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Gateway Portable MP3 Player

Posted by michael on from the black-and-white-spots-optional dept.

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.

4 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Put into perspective by kmak · · Score: 4, Informative

    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..

    --

    I'm not the devil.. just his advocate.
  2. Shows up as a Drive letter by sker · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    nonsig. unsig. desig.
  3. Plenty of these... by LamerX · · Score: 4, Informative

    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....

  4. Re:Price.... by Mikey-San · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Mikey-San
    Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)