecs.

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have two little typos in your links. That should be "real player" and "good codecs".

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

AAC Licensing
In other words, it's not free as in ogg.

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[CommanderTaco]

would "this player does not support ogg vorbis" count?

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

So? It's superior in every way to OGG. That's what counts.

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

or until RIAA admits they are full of shit.

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

So? It's superior in every way to OGG. That's what counts.

Typical iPod owner in denial.

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

You want Ogg Vorbis? Keep an eye on Rio for the rest of the year. The new owners are bringing them back to life with about six new players.

Specifically, keep an eye on a new product called "Rio Karma", the new version of the Riot. It'll come in 20GB and 40GB variations.

Re:No more music hardware technology updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that what passes for a clever or insightful retort these days? Oh, how I weep for our future.

Hmm

[Vexalith]

Sounds nice, but strikes me as a good price, considering that some USB keyrings are that expensive without having the voice capability.

Wonder what format it records in? If it uses MP3, pity because they could have saved on licensing fees if they'd chosen an open format like OGG.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

ogg sucks, no one wants a lame format designed by some kid in a basement.

Re:Hmm

[philipdl71]

Wonder what format it records in? If it uses MP3, pity because they could have saved on licensing fees if they'd chosen an open format like OGG. Yes, they also could have made their product non-functional. Realistically, no company is going to come out with a product that doesn't play mp3 files. The best we can manage for now is trying to get a company to include OGG support on the side but even this costs money to implement. OGG is much better sounding than MP3 and also much harder to decode.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes-Ogg Vorbis. What were they thinking, licensing the #1 audio compression format when there was this free format that maybe ten rabid linux nazis use that they could have chosen!

Shows Gateway is REALLY out of touch.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Your claim that it (vorbis) is "better sounding" than MP3s is 100% subjective.

Vorbis may have things going for it, but let's face facts-no matter how great it is, there's about as much chance of Vorbis unseating MP3s as there is of Bill Clinton telling the truth-that is, nil.

It's the same chance that MS will be unseated by Linux or MacOS X. Just...y'know...grow up and realise that there are things worth fighting for (low taxes) and thing not worth fighting for (computing platforms).

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Slamming Clinton is totally 90's, man. Get with the times, GW Bush is our official national liar these days.

NEWS FLASH!

[mrpuffypants]

Every company under the sun makes an el cheapo MP3 player. Even Nike!

Re:NEWS FLASH!

[Pieroxy]

Under Sun? Is that another Unix licensing issue ?

Trying to figure out

[stinkwinkerton]

Why this is frontpage news? Is it the size or is it the fact that is records voice as well? I'm not trolling, really honestly trying to figure out what the supercool part is.

Re:Trying to figure out

[gantrep]

I think it's because it's the first from Gateway. They are kind of expanding their product line I guess. Or could just be a slow news day or Michael is being especially Michael-esque. Who knows.

Re:Trying to figure out

[gantrep]

Also I bet they don't really expect that many people to buy them from them straight out. They will try to sell them as part of a package with a new computer system, etc. You know, "Act now and get a FREE mp3 player! $130 value!"

Re:Trying to figure out

[JayBlalock]

Just FYI, the quote is: "Evil! Pure and simple from the 8th dimension!"

Re:Trying to figure out

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael posted it

Re:Trying to figure out

[homer_ca]

Maybe michael is stuck in a timewarp. Flash MP3 players are so 1999. Sure, it's a little smaller and it has twice the memory for the same price as a '99 vintage Rio. That's about it. Even a crappy Creative Nomad I (emphasis on crappy, think parallel port transfers at 90KB/s) can do voice recording.

Oh yeah, this'll dethrone the iPod

[Alexander]

What Product Manager OK'd this?

Imagine, People at Gateway actually sat around a table with a white board in a conference room someone that probably smelled like day old coffee and stale garlic bagels, and thought that this functionality, at these prices (!) would launch Gateway competitively into the MP3 player market.

It makes the mind hurl...

Re:Oh yeah, this'll dethrone the iPod

[Luigi30]

Wow. Sounds like what happened when SCO decided to sue everyone.

Re:Oh yeah, this'll dethrone the iPod

[Elwood P Dowd]

No, it was:

"Muvo says we can license their player for a few bucks."

"Oh, cool. Then we could put it in the gateway store with some huge markup and fleece morons."

"Right on. Should be done in a week."

Re:Oh yeah, this'll dethrone the iPod

[archen]

From a company that has essentially standardized on "What's apple doing? Lets do that" (but not as well) - is this really a surprise?

looks like a repackaged muvo

[utexaspunk]

looks like a repackaged version of creative's muvo, which means it uses its own proprietary USB key that has the controls on it. why can't someone make a little mp3 player that is basically the buttons and headphone jack into which one plugs an ordinary USB-keydrive? that way one could keep a couple keydrives around and swap them.

Re:looks like a repackaged muvo

[FatRatBastard]

I suspect because it would be expensive. If you add all of the controls and headphone jack to the dock you then have to pump data from the drive to the dock. Thus, the dock has to have USB hub hardware for data transfer from the drive to the dock. With all of the controls / jack on the drive all the dock needs to do is provide power to the drive, which I suspect is a much simpler hardware setup (thus cheaper).

Re:looks like a repackaged muvo

[Zooka]

It reminded me of the MuVo also. Except this player has a backlit LCD display. Which makes it much more user friendly, IMO. (though that's bound to eat into battery life...) I also like the use of a USB cable, vs. plugging the device right into a USB port (not easy for those of us without front side usb ports). I like these drag-n-drop mp3 players that don't require special software. I wouldn't buy a player with such a limited amount of storage without an FM tuner, though.

I also fail to see how this innovative or even newsworthy. Let me know when the prices on these things aren't so inflated.

Re:looks like a repackaged muvo

[nekura]

The new MuVo NX also has a backlit LCD screen.

Re:looks like a repackaged muvo

[Anonymous Coward]

why not just buy a NEX-II and a few 512 meg CF cards and quit whining...

Oh and spend alot less for a ton more.

Cripes, why anyone would buy a memory mp3 player that is not the NEX-II??

everything else completely sucks compared to it.... until you get to the hard drive type models... but then drop one of those running on a sidewalk from a 2nd story window..... (My NEX survuved that BTW....)

Re:looks like a repackaged muvo

[Anonymous Coward]

Reconsider your idea carefully. You're basically talking about reinventing SmartMedia-based players, except worse because we should have learned by now that people don't want to buy extra media to carry around. You're negating the advantage of a tiny MP3 player if you're also going to carry around a bunch of extra media.

This isn't for going on long trips where you'll be away from your computer for a while, it's for walking, commuting, bus rides, excersize, etc.

Also, you're negating the advantage of those key-drives, which is that they are cheap and portable. If you buy a couple, you're spending as much as an iPod or something would be, for a bunch of storage that you can only use one at a time.

Re:looks like a repackaged muvo

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, it is repackaged Oracom ORC-200 as far as I cam tell. Take a look at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009MGD L/ref=br_ac_slwth_1_2/qid=1059121042/sr=1-2/ if you doubt me. It looks *exactly* the same.

Re:looks like a repackaged muvo

[MrResistor]

Not quite the same as what you're talking about, but I got my wife a USB-keydrive with the mp3 player, headphone jack and controls built into it. 256MB with built in Li-ion battery that recharges from the USB port, and earbuds integrated into the neck strap. The brand is Magicstar and it cost me about $120, IIRC.

But only geeks use Ogg

[Anonymous Coward]

And geeks make up a small percentage of the market ...

I still hate Gateway

[Anonymous Coward]

For stealing gateway.com from the original owner. Don't forget!

Re:I still hate Gateway

[tbase]

Did you read the pages you linked to? They all say Gateway 2000 (the computer maker) lost, and Gateway.com (The "little guy") won. I couldn't find anything online about Gateway 2000 "stealing" the domain. I couldn't find anything about how they ended up getting it, either. Anyone know what happened? I would suspect they may have bought it from him, but your guess is as good as mine.

Gateway Recommended

[super-momo]

so Gateway products have two categories. Gateway recommended and Gateway not recommended.

SFW.

[RaeF]

Big woop.

Shows up as a Drive letter

[sker]

The article doesn't mention DRM because there isn't any to speak of. The device shows up as a drive letter and any MP3 or WMA in the music folder is seen by the player. It doesn't even ship with any special software aside from a voice file converter and an icon editor... pretty decent.

Re:Shows up as a Drive letter

[swv3752]

From the info provided I expect it will work with any OS than has USB storage drivers.

Price....

[I_am_Rambi]

Why spent $170 for 256 megs of space? I can spent less than double and get a faster transfer (firewire compared with USB 1.1) and 10 gigs of space with an iPod. That just doesn't make cents. An iPod is a much better deal.

Re:Price....

[SunBug]

Or you could opt for a Creative Nomad Zen that has 2x the storage of your iPod, costs less than any iPod, and has Creative's legendary sound quality.

If you really must have the nifty white look, there is the Creative Zen NX that holds 30 GB and has even more features.

Re:Price....

[Anonymous Coward]

Two Reasons
1.Size
2.Battery Life

1.Is the iPod the size of your thumb? No, only solid-state mp3 players are.

2.Does the iPod use a single AAA battery for 12 hours? No, only solid-state mp3 players do.

Re:Price....

[swv3752]

Size battery and shock resitance. Nothing beats Solid state flash memory for shock (as in impact) resistance. It is not practical for the unit to be any smaller. There are a number of applications where this is better.

Re:Price....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah - Creative Labs legendary BAD sound quality. (To be perfectly honest, I have never heard an iPod or a Zen. I do have a PJB - its sound quality is decent - based on the same 24 bit Motorola DSP used in almost all pro studio equipment. I've had a chance to try various incarnations of the Nomad Jukebox - sounded like ass - all based on TI 16 bit DSP. Creative Labs sounds cards are also legendary for dark / murky / generally sounding like ass audio too - I've owned PLENTY of these SB cards.)

Re:Price....

[Life2Short]

Not to mention Creative's crap software. I've never used anything so crash-ridden in my life as the software that came with my Nomad.

Re:Price....

[N1KO]

The iPod doesn't work as a usb mass storage device which means i can't transfer files between computers as easily as with a usb flash drive/mp3 player.

It's also overpriced like most (all?) apple products.

Re:Price....

[Anonymous Coward]

USB Storage Device??? Stupid PeeCee Fuck!

The iPod works as a Firewire harddrive RETARD!

Fuck off and die you waste of space. USB????

Re:Price....

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, you must work for Creative Labs, the company with one of the absolute worst, most user-hostile support philosophies. I think Josef Mengele is their Human Factors consultant. Know him?

Re:Price....

[commodoresloat]

Those do look pretty sweet. Some drawbacks: software seems to be windows-dependent; no firewire (except on a 20G version that also has USB 1.1); also as an OS X user I will tolerate nothing less than seamless integration with iTunes. My 20g iPod was stolen by LAX security recently, so I'm in the market and looking around at other players, since I don't really want to spend another $500.... But honestly I don't see anything out there topping the ipod for my needs. The one thing I want that the ipod doesn't have is line in, but apparently the hardware supports it (there was a slashdot story on this when the new ipods came out). Anyway I'm still leaning in the direction of a new ipod. Damn those crooked security guards, but I guess it's an excuse to upgrade....

Re:Price....

[commodoresloat]

Ummm, it works as a firewire mass storage device so that if you really want to have an overpriced external hard drive you can. A USB player like the one advertised offers no advantage in mass storage over ipod, and certainly not nearly as much of it. Size, price, and battery life, though, are different issues.

Re:Price....

[SunBug]

The software is total crap. No doubt about it. The stuff from redchair is better, but still buggy in different ways.

Re:Price....

[SunBug]

Brilliant. Yeah, I know Mengelev. He, Hitler, Stalin, and myself go way back.

No, I don't work for Creative. I just like my Zen. It cost about $100 less than the iPod, and it sounds great. The earphones it comes with are complete crap; muddy, muffled, and dark. Replace them with some Sony MDR-CD180s and it sounds great.

Their customer support is bad. The Jukeboxes were fragile. I went through 3 of them under warrenty just by using them here at work.

I have had no problems with the Zen, and am completely pleased with it. The iPod has the nifty touch screen and nifty UI, but it is expensive.

Re:Price....

[Mikey-San]

The iPod doesn't need a AAA battery. It gets 8-10 hours on its internal rechargeable battery. A couple of hours less and no wasting batteries. I can even recharge it by plugging it into my FireWire port while I'm using it.

I'll take the iPod on this point.

Re:Price....

[Mikey-San]

Of course not. It doesn't need to be, since it's a FireWire storage device. (It's bootable, too. Install OS X on it and watch as you can boot your Mac with it.)

FireWire, strictly as a protocol, is much more interesting to me for a few reasons:

1. FireWire is isochronous.
2. FireWire is peer-to-peer, not master/slave (like USB). That means one could hook up a theoretical FireWire-eqipped TV and stream the DV footage you just shot of your day at the beach right to the screen, nothing else involved.
3. TCP/IP communication over FireWire, because of point number 2, is much more flexible than USB. (I don't know if USB supports TCP/IP communication at all. Just guessing that it does.)
4. FireWire can push 1.5 amps (versus less than a tenth of that for USB 2) to a device. That makes powering small notebook HDs or charging MP3 players quite easy to do.

The only thing that sucks is when a computer manufacturer puts a 4-pin FireWire port on a machine instead of a 6-pin port. (The difference being the two pins that perform termination power transfer.) I dunno why people ship 4-pin ports on computers when a device the size of a deck of cards has a 6-pin port. Go figure.

Re:Price....

[Anonymous Coward]

blah blah blah. quit your whining. USB won, firewire lost. Deal with it, moron.

Peace!

Re:Price....

[dr.badass]

Your entire post is stupid. I'll say that right up front.

Why spent $170 for 256 megs of space? I can spent less than double...

Whoopty shit, you're still paying twice as much. Think of it in terms of basic addition and subtraction instead of multiplication. I think the iPod is pretty damn cool, but if I can get an MP3 player that does everything I need for $130 less, why shouldn't I? That's more cash money in my pocket to blow on blackjack and hookers, or CDs.

and get a faster transfer (firewire compared with USB 1.1)

Moot point when you've only got 128-256MB to fill up. FireWire would be wasted on a drive that small.

and 10 gigs of space with an iPod. That just doesn't make cents. An iPod is a much better deal.

What if I only have 1GB of MP3s? What if I only want an MP3 player for going on half-hour walks every other day? What if I have the unnerving habit of dropping everything I ever carry, repeatedly? HDD-based MP3 players do not fit everybody's needs. A lot of people here seem to be ignorant as to this point, so I'll make it bold : There is still a market for solid-state MP3 players.

Re:Price....

[mfifer]

Are you gonna listen to the same 20 songs for 12 hours?

Re:Price....

[Anonymous Coward]

the iPod has an internal battery that lasts just as long. It recharges.

Not only that, it can actually carry 12 hours worth of music. The gateway doesn't.

Of course the standard pop consumer will listen to the same 10 new tracks a few hundred times and not go braindead as they've already lost all their functional cells.

Re:Price....

[Minna Kirai]

Many people have given you excellent reasons, but they skipped one: Compatibility.

With USB storage, you can be virtually assured that wandering up to a strange computer will allow you to load the files. Firewire isn't common enough for that to be a safe assumption.

Re:Price....

[torpor]

No kidding.

If it wasn't for my iPod and WiFi, I wouldn't get anything done on /. at all ...

Re:Price....

[torpor]

Firewire is far superior, and not only that continues to improve as bandwidth gets better and better. Same protocol, no matter the wire - the design scales all the way to fiber.

Whereas USB required a redesign, fundamentally, to go from 1.0 -> 2.0...

Re:Price....

[Mr_Silver]

Why spent $170 for 256 megs of space? I can spent less than double and get a faster transfer (firewire compared with USB 1.1) and 10 gigs of space with an iPod [apple.com]. That just doesn't make cents. An iPod is a much better deal.

Solid state is generally better for exercise. I personally don't like the idea of shaking a HD based MP3 player for 2 hours non-stop.

Plus it's smaller and lighter - which means I can strap it onto an arm band and not feel that it's there. Not something you can do with an iPod.

Re:Price....

[slaida1]

Whoa! How big is your thumb anyway? That Gateway player is at least 3 times the size of my thumb.

I haven't seen thumbsized mp3 players yet except maybe the ones fitted into watches. Add single AAA battery into that and it's going to be larger than (my) thumb.

Be more careful with that hammer from now on y'hear?

Re:Price....

[ianscot]

With USB storage, you can be virtually assured that wandering up to a strange computer will allow you to load the files. Firewire isn't common enough for that to be a safe assumption.

The iPod's also USB 2 compatible, yes? (Not sure I'd love to be synching 10 gigs of mp3s at USB 1 speeds.)

Re:Price....

[prefect42]

Not true, laptop makers definitely like Firewire. Look at how many docking stations are implemented with firewire (dell x200 as an example). You'd never notice under windows, but it's just a firewire connection for the data transfer between the media slice and the main unit.

Re:Price....

[Mikey-San]

Docking station?

WHY? (Other than port duplication.)

My PowerBook is an inch thick, and I still have a 6-pin FireWire port on the back, no docking stations necessary. Most PC notebooks that have FireWire built-in use 4-pin ports, as well, which is also dumb for the same reasons as not including it at all, but including it on a docking station.

Like I said, if an iPod--a tiny device--can have a 6-pin port, anything short of a Zippo can.

Re:Price....

[prefect42]

Damned handy interface to connect your (effectively) external DVD/CDRW and friends. The main unit includes a firewire port for normal use, this is just the interconnect.

Re:Price....

[Andy Dodd]

"The only thing that sucks is when a computer manufacturer puts a 4-pin FireWire port on a machine instead of a 6-pin port. (The difference being the two pins that perform termination power transfer.) I dunno why people ship 4-pin ports on computers when a device the size of a deck of cards has a 6-pin port. Go figure."

Simple. Said device is USING Firewire bus power and is not expected to provide it.

Meanwhile, in a portable computer, where power management is key, putting a 6-pin Firewire port means adding a 1.5-amp power supply. Power supplies capable of that much current take space, which is at a premium in laptops.

Re:Price....

[Mikey-San]

That's bullshit.

PowerBook G4s are only an inch thick. It provides power to a FireWire device when one is attached.

You don't add a 1.5-amp power supply, since there's no power supply inside the computer to begin with. The power supply is external, for space and heat issues, out of the gate, so you're not adding anything but some routing on the logic board, the size of the FireWire port itself, and a FireWire controller chip.

If one computer company can do it, any company should be able to, right? As much as I like Apple, I don't think Apple's the only company out there capable of pulling this off.

Re:Price....

[Mikey-San]

Second-after addendum:

I'm fairly certain there are PC notebooks with 6-pin ports out there, but I couldn't think of any off the top of my head. Either way, there's no reason to use a 4-pin port.

Re:Price....

[dr.badass]

Dear fucktard moderator,
It has come to my attention that you're a fucking asshole. While you may not be aware of such modern inventions as fire, sliced bread, bathing, and non-asshole-ness, you should be aware by now that using 'Overrated' on an unmoderated post is the kind of fucking fucked-upedness for which there is a circle of hell reserved. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

Thank you.

-dr.badass

Re:Price....

[Andy Dodd]

You are completely wrong that there is no power supply inside the computer. Given that the battery voltage can be anywhere from 3.0-3.2 volts/cell to 4.2 volts/cell, switching power supplies are required to maintain efficient regulation.

As I said before, 1.5 amp power supplies take up board space and COST MONEY. Given the razor-sharp margins in the PC world and low demand for 1394 devices for PCs due to Intel's marketing of their inferior technology (USB), 6-pin 1394 is a feature that is simply not worth the cost as far as selling laptops.

It's not a simple matter of adding circuit traces. I can't remember if 1394 is 12V or 5V, either way, it requires a flyback (If 12v) or buck (if 5v) switching converter, considering that most laptops use Li-Ion cells in a 3-series-x-parallel config. (10.8v nominal, 3.6 per series cell, can go as high as 4.2v/cell and as low as 3.0-3.2ish I believe.

Missing features

[nother_nix_hacker]

No mention of DRM

Does DRM have better sound quality than MP3?

Re:Missing features

[Frostalicious]

Does DRM have better sound quality than MP3?

Only if you enjoy the sound of sweet silence...

Re:Missing features

[Repugnant_Shit]

Yes, the clarity of the complete silence is amazing!

Re:Missing features

[neonstz]

Only if you enjoy the sound of sweet silence...

Hah, someone already has a copyright on that!

Re:Missing features

[WIAKywbfatw]

The sweet sound of silence?

Simon and Garfunkel and sugar on top? I gotta get me one of those ASAP...

Re:Missing features

[Anonymous Coward]

That compares rather favorably to certain recorded noises, such as those produced by Britney Spears, actually...

What the appeal is...

[LamerX]

The appeal is the size. Look at it, it's 128mb and 1.5 ounces. It's so super light, it could actually be put into your pocket without a big square lump. I haven't seen a lot of MP3 players, but this looks to be one of the smaller ones out there. And the fact that it can double as your geek-kit-driver-holder is pretty neat.

Re:What the appeal is...

[Hatta]

When you can get 1.5 ounces of weed for the same price, it's hard to justify buying the MP3 player. ;)

Re:What the appeal is...

[blamanj]

How about this one. Not only is it same size, weight, and price, but it supports an FM tuner and FM recording as well, which the Gateway does not.

It also supports the Mac, which I don't expect the Gateway to do, either.

Re:What the appeal is...

[heli0]

There are several that are this size or smaller. I have the 256MB iAudio CW200 that is 40g(1.4oz). It is GREAT for loading up the 'Rocky III' soundtrack and some other tunes and going out for a 10k run.

Re:What the appeal is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it could actually be put into your pocket without a big square lump.

Your mom puts a big square lump in my pocket, although, to be fair, my big square lump also weighs about 1.5 ounces.

PS--Your mom also doubles as my geek-kit-driver-holder. And her appeal is her size, too.

Re:What the appeal is...

[mr45acp]

Check out the "Jens of Sweden" MP-110. www.jensofsweden.com
It is even smaller/ligher and has all the features as well as a nice design. I like it a lot!

I Pod

[lostinchicago]

Im not even a mac fan and ide rather buy an ipod.

Re:I Pod

[Anonymous Coward]

That's very insightful of you. I'm not a mac fan, and I'd rather not buy an ipod. That's not very insightful though, is it?

Re:I Pod

[commodoresloat]

Actually, the iPod doesn't support IDE.

I'll take a look when...

[PeteyG]

I'll take a look at this as soon as it gets to 5 gigs in capacity.

If it gets to 10, then I'll really start paying attention, and start comparing it to the iPod.

But sheesh. If you've experienced a player with capacity measured in gigs, then it's hard to seriously consider devices that are measured in (albiet high) megabytes.

256 megs? I couldn't fit more than 3 albums and a few big audiobooks on that. Which is still a lot, I guess... But still not nearly as wonderfully flexible as my 15 gig iPod.

Helluva lot cheaper though!

Re:I'll take a look when...

[shaka999]

Hows jogging, or any other impact sport, with your ipod?

Thats what I thought....

Re:I'll take a look when...

[heli0]

"But still not nearly as wonderfully flexible as my 15 gig iPod."

A lot of people, including myself, use this during fitness training. A 10GB iPod weighs 158g, these units weigh around 35g. 158g is a lot of weight to have in your pocket if your are running several miles.

Re:I'll take a look when...

[valkraider]

Maybe if you were in better shape... [said as he ducks and runs. Well, doesn't run because he's fat and lazy...]

Re:I'll take a look when...

[cnkeller]

Hows jogging, or any other impact sport, with your ipod?

I've never heard my ipod skip or had a problem with it.

I've dropped it twice on the treadmill while jogging (non-consecutively) before i bought a case for working out. Must be that huge 32meg buffer. The new ones are very light as well, though not near as light as the Gateway. I happen to wear mine around my bicep with an arm band (just un-velcro the cover) that leaves it easily accessible to switching tracks, virewing the name of a song, etc. No problems on the treadmill or the weight bench ever.

Re:I'll take a look when...

[PeteyG]

iPod works okay during physical activities.

The only trick is securing it adequately.

Re:I'll take a look when...

[Lumpy]

you sound like the guys that bitched about cassette players... "Let me know when they get auto reverse" sheesh, call me when they have T-180 casettes...

If you want something that small that is like an Ipod then wait for fricking forever.

and Ipod is a delicate LARGE mp3 player.... let me take your beloved ipod and beat it against a railing while it's playing... oops, it's now hosed. I cant take one of the memory units and if I dont crack open the case..... it still works perfectly.

They are two different things, and if you are too damned lazy to load up 256 megs of songs before you go out to run/bike/swim/take a huge dump then it sucks to be you.

Me? I love my el-cheapo NEX-II it loads us lightning fast via my internal card drive on my computer (IDE bus) and by writing some simple script I put the card in, click on an icon and it's loaded with another random sampling from my library while I put on my running shorts and get the dog leashed.

I would never buy an ipod as they are way too delicate and too damn honking big + heavy... as well as having crappy battery life. I change my 2 AA's once every 2 weeks.

Ipod is a completely different thing compared to these... stop comparing them.

Re:I'll take a look when...

[heli0]

The fact that I can run a 10k at all probably puts me in the top 0.1% of slashdot readers. Being able to run to the mail box probably puts you in the top 2%.

Re:I'll take a look when...

[eluusive]

From apple's website: "the new iPod has been redesigned to be even thinner and lighter, weighing less than two CDs." How is 5.6 ounces "LARGE"? The battery life is about 8 hours of play. And I don't ever have to change my batteries. It's lithium ion battery charges up every time I put it in it's docking station.

Re:I'll take a look when...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that I can run a 10k at all probably puts me in the top 0.1% of slashdot readers. Being able to run to the mail box probably puts you in the top 2%.

It's funny 'cause it's true!

Re:I'll take a look when...

[valkraider]

No kidding. I don't even like driving 10k. ;) Going outside puts me in the top 5% of /. readers I think...

Actually though, to stay on-topic, my iPod works great while skiing... But then ski gear and bulky coats and junk aren't light, so what's a few more ounces?

In the end though, I prefer to listen to the snow and the wind and the slopes - when I am skiing. My iPod is to drown out the crap I am exposed to at *work*. My desk can hold the weight of the iPod, as long as I keep the Mt.Dew cans down to a minimum...

Re:I'll take a look when...

[gamgee5273]

Dude, you should borrow one. My iPod has never skipped - and I drive on Michigan roads...

The iPod precaches 20+ minutes of music in RAM - effectively making it a solid state player.

Re:I'll take a look when...

[gamgee5273]

Delicate? You're looking at the iPod with blinders on. Get off the anti-Apple high horse.

I've seen the iPod survive numerous falls - one of my coworkers is notorious for dropping everything of his, and I've dropped my iPod twice. No issues. No skips, no problems.

Learn before you speak.

your perspective is skewed

[SweetAndSourJesus]

These are Gateway customers we're talking about. Basically, people who have no idea how to buy a computer or computer accessories. When a friendly Gateway sales representative says "would you like to throw in an mp3 player for just $129.99?", lots of people are going to go for it.

Re:your perspective is skewed

[dr.badass]

When a friendly Gateway sales representative says "would you like to throw in an mp3 player for just $129.99?", lots of people are going to go for it.

Good.

No, really. I'm all for the proliferation and popularity of easy-to-use MP3 players. But they aren't going to be as ubiquitous as CD players until they get as cheap, as simple, and as rugged.

Most of the people here are obviously saying "It sucks, the iPod/Zen/Archos is better.". Well, yeah, but not everyone needs the power of one of those enough to justify spending $300 or so on it.

If you could get a car that does everything you need for $20,000, are you an idiot for not spending $40,000 on one that's "better"?

Re:your perspective is skewed

[MegaHamsterX]

I don't think anyone is making the assertion that people should buy a mega mp3 player, but for the price it's just not up to par.

Gateway reminds me of RadioShack 10 years ago, "Can I intrest you an hdtv with that computer, oh and we have this cool mp3 player for just a bit more, and as a plus everything says Gateway, how about an extended warranty....."

I just bought a creative jukebox 2 from walmart for something around $180.00, it has 20GB of capacity.
As far as it being rugged, well I tried to kill it within the return period by treating it to many decibles of bass in a show car on my vacation, it held up fine.
As for simple, well I'm not a fan of the software, but it worked out of the box without any problems on a cheesy old pentium, single sheet consice instructions.

Walmart had many other mp3 players, most of which were cheaper (from memory)than the Gateway one, the best thing, no shipping involved.

I would say mp3 players are as cheap, simple and rugged as any cd player on the market with the plus of no scratched cds, they stay at home, in the case, ripped once and put away forever..

Re:your perspective is skewed

[Seq]

I just bought a gateway laptop, after shopping around for several months. I'm quite impressed with the quality thus far. I did not purchase the product direct from gateway, however, so I cannot comment on that part of their sales.

For all I know, their sales personel could be slimey commission-driven fast talkers that will sell anything their wallet can carry home. The same could be said of most companies.

In the same respect, your comment could be said about compaq, apple, microsoft, or customers of almost any company.

Re:your perspective is skewed

[dr.badass]

I don't think anyone is making the assertion that people should buy a mega mp3 player, but for the price it's just not up to par.

Um, yes they are actually, in droves. I'd say that at least half of the top-modded posts are repetitions of "For only twice as much you can get an iPod", and so forth.

I'm at a loss as to why everyone keeps focusing on the fact that it's Gateway -- they sell a few dozen other MP3 players on the same site, you know, including the very same Nomad Jukebox 2. I just happen to think that the simple USB key-drive style is very conducive to widespread adoption. Moreso than having a hojillion GB of storage.

So, this Nomad, does it fit in your pocket? Your shirt pocket? Also, you tested how it stood up to vibration, but how about shock? Would you mind dropping it a few times for me, while it's running? Also, you had to install software to use it? That's lame.

You say that a device like this isn't up to par, but that's because it's playing a different game.

My point is that just because you don't want one doesn't mean there isn't a market for them.

Re:your perspective is skewed

[MegaHamsterX]

I guess you missed the RadioShack reference, they prove there's a market for over priced under performing equipment (not sure about what they have now though), I guess I'm just not sure why the article made it to slashdot, the article itself should be modded flamebait(article modding would be cool).

But as for my jukebox, mine specificly, I can't speak for anyone else. The vibration test, or I guess you could call it that, was a 4000watt 4 subwoofer setup, I plugged the jukebox into the headunit and let it loose on everything from Metal, Country, Techno, you name it, ripped on a 266pentium I was borrowing that day, running Win98(the jukebox had a bigger harddrive than the system).
I eventually got out due to queesyness, the jukebox bounced around on the floor for 3-4 hours with the playlist rolling. As far as dropping it, yes I did, on carpet from table top height (on-spun up)and slightly lower on concrete minding any plastic might crack at that height(on-not spun up). I did do my best to break it, I was on vacation in another state and wasn't too sure about WalMart's exchange policy across state lines. It held up quite well, it's about the same size as a cd player, so it's not bulky, I keep it in a case I used for my previous cd player, beats an iPod for twice the price or a microplayer with not enough space.

Yep, gotta install software, that is a letdown, but not much of one, once the drivers are installed you can skip the creative thing and use media player. I like the creative thing since it seems to handle my mp3 catalog better than media player does, it does a decent job ripping mp3s, I was using cdex, but the (creative)software grows on you. It seems to be set up for a neophyte user, once you look at it from that perspective the interface makes sense.

The micro mp3 players have space issues, IMHO there isn't a really compelling reason to buy one but for geek chic or ignorance. Normal people seem to be able to tell the difference between a 128K and 192K-360K rip, 2 baby boomer box sets wouldn't fit on one at a decent bit rate.

128 meg vs 5 gig?

[azav]

Honestly, what good is 128 meg? This is barely a CD or 2 at high quality MP3.

Compare this to the original iPod with 5 Gig of storage.

Seems like it's only good for short trips to the gym but not much else.

Re:128 meg vs 5 gig?

[O_Chaos]

I agree with you. 128 is just a little bigger then a CD, but more of a hassle to load the songs previous to each use etc..

But combining this with the recorder makes it a decent buy at that price. I probably wouldnt fork out the dough, but could see it as marketable..

Re:128 meg vs 5 gig?

[babyrat]

precisely why I would consider this type of player over an iPod.

Not that I'd necessarily consider this over other solid state players, but the 'drive' type MP3 players are too big for my intended use (or rather the small size is more of a benefit for me than the large capacity)

Plenty of these...

[LamerX]

There are TONS of other small mp3 players like this... it's really nothing new...

RipFlash http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 06RVH3/104-5806291-7855108?v=glance&me=ATVPDKIKX0D ER

Irock 520
http://hardwarecentral.dealtime.com/dealtime2 000/R eviews/product/read_product/1,7235,3310,00.html

Sony NW MS9
http://sudhian.dealtime.com/xPR-Sony_NW_MS9

The list goes on and on...

Just search google... Like I did....

Re:Plenty of these...

[swv3752]

It is just a usb storage device, instead of those other players. So it works in other OS's besides just Windows.

Nothing special

[ikea5]

ok a mp3 player from gateway, very impressive. Gateway is doomed, btw

Just in time!

[amorico]

A friend of mine called from 2000 looking for a state of the art mp3 player. Even at 1.5 ounces the shipping is going to be hell.

-a

Re:Just in time!

[chia_monkey]

Funny you mention that. I hear they're teaming up with Sony for a "tape backup" system that will also be portable. I think they're gonna call it a "Walk Man" or "Walkman" or something funky like that.

Re:Just in time!

[toddestan]

Neato. Can I hook it up to my C64 then?

Re:Just in time!

[dr.badass]

IIRC, back in 2000, if you had an MP3 player, you were locked into using whatever crappy proprietary software came with it. And if you were extra lucky, you had to plug it into a proprietary USB cable, too.

With this (and the Creative MuVo), you plug it to the USB port (no cables) and and it shows up as a drive letter. No software bullshit. Huge difference. What they don't say on the box is that this will work on MacOS and Linux just as easily.

Don't act like this isn't a big improvement from the previous generation. There's still a market for solid-state MP3 players, and this is just following the trend.

Re:Just in time!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry no, this is for CP/M machines only

Of course, the real price ...

[Corporate Drone]

will turn out to be $828.99 for the 128 MB unit, and $868.99 for the 256 MB unit, once SCO adds their licencing fees for IP they've discovered embedded in the MP3 players...

Cant beat a Ipod

[Bruha]

Other than price for those who cant afford it, the IPOD ppMp3 cannot be beat.. You can only get about 10-20 songs on a 128 meg device though the battery life on it may be longer compared to a Ipod I'm not sure since I have yet to buy a Mp3 player though I'd like to have one for riding my bike on back trails.

They have confused themselves.

[hashish]

stating that 1G = 1 million bytes, but the unit is only 128 M bytes.

Re:They have confused themselves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is a geek site, most geeks know to divide by 8, infact have to do so on a daily basis

Oh my god

[autopr0n]

There are tons of MP3 players out there, the iPod is just one more player. This gateway device is firmly in the middle of the pack, not any more or less competitive then other devices out there...

Re:Oh my god

[Anonymous Coward]

Until you count price...and options...and upgradability...and industry experience...and

Re:Oh my god

[Alexander]

iPod Market share @ 50%.

Thus "dethrone" thinking purely in market terms. Gateway is in a position where following market leaders != growth. It's all fine and good for Dell or HPaq to put poo on a stick and expect people to buy it because it's from them, or even for Apple to overcharge for less features or performance because of brand loyalty, but Gateway has neither the market share or the brand loyalty to make this a success, without going to a low-cost model. That, they have not.

Anybody have a MuVo?

[niko9]

Heard this is a smimilar product minus the LCD screen. They make it a point to print "No drivers needed" on the box. Works like a Flash Memory key too.

Anybody who has this care to comment?

Re:Anybody have a MuVo?

[Isaac-1]

I bought a muvo last weekend, so far I love it except for a few minor design complaints (the battery cover does not close securly, and you have to hold down on the power button for ever to get it to turn on (4-5 seconds).

Ike

p.s. I paid $75 for a 128 meg version

No more openbeos.org homepage links

[NerdSlayer]

...until the page removes the GIF images and goes PNG only.

Re:No more openbeos.org homepage links

[DeltaSigma]

Point taken. I'd change it, if I could, but... Well nevermind it, I'd prefer not to bash a team I'm trying to support.

Re:No more openbeos.org homepage links

[Anonymous Coward]

.GIF patents expired in June 2003. No more .GIF burning necessary.

Um wow

[autopr0n]

Why spent $170 for 256 megs of space? I can spent less than double

This is the problem with apple zealots, they think "less then twice as much" is a good deal if it comes from apple.

Seriously, the price diffrence comes from using a hard drive rather then solid state memory. Some people don't want to pay 'less then double' on an MP3 player, period. Some people don't want something as large as an Ipod.

the fine print

[514x0r]

there's an * next to the 128 capacity which seems to point to....

* Drive accessible capacity varies; GB = 1 billion bytes.

maybe they should add ...or 8 times what you get from this overpriced piece of crap.

Linux

[SHEENmaster]

that probably(99% chance) means that it works with Linux 2.4, OS X, etc.

Having an MP3 player act as a usb drive has the advantages of being cheaper, easier to develop, and multi-platform compatible.

I've got then MS9

[autopr0n]

It's got an absolutly Lovely design, but it plays atrac files, not MP3s, so you have to convert the files before you play 'em. Really stupid, I don't know why sony is pushing ATRAC so hard...

Re:I've got then MS9

[Zooka]

"I don't know why sony is pushing ATRAC so hard..."

Tell me about it. I've been a big fan of Sony electronics, but their insistence on making everything proprietary is really wearing on me. They make great products, but you often end up so limited with their use. (Another example is their "memory stick" storage media.) If it wasn't for the ATRAC format, I'd more than likely have bought one of their minidisc players. But instead, these days I'm more likely to ignore any and all Sony products, let alone the ones that use their proprietary garbage... GG Sony.

Re:I've got then MS9

[buck_wild]

My biggest bitch is with their mini-disk players. It's very limiting, including having to 'check-out' files to the cd.

Time for the obligatory

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Welcome to last week pic:

Welcome to last week!

old news

[Anonymous Coward]

pff. iRiver make pretty good little players. Take this one.

512MB, voice & radio recording (selectable bitrate), mp3/wma/asf, just over 1 ounce, general file storage.

Capcity, Weight are minuses

[Alton_Brown]

I have one of the original 5GB iPods and still enjoy it very much. I could not imagine having anything less than 5GB in an mp3 player because I don't want to deal with changing out tunes every other day. As far as size is concerned, smaller size is better to a point. Like the palm OS watch, smaller can be bad. The size of the iPod fits nicely in my hand, it's easy to access everything and the weight is substantial - giving a sense of quality. I always thought the palmV was about the best form factor for the same reasons.<br><br>Don't even get me started on my disdain for Gateway in general... 3 family members have been disappointed to various degrees with their quality and service. Just my .02!

Re:say different

[tbase]

Maybe because for $10 more you get a graphic display with ID3 tag support and voice recording capability?

It's state-of-the-art! (if the year is 1999)

[tambo]

I can think of a decent reason why Gateway would enter a market so late, and with such an underwhelming offering. They're probably trying to find some way into the palm-level computing market.

It makes sense. HP and Dell offer PDA's, but the PDA market is so commoditized that Gateway can't distinguish itself. A Gateway-brand MP3 player, now - that's an area that is (a) easy to enter, (b) easy to improve (just add a hard drive!), and (c) easy to distinguish the product once it's at that level. There are only a few hard-drive-sized MP3 players out there; it would be easy for Gateway's to stand out.

(Furthermore: No one's really taking the MP3 player market anywhere, so Gateway could be the first to do it. Video, images, Bluetooth/802.11, web serving, built-in cameras, Internet connectivity - next-gen MP3 players could benefit from all of these... but no one's offering anything of the kind. Consumers' best hope for all-in-one devices is that PDAs will gain access to hefty storage and eat the MP3 market - which is starting to happen.)

Given the impending convergence of portable computing markets - MP3 players, digicams, cell phones, portable media, and palmtop computers - this is one big, coalescing market. Of course Gateway wants to get in. I would, too.

David Stein, Esq.

Ok, we get it the IPOD is a great player BUT

[shaka999]

Can you do impact sports with one? Even running isn't recommended. For me, and many others, one of the biggest uses of a portal player is for running. While there isn't anything fantastic about the Gateway player it is in a different class than the ipod. Hard disk based players and flash based players shouldn't be compared on storage...

Re:Ok, we get it the IPOD is a great player BUT

[DavidinAla]

I do both walking and SOME running with one of the older iPods. There is something like 20 minutes worth of skip protection built in, which has always been plenty for me. I assume that the iPod buffers to some kind of solid state memory, but I don't recall the details. It's also my playback device for music in the car (fed into the car's audio system), and my driving has never been bad enough to cause a problem with skipping yet. :-)

Re:Ok, we get it the IPOD is a great player BUT

[Orion_]

Even running isn't recommended.

Er, isn't recommended by whom? Apple's iPod FAQ (warning: low signal to hype ratio) says running is fine, and by my experience with mine, I'm inclined to agree.

I do agree that a solid state player is preferable under some circumstances, but the iPod and other hard disk players I've seen do pretty well with running/exercise. I think the main difference in my mind is that it's much more difficult to build a small durable hard disk player than it is to build a small durable solid state player, which makes the former much more expensive. (Witness the iPod which starts at $300.. ouch)

Re:Ok, we get it the IPOD is a great player BUT

[theclinic]

I played tennis with my 30GB iPod last week (though I switched out the headphones for something that I can fit under a hat to keep it snug on my head) and it was excellent.. I just placed the iPod within the pocket clip/case that it came with and put the device in my pocket with the clip facing outwards. No skips and had one helluva a time.. Plus at 6 ounces for 30 GB, I could play for hours and never listen to the same song.

Re:Ok, we get it the IPOD is a great player BUT

[ColdCuts]

No, I got my iPod for running. The first few weeks ran with it held in my hand, and have yet to have a problem. Prior to this, I ran with a portable CD player that advertised skip protection. The CD player I could make skip, something I haven't yet been able to do with the iPod.

Last week, I broke down and bought one of them fancy fanny packs designed for the pod. Running with that is a dream, you could forget the ipod is there if not for the headphones (and this is where you really appreciate the wired remote.)

Could be my incredibly smooth running style, but I doubt it. The iPod is great for runners.

Re:Ok, we get it the IPOD is a great player BUT

[dasmegabyte]

Uh, I run every day with my iPod. Took it out skating with me as well, but got nervous after about the third time I landed on it. Neither of these activitys is counterindicated by the manual...it says "don't drop it," but it's definitely okay for use at the gym.

Whereas I couldn't go running with my Muvo. The power output was so low that I could barely hear the music over my own breathing -- and the sound of WSUK or whatever piece of shit top 40 station they play at my gym.

How about MP3 player with CompactFlash slot?

[Anonymous Coward]

256MB CompactFlash - $48
MP3 player with 256MB of flash memory - $170

Chips for playing WMA/MP3 cannot cost more than a couple of dollars. Why nobody has introduced a cheap ($10-20) MP3 player without any storage? In addition of being cheap, it would have other advantages like ability to upgrade the storage in the future.

Re:How about MP3 player with CompactFlash slot?

[tbase]

Because then you couldn't charge $170 for 256 Mb of flash memory. I don't think their primary concern is price and upgradability. I think it's profit and sales. :-)

Re:How about MP3 player with CompactFlash slot?

[lightspawn]

Chips for playing WMA/MP3 cannot cost more than a couple of dollars. Why nobody has introduced a cheap ($10-20) MP3 player without any storage? In addition of being cheap, it would have other advantages like ability to upgrade the storage in the future.

Here's one. I'm sure there are more.

Re:How about MP3 player with CompactFlash slot?

[peter_gzowski]

How about a Nex IIe for $89? It's not $20, but it does have a pretty good LCD and good sound. Plus it shows up as a general USB storage device (USB 1.1, unfortunately). I like mine, anyway. Chrisd seems to like the old model (warning, very old review).

Obvious Branding Opportunity

[birddogsf]

Why can't these guys come up with a better name for their product than "128MB Digital Music Player?" Clearly, they should call it the "Getaway."

Lumpy.

[twitter]

With stated dimensions of 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), either you have a different idea of a lump in your pocket or you have bigger pockets than me.

Re:Lumpy.

[Anonymous Coward]

So stop with the Daisy Dukes, ya little bitch.

Gruvstick

[barjam]

This looks very much like the Cenodyn Gruvstick. Apparently the internals of the Gruvstick are in a ton of products, I wonder if that ist he case here.

The Gruvstick is a great MP3 player, for what it is worth (replace the headphones that come with it though).

Re:Ogg Vorbis advocacy

[Anonymous Coward]

...until the blurb includes "ogg vorbis."

Are people still hung up about ogg format? Give it up. It didn't make it.

This might sound as a flamebait, but sometimes people have to come in terms with reality and understand that ogg came too late to the party. OGG is a great format for xvid audio and other video codecs, it's excellent for streaming, and lastly, game developers love it because of the unrestricted non-royalty based license, unlike with MP3s and other formats.

But, it failed to capture the attention of consumer hardware developers, as well as the mainstream public. Still to this day, average Joe Blow doesn't know what Ogg vorbis is. I love non-proprietary open standards, but iPod, Zen, iRiver product lineup, and few other common portable makers drove a nail in the coffin of Ogg Vorbis in the market where people couldn't care less about few dBs of difference in quality or the license. Over 53% of the mp3 portable market is dominated by iPod. Being an owner of one, I rip my audio CDs in MP3 format, because otherwise I'd be shooting myself in the leg.

It's really tiring when I see people on slashdot and elsewhere repeat the same thing over and over, in regards to ogg making headway into the consumer market. It's over. Neuros's support for ogg is just symbolic, and will eventually prove that vorbis feature doesn't really sell portables.

Wow!

[AyeRoxor!]

This is much better than my $100 CD MP3 player that holds 700MB at a cost of $0.20 per media and has never skipped even while jogging, thanks to loading songs into cache RAM and spinning down! /sarcasm

Is this really worth it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't read the article, but how does this stack up to the Ipod or the Jukebox. Just because it's smaller in size than a lot of the other players doesn't mean its better. I don't think I need to carry around something with a cow decor on it either.

Gateway Plasma supposed to be OK...

[SuperKendall]

I saw a review of the Gateway Plasma on TechTV the other day - they thought it was a pretty good value for the price.

However, what I can't get is why you would spend $3k on a TV when you could have a projector (Infocus X1) for about $1k that has significantly higher resolution. The Gateway Plasma has some limit like 450 lines horizontial!!! Projectors do have drawbacks like needing a darkish room, but you can build your own screen and new projectors are pretty light. Plus, with a projector you can take it with you to LAN parties.

Re:Gateway Plasma supposed to be OK...

[The Lynxpro]

SuperKendall, what's the price on the lamps for those projectors when they burn out? I had no idea Gateway's plasma TV's resolution was less than 480p. I was under the impression that most plasma tv's were capable of 1080i at this point in the ballgame... I have an acquaintance who works for Gateway in Denver, and he claims the plasma tv's won't even work at their altitude...

Re:Gateway Plasma supposed to be OK...

[PsychoI3oy]

i used to work at a gateway in Grand Rapids, hoping to work at one of the 2 here in denver.

the gateway plasma TV, like the others in the sub $6k range, is not an hdtv screen, but rather has a downconverter in the tuner (built into the tv and included in the $3k price) that lets it be hdtv compatable. the screen itself is 480p, meaning progressive scan at standard tv resolution, aka edtv (extended defintion). i can say that dvd's look awesome on it (they're natively encoded at edtv levels, you need a progressive dvd player), and that when we had the hdtv signal from an echostar (dish netwrk) satelite, the performance was unbelievable. changing between 780p and 1080i on the dish did change the picture on the screen, i don't remember which we decided looked better. one had jagged straight lines, the other was missing frames about once a minute (both likely to be satelite problems). so no, the gateway tv isn't hdtv or capable of 1080i (though it will support a computer at 1024x768, it looks better at 800x600, which is just plain easier to read from 6 feet away), neither is the $4000 panasonic at best buy. you gotta shell out $$$$$$$ to get a hdtv native plasma screen. more bubbles of gas. :) as for the mp3 player? gateway is pushing to be more in competition with someone like sony, that does computers and home entertainment, rather than competing with dell, which is just computers. methinks they're trying to get the best of both worlds, i.e. custom computers and home electronics. i hope it works for them, i can't say anything bad about the company, and that's not just the NDA speaking :-p

Re:Gateway Plasma supposed to be OK...

[ajohnj1]

You mean like this projector?

Gateway 205 Projector - $1099

Projector Model 205 with SVGA resolution featuring DLP(TM) technology and DCDi(TM) by Faroudja 1100 market comparable lumens (1000 ANSI lumens)/1100:1 contrast ratio SVGA, NTSC, S-Video

I've seen these set up in one of the Country Stores playing a DVD. The quality was amazing! I would definetly get one of these over a plasma display.

iTunes compatible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it compatible with iTunes 4 on Mac OS X?

Re:say what?

[Atario]

No kidding. I submitted a story about a piece of hardware that was about a hundred times more interesting than this YAMP (Yet Another Music Player(tm)) -- an autonomous robot that drives around looking for vulnerabilities (or crackers) in your network via Wi-Fi -- and it was rejected outright. What denomination of coin do you suppose is flipped to make these decisions?

Now, with that quasi-offtopic yammering out of the way...

Gateway. MP3 player. Front page of Slashdot. Hm. Does someone around here work for Gateway or something? Or own Gateway stock? Else why the blatant plug?

Someone mentioned there's no DRM; it just shows up as a drive letter. Is that supposed to be the big deal? So what? Someone already mentioned the Archos thing; a quick look-around also finds something called the Victory NEX II, which uses regular CompactFlash for storage. Which can be put in a regular CF reader. Which won't have any DRM either. Seems to me there must be many more players where this came from, too.

Next story, please. Move along, nothing to see.

Rio used to be that way too.

[twitter]

Then it was not. Later Rio's claimed that the drag and drop features would not work and that you had to use their silly client. So, USBFS can be gimped by M$, now or in the future through some kind of WMP "update". Did you try using it before you loaded those inocent looking voice file converter and icon editor software packages? If not, I would not say this thing is DRM free.

Any USB device is suspect, as far as I'm concerned. At a honking 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), they might as well have used removable media. USB junk is tricky, even on M$. My camera software for Windoze 2000 got all flaky, required you to manually unmount it by pushing an icon and eventually failed to work right at all. My experience with USB under Linux has not been worse. I've never been able to make cameras and printers work right on USB and I don't have any patience for it anymore. CF + pcmcia works easier and faster.

Untill I see something as good as Zaurus + CF, I'll just keep on using that as my music solution. Overkill, sure, but I'll replace it when I see ogg playing removable media players for $40.

Re:Rio used to be that way too.

[Anonymous Coward]

At a honking 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h)

Perhaps you haven't looked at a ruler lately, but that's pretty damn small. My swiss army knife that I carry everywhere is bigger than that.

Re:Rio used to be that way too.

[Technician]

I noticed the article mentioned Write and Delete files. Somehow, Read seems to have been missed. Can you realy drag MP3's off the device?

If you can't, that would take care of any legal entanglements regarding serial copy control.

AM support

[DigiShaman]

I want am MP3 player that can record AM radio. I would love to be able to archive talk radio in MP3 format so I can share them among my family and friends.

Re:AM support

[SWTP_OS9]

There is one from I think Pogo.

For 128 and no FM, line in or even FM record it a bit overprised!

Re:AM support

[Anonymous Coward]

You have friends???

Re:AM support

[base3]

Is your username for real? Do you actually have such a system? Are you posting from it? Inquiring (old) minds want to know!

Re:AM support

[DigiShaman]

I really wish Slashdot would offer an option to lockout ACs from threads members create. Because you sir, are a dweeb. I know, I shouldn't feed the trolls....

DRM

[Remik]

From the Gateway store:

"Incredibly easy to use, this audio player requires no special software - just drag and drop music and data files directly onto the device."

Looks like it works like the Archos, just like an external USB harddrive. There's no software required, thus, DRM is likely absent.

-R

Re:DRM

[SWTP_OS9]

The problem is that most players will accept MP3 etc. But will not allow you to up load to a host system.

Re:DRM

[Remik]

I've never seen anything marketed as 'drag-and-drop', without external software, and USB that doesn't function just like an external USB harddrive.

The Archos does, and this looks to be the same sort of system on a smaller scale.

-R

Re:say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the difference between rejected and rejected outright?

No vorbis, therefore worthless.

[Anonymous Coward]

There it is. I'd have as much use of a brick as this piece of crap hardware.

Apples and Kumquats

[tbase]

I don't understand why so many people are comparing this to hard drive or CDr based mp3 players. It's like comparing SATA Hard drives to DDR Memory. Sure, the hard drive based players are a "better deal", but only if you're willing to cart around the extra weight, and aren't the clumsy type.

Personally, I prefer my car deck that plays mp3s from CDr's, because I don't need to listen to music when walking from my car to my home or office (yes, I know, I should jog/bike/walk more, sue me). But I can't compare it's price or features to any other type of player.

Diva player: Light, Cheap & Available

[Anonymous Coward]

So Gateway is making a splash by offering the same thing I bought from www.mydivaplayer.com a year ago. Wow. I'm so Impressed...

BUT

[commodoresloat]

The iPod only has one mouse button.

Re:Ogg Vorbis advocacy

[DWIM]

Are people still hung up about ogg format? Give it up. It didn't make it.

[...]

It's really tiring when I see people on slashdot and elsewhere repeat the same thing over and over, in regards to ogg making headway into the consumer market. It's over. Neuros's support for ogg is just symbolic, and will eventually prove that vorbis feature doesn't really sell portables.

Well, I was just waiting for you to tell me when it was over...

Seriously, this is nothing that you (or anyone else, for that matter) can decide or declare and make it so. It is for the market to decide. There's no timetable for when Vorbis must catch on. And it doesn't necessarily mean one must win and the other lose. All there needs to be is sufficient interest in the format to make it compelling for player makers to include the codec for Vorbis along with their MP3 support (etc.). It might never happen, but it certainly won't if you simply decide it won't and quit.

I agree it is tiring to see the same old things over and over on Slashdot when this comes up. That includes post such as yours declaring that Vorbis "didn't make it." Sorry, not your call to make.

Oooo, just think...

[ITWeeniesAreWorthles]

... what a Beowulf cluster of these things running Linux would do! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha.....!

This public service announcement brought to you by the Check Yourself Before You Mess Yourself Council. Drink Your Ovaltine.

skip protection

[commodoresloat]

I think the iPod prevents problems with this by storing like a half hour of music in cache, so even jiggling the hard drive has no effect on playback.

Gateway 2000

[ReadParse]

With innovation like that, they should go back to their old name.

iPod... the second-sexiest thing you can hold in the palm of your hand (I shamelessly ripped that off from a sig somewhere along the way)

RP

Day before yesterdays news.

[SWTP_OS9]

Lets see. Creative is releasing a new version of there little one with display.

At that price range there are a lot of better models with FM receive, FM record, AM receive, MP3 record, Line in etc. The spects look pritty thin!

And with iRiver just releasing the new firmware that turn there iFP seried into a drive this is day before yesterday news. If they could release a 256mb at 128 and 512 at 199 then may have but they are in the also ran catagory right now.

Lots of posts have mentioned Apple but not this

[adzoox]

What's funny about Gateway is that they think they actually have a following and a brand loyalty like Apple does. Apple caters to loyalty (not as much as some would like) - No one I know of says, I only buy Gateway!!!

Re:say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

A whiny little piss-ant with hurt feelings, apparently.

Gateway stamps name on generic Korean MP3 player

[mcgroarty]

CALL THE MEDIA!!!

Seriously, why is this a front page story? If this were a new model from Sanyo or Daiwu, this would be a non-event.

Stop the Presses!

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Apple has yet to cave in to consumer demands for el cheapo iPods. They have kept the prices high but they continue to sell.

Unless Apple's MP3 player marketshare starts dropping percititously because of competition from el cheapo players, we aren't going to see any drop in price for the iPod.

Re:Stop the Presses!

[mrpuffypants]

Which, for me, is a good thing. Not everybody has one right now and it's still seen as a "cool" device that people pine for.

Once they become Walkmans then nobody'll care about the iPod anymore...

Re:Stop the Presses!

[yomegaman]

You think it's a "good thing" that Apple charged you a lot for your iPod? I paid $400 for one of the original 5G models, and now whenever I look at it it reminds me how early adopters always get the shaft. :-)

Slow day on Slashdot?

[sjs132]

What the F**K? It's an MP3 player... Where's the news in that?

Udderly ridiculous....

Re:Slow day on Slashdot?

[Uncle Gropey]

We all clicked on the read more link tho. Didn't we?

Re:Slow day on Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

fraid so

Compact Flash

[Fubar411]

Why is it you can't get a mainstream portable mp3 player that uses CF? 256MB cards are only ~$40 a pop, and the 4GB ones are getting afforable http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/04/133821 3

Re:Compact Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

I like this1 play/record/store for 85euros http://www.daisymm.com/l/en/techspec/techspec_DIVA .php

Wrong shape/size

[thogard]

This looks like the MP3 player I just got for AU$200 (US$130). Teh only place I listen to MP3s anymore is in the car and for some reason the car has a cassette deck. I've got a cheap walkman to cassette adapters but it makes me wonder why someone hasn't made an mp3 player the right size to fit in a car radio. With the right sensors, you could trun the tape direction control into a skip to the next one, and turn off when the caspin stops spining. That way I could take the MP3 player in to the house, load it full of stuff and when it was in the car, it would work like a smart cassette.

Re:Wrong shape/size

[dasmegabyte]

They have done this already. Google for it. It is a dumb idea, tape decks are absolute crap and the industry should be discouraged from relying on them.

Wow Bigger, heavier, and costs more

[Isaac-1]

Ok, lets see Gateway introduces a small MP3 player that is bigger, heavier, and costs more than the Creative Nomad Muvo I bought last weekend (I paid $75 for the 128 meg version) for all this you get one extra feature (an LCD screen to tell you the name of the song you are currently listening to and to help drain that 1 AAA battery even faster).

Ike

Do the math

[SuperBanana]

The appeal is the size. Look at it, it's 128mb and 1.5 ounces.

Math time, kids!

128/1.5 = 85 MB per oz
10240/5.6 = 1826 MB per oz

Oh, but it's cheaper, you say?

128/129 = ~ 1MB/$1
10240/299 = ~ 34MB/$1

Thanks for playing. The Gateway player is just Yet Another Mp3 Player; the non-hard-drive players are all pretty damn small and light. Some are cheaper than this, too. And no DRM.

I agree with the other posters- it's completely yawn-inspiring, and reminds me of all the other suspcious stories we've been seeing recently...like that Tivo-like unit that randomly got three paragraph's worth on the front page for no apparent reason. When are slashdot editors going to realize they're being taken advantage of?(I'm politely assuming they're not doing product placements).

Re:Do the math

[MeanJeans]

Granted, this is not any more fancy than all the other solid state MP3 players, it should still not be compared to the iPod or any other non-solid state players.

I don't see how your math is at all relevent. If I am in the market for a small (in my front jeans pocket and don't know about it small), cheap (under $200) MP3 player, how is the iPod coming into the equation? It isn't, and this is the type of player for someone with those requirements.

It could have 300MB per $1, but if it costs $500 to begin with, it is out of my range.

Re:say what?

[Atario]

Within minutes vs. within hours, I suppose. I dunno.

Looks like a MP3 player reviewed on Dan's Data

[emoon]

The specs (and the image) is remarkably similar to the 'no-name' MP3 player Dan reviewed in this article.

That particular MP3 player was a similar design to the Creative Muvo player.

The reviewed player didn't have DRM support and didn't require drivers (as long as your OS supported USB media).

Re:say what?

[Atario]

Call me what you will, but at least I'm no trolling AC.

or from spammers

[www.sorehands.com]

You don't want to buy from gateway. Gateway spams.

A smart move for the future

[Phat_Tony]

I agree with everyone else here that, as this product stands right now, it's pretty stupid. Get an iPod, or if you want something really small and light with no storage capacity, go with any of the many nearly identical products out there.

But while iPods really blow these things away right now, I still contend that these many keychain-sized things are the real future for portable audio, not ipod-like devices.

Persistent State RAM, like most computer-related products, is progressing on a price/capacity curve in line with Moore's Law. In fact, at 30 GB, iPod's are already almost arbitrarily large for most consumer's music storage. I bet only a tiny percentage of the market will ever want more music storage space than that.

Lexar is already making 4 GB flash cards. Soon, these keychain players will have capacities like that. In a few years, if the options are a smaller, cheaper, 4GB keychain player, or a larger, more expensive 200GB iPod-like device, who wins then?

And what of the iPod? To steal ideas seen on Slashdot before-
the iSite is a high-quality, tiny, light, video camera with a good lens. It runs entirely off a firewire cord. The iPod has a firewire port. With the addition of a fold-out OLED screen on the next generation of iPods, you may be able to clip your iSite onto your iPod for the tiniest DV camcorder ever- recording strait to a firewire hard drive. Suddenly, 30GB doesn't seem so huge anymore...

$679.95 per GB of storage?????

[Sergeant Beavis]

Gateway offers an MP3 player that essentially is $679.95 per GB of storage while Apple's 30GB IPod essentially works out to $16.67 per GB from Apple.com.

Hmmm, seems like an easy decision to me.

MP3 pendisk...

[cesarcardoso]

Looks like every USB pendisk nowadays is doubling as a MP3 player.

One question...

[Nucleon500]

Does it support Ogg Vorbis, like these other players do?

Re:Ogg Vorbis advocacy

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Are people still hung up about ogg format? Give it up. It didn't make it.

::Looks at over 20 GB of Ogg Vorbis audio on the hard drive::

Guess I'll just delete these now, thanks for showing me the light, oh great Anonymous Coward.

Re:Ogg Vorbis advocacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck getting it into an iPod or try sharing it with people who don't live in their parents basements, dipshit.

Man, you need some price skills

[Riskable]

An 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive is $100 (just an example, there's many, many more for a similar price, check http://www.pricewatch.com)

Anyone who's paying $150 for a 20GB drive is throwing their money away.

Re:Man, you need some price skills

[binarytoaster]

No kidding. I just snagged a 200GB FireWire/USB2 hard drive off newegg for $297...

Re:Man, you need some price skills

[funwithstuff]

That 80GB drive is 5.25" wide, and the teeny weeny ones are 3.5" or smaller, like the iPod. You wouldn't want to lug the big one (and its power supply) around with you in your pocket, but I've had a 3.5" Firewire drive kicking around in my bag for months without noticing it.

Plus, Firewire is faster and doesn't need external power for small drives. Very handy sneakernet, and you can boot a Mac with it in an emergency.

Re:Man, you need some price skills

[Anonymous Coward]

...and you can boot a Mac with it in an emergency.

Umm..what the hell kind of emergency would you possibly be in where booting up a mac is a priority?

"Jim, the tornado's right outside!"

"Shut up, Pete! Just let me get this iMac booted and we'll be fine!"

"Damn, Jim, we're lucky you were able to boot that iMac from that external drive, or the tornado would have killed us for sure!"

"Yes, Pete, we should all be thankful for this iMac and this external USB drive. They have truly saved us."

Here's a hint: if you think *anything* requiring the booting of *any* PC is an emergency, you are both very sheltered and very lucky.

Projecttor

[SuperKendall]

Sorry, I wis mis-remembering the res a little - it really is 480p. I only remembered for sure it was less than 500 and thinking how low that seemed...

The projector bulbs for the X1 are not that bad, $299 from Infocus!! One of the reasons I bought the X1 was the great bulb life - 3000 hours. I use it for TV, gaming, DVD's, and HDTV as well (it's only 800x600 but supports up to 1080i resolutions and downconverts). I have to say that for video it looks great, much better than I would have thought 800x600 would be. I have about a 63" across (not diagonal) space that I fill with the image, and it looks good.

At the rate I watch TV/play games, I'll probably need a new bulb in about two years. Then again with a projector you can get a much larger image with more options on where to put it, and by the time you need a new bulb perhaps you can get another projector with true 1080i resolution support! Thus you can buy THREE really great projectors for the same price as the plasma, and at the end have a much more impressive setup.

I actually live in Denver and have been to the local Gateway store - I saw the plasmas running so I guess they work to some extent (and I have a friend at work that bought a Plasma [non-Gateway] that is working well). But I really did think my projector image was more impressive at the time.

HDTV actually really does look amazing. The downside is serious lack of good content. I can only get Discovery HDTV and CBS HDTV at the moment (via Dish). I mean to put up an antenna sometime, as what I really want is PBS HDTV... you'd think DiscoveryHDTV would be great but they repeat shows a LOT. They could at least run an HDTV cam in different cities or something to offer a little fresh content - but what they seem to be doing instead is sending of expeditions to various parts of the globe to bring back long documentaries. They look great but then get added to the rotation where you can see each show a hundred or two times in a month.

Boy, that is really OT.

Just get an IRiver IFP 390T...

[RockClimbingFool]

seriously, for $199 you get an extremely small, lightweight, 256MB mp3 player with an FM tuner, voice to mp3 recording, analog in mp3 ripper and lots of ways to customize playback, eq settings, etc. Not to mention the fact the player is very well supported by IRiver with continual firmware upgrades. I have one and it kicks ass. You can even turn in into UMS mode where files are transfered to it like any other USB storage drive.

It's already been outclassed by the Emp-Z

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Check it out either on MSNBC, the MobileMag article, or the company site (Korean).

No more slashdot links...

[Anonymous Coward]

...until slashdot removes the GIF images and goes PNG only!

Where does that put me?

[Sven The Space Monke]

I skate. A LOT. Rollerblading now, but I'm gonna take up boarding one of these days. Street, pipe, vert, whatever. I'm into it all. I have a Samsung Yepp 30SH (128m model) and I listen to it all the time. I generally skate for about 2-3 hours a day (weekdays) with this little beauty going. I would have rather got an iRiver, but it was impossile to get in Canada at the time. I also needed voice recording capabilities for classes. But I must agree, when skiing or snowboarding, the best sounds are what's going on around you. Especially the screams of those around you who don't know what they're doing:-) On the street, though, you get tired of your skates clacking and the pedestrians yelling at you.

X1 a bit better...

[SuperKendall]

You can also get the Infocus X1 for about $1000. And it has almost twice the contrast ratio. Also, the input selection is pretty good as it can take component input (via the RGB interface) and handle various HDTV resolutions (including 480p for progressive scan DVD players).

Plus, the bulb life of the X1 is 3000 hours. I'm not sure how long the GW one lasts but the general standard is around 2000 hours.

Ask and ye shall recieve...

[Sven The Space Monke]

This has actually been around for a while. I remember reading a review for it on IGN.com before they started charging for premium content.

NJB3

[hopey]

I'd rather buy creatives nomad jukebox 3 which by the way works on linux also (at least the usb connection works). Check out:

http://libnjb.sourceforge.net/

hopey

Re:Ogg Vorbis advocacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Your nice little iPod doesn't support good codecs, so what do you do? Get angry at the codec.

Dipshit.

Re:Ogg Vorbis advocacy

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Another brilliant comment by an anonymous coward. When did I say anything about wanting to put them on an iPod? And why should I care about sharing my legally transferred Ogg files with dipshits like you living in their parent's cellar?

Re:say what?

[jester]

The NEX II is made by Frontier Labs ... never heard of Victory. It uses CF cards and normal AA batteries, giving battery life of up to 20 hours. Works as a normal USB drive

Why should I care? 256MB? My zaurus does better

[marcmerlin]

Seriously, who would buy a sub gigabyte MP3 player?
For $170, I can buy a gig compact flash card and put it in my zaurus to play ogg and mp3
(you can buy a used zaurus for $150 or so, do the math and see who's better/cheaper, not counting
that the zaurus does a lot more than just play mp3s)

An mp3 player that doesn't have a hard drive (20-30G min) or isn't very small with a few gigs of flash is
just so 3 years ago...

(I bought more than 2 years ago my archos jukebox
6000, upgraded the drive to 30G, all this for a total of $400)

In other words, this gateway mp3 player is a joke

Slashdot!

[Isbiten]

time to add advertising.slashdot.com so I can block shit like this.

Gateway is not the only choice

[franticek]

Aiptek has the similar mp3-player with 256MB, radio tuner and more features onboard - for the same low price (120 EUR, I guess).

I just cannot understand ....

[pyrit]

I cannnot understand why manufacturers STILL try and make money off solid state memory based mp3 players. Solid state is good, but it's capacity SUCKS!!! a 128mb mp3 player! What a waste of money and time! The reason why mp3 is there is to provide more than what your cd player can provide and that is hours and hours of music on one device! I'll only look at solid state memory based mp3 players when those memory cards have capacities of 40gb and up. Then it is more worth it. Looks like Nomad and iPod still rank as the best mp3 players out.

128 megs = ~30 songs - soon repeats

[kobotronic]

I dunno how this article can possibly be construed as 'news'. These devices have been out for years. They're virtually interchangeable with mostly identical featuresets. Tons of anonymous OEM badge jobs in this market, and this looks like just another one.

I had a solid state mp3 players much like this, but I gave it away a month or so later. Much too little capacity ... you find your player repeating the same songs over and over until end of battery life. It takes several minutes to upload so you don't wanna do it very often. It's a dumb little ritual, often you choose to encode with crappier bitrates just to squeeze in a few extra songs. I dunno how anyone can stand these limitations.

I'm much happier with my 10gig iPod - the only Apple product in the house - beautiful little device, great mp3 database browser, lots of buffer memory so no skip. Great battery life, last a whole working day. It's the size of a deck of cards and weighs so little I can carry it everywhere, and it hooks up nicely to the car stereo with a cassette adapter. Looking for a better solution, but very few in-dash radios have input jacks. The sound is okay!

At home it doubles as my stereo while it's charging : it's just hooked up to an amplifier as the single input device (what good is radio or tape? I don't watch the TV either.) All my 900+ music CDs have been ripped to 160kbps mp3s stored on the house media server (takes up just about 60 gigs).

With my ipod I can take almost a sixth of my total music collection with me everywhere; a 128 gig memory stick would allow me to take approximately 0.2 percent. =)

Every week or so I zap a few dozen CDs from the iPod and put in some different ones. Or try out stuff I scooped online; sometimes, very rarely, it's so good I want to go buy the CD!

Current track - Lords of Acid / Deep Sexy Space

Re:Ogg Vorbis advocacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Supporting MP3 is supporting Fraunhofer/Thompson. Supporting Fraunhofer is worse than supporting MS. I can write software to Windows without royalties. I cannot write MP3 encoder software without paying royalties to Fraunhofer/Thompson.

The minimum amount of annual royalties is $15.000 so no small company can even think about using MP3 in any of its projects.

As long as the GNU list
http://www.gnu.org/directory/audio/mp3/
is mile long they are supporting proprietary standards and literally f*king for virginity.

Who can live with...

[Anonymous Coward]

An MP3 player with only 128M of RAM? I mean, that's 2 albums worth of music.

Oh wait... most of you guys compress to 64kb, and think 128 is CD quality.

Morons.

Why no USB2.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone tell me for certain why no one has released any USB 2.0 mp3 "plug n play" players? Sure, there are plenty of 2.0 pen drives, but the tech hasn't made it into those cool little "pen" mp3 players yet. And I haven't found a good reason why yet.

Does anyone have a definitive answer?

This is news?

[CrazyTalk]

I had 128 MB in my Rio years ago, which is now collecting dust on a shelf. Whats next, bringing back 75 MHz Pentiums?

Pay attention to your sig, maybe?

[ianscot]

Hows jogging, or any other impact sport, with your ipod?... Thats what I thought....

They plain don't skip, and at any health club, or jogging around any of Minneapolis's lakes, you'll see a few iPods jostling along just fine. My friend here at work practices racquetball wearing his, if you want another "impact sport." He got it for his long commutes, and keeps a bunch of books on it for that, but he plays music on the court.

You must not jog, and you don't have an iPod. Your sig is about not theorizing without data, but you're doing just that.

"Ignorance and incuriosity are soft pillows, but only for the hard-headed." -- Montaigne

Your sig

[xThinkx]

Your sig is right on, I applied for financial aid to help pay for school, when I walked in the door they told me, "you're going to have a rough time". Not only that, I'm an IST (information science/technology) major (Penn State's modernized CompSci with Business sense type major), so the few scholarships/grants that didn't say "minority", "female", "underprivileged", or "learning-impaired", screwed me over because I wasn't in the "medical field", "study of agricultural sciences" or "pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in liberal arts". So yeah, it's a bitch being a white middle class male, even more of a bitch being a white middle class male in a technical major.

Different purpose

[CausticPuppy]

I think I would much rather take a solid state player with me when jogging or working out (imagine that, some slashdot readers ARE physically active!) for the obvious reason that there are no moving parts to fail.

Don't worry about storying your entire collection in one place. Just dump your playlist on there and go. I may still wait until 512MB or 1GB solid state players are readily available though.

another ipod idea is good

[JohnDoe69]

this is good if it works b/c it will keep downloading and make it legal AND again more environmentalists should like this b/c it saves the need for Plastic and all that packaging...i dont understand why they only focus on BAD things and dont mention the good.

Interestingly enough...

[Andy Dodd]

VW appears to be running some new deal: Buy a VW car (Might just be the New Beetle), get an iPod free.

Similar to what you describe.

Yes, there is a market for solid-state MP# players

[Delirium Tremens]

The snowboarder in me whole-heartedly agrees with you. There is nothing like a solid-state MP3 players to survive crashes at 20-30 mph. The iPod wouldn't survive the first bump or would stop operating as soon as it gets a little too cold.
Now, I just wished they had better remote controls. Small buttons are not easy to use with big gloves!

USB - Host vs. target

[Andy Dodd]

The nature of the USB protocol puts a LOT of complex burdens on the "host" - It's not capable of peer-to-peer communication like Firewire, there MUST be a controller somewhere, and USB controllers aren't simple devices.

i.e. it's not practical for a portable MP3 player to use USB keychains for storage due to the complexities involved in being a USB controller instead of an endpoint.

On the other hand, CompactFlash is quite easy to interface with, and would be easy to implement... Oh wait, people have been doing that in MP3 players for years. Look around and you'll find plenty of MP3 players that use CF for storage, even cheaper than USB keychains. Also there are Memory Stick and SD/MMC based players.

So?

[Andy Dodd]

Neither does this Gateway player.

What matters is that the iPod supports SBP-2, the standard for Firewire storage devices.

The Gateway player uses the USB Storage Protocol.

Same idea, different buses.

Yes, the iPod doesn't support IDE. But in an external device, that is not relevant in ANY way. Period.

Re:not too bright....

[The Lynxpro]

Exactly how was this comment "flamebait"? It was a statement of fact. The Gateway MP3 player is cheaper than the iPods (and other hard drive solutions), but not by much, and it obviously lacks a hard drive. To me, that is not *flamebait.* *Flamebait* would be me going off and saying "Gateway has sucked ever since they decided to be a Dell *me-too* operation in being Intel exclusive and offering unimaginative PC products." Or "when Ted Waitt first returned to the helm of the company, he said Gateway's problem was having too large of a product line and he'd return the company to profitability by focusing on its core business - selling computers...but that didn't work so Mr. Ted recently pulled a 180 and decided Gateway's problem really was that it focused too much on PCs and decided to expand into consumer electronics to return Gateway to profitability." See, that's more of a *flamebait* comment...even if it is accurate about the company's strategies over the past few years...

DUDE

[Anonymous Coward]

get a sense of humor.... IDE was a misspelling in the grandparent post....

Re:DUDE

[lostinchicago]

haha nice... 3 posts later

MOD PARENT UP +1 INSIGHTFUL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

Archos

[meehawl]

An iPod is a much better deal.

In what universe is an iPod ever a good deal? For less than half the average iPod price you can get one of the older Archos MP3 only players with USB2 and beef it up to 80GB storage. And with the Rockbox, you've got maybe the best playlist manager around. Or for around an iPod price you can get one of the video ones. Either way, you've got recording, digital I/O, no DRM, and cross-platform USB visibility. Yes, even on Macs.