Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Yepp YP-55V Review
daanger0us writes "RAM based MP3 players are still pretty popular. As hard drive based MP3 players get larger storage capacity, the RAM based MP3 players have to add new features to keep themselves compelling to customers. The Samsung Yepp YP-55V is one of the RAM based MP3 players that's added some pretty cool features at a reasonable price. 256MB of RAM, FM Tuner, ability to record from a line-in, from the FM Tuner and voice recording, USB Drive capabilities, upgradeable firmware, weighing in at 2.2 ounces all for around $160. Designtechnica has a full review. How many people still consider a RAM based audio player when shopping?" Update: 09/03 22:11 GMT by T : That should be "MB," not "MG" as it originally read.
I still prefer CD based MP3 players. The media is cheap, and the the player is cheap.
I still consider ram baed stuff for when I want something like that won't mind getting bounced around a bit. I can't help but think a hard disk based player (which is heavier) reacts well to being bounced up and down all its life...
Also RAM based can have quicker access although there is the obvious loss of storage. Now if there was a CF based player...
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Hard Drive-based technology is still rather klunky for the gym. Ultra-small Ram-based systems can provide enough music for one work-out.
I know, a geek that goes to they gym. Amazing, huh? No, I don't have a girlfriend. I still don't think that those mythical girl-creatures exist. I think it's just a dirty trick those jocks play on us.
The iPod can be bought for 200 bucks refurbed (10 gig previous generation...10 GIG!) Why would I get this for 40 bucks less? Radio and Voice recording would be a welcome addition to future iPods though.
I'm in the market right now, and the Rio SP250 wins over this one too. CD Based, larger, but with integrated FM and 700 megabyte CDR capacity.
I did, and I bought one.
My Creative Labs MuVo is not only a good mp3/wma player, but was also one of the first to function as a convenient USB drive. Why the hell would I have paid $75 for a 128MB flash drive a year back when I could have both for $150?
Obviously, this concept is catching on and prices are dropping, so anyone who is even considering USB drive who doesn't already own a portable music player should be interested.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
Does it run Windows CE with .NET compact framework?
256 MG of RAM
Yes, this product certainly does distinguish itself. I've never seen a product containing 256 Megagytes of memory!
"256 MG of RAM, FM Tuner..."
Pretty light RAM if you ask me.
For RAM based players too be tempting, they're going to have to get way cheaper and sexier. $160 for 256 MB is not hot at all.
I still have my RIO300 mp3 player, with a whopping 32MB internal and 32MB external memory... It kicks ass! I paid $300 for it in 98, and it still works great!
It's light, relatively good sound quality, and outside the fact it doesn't have USB connectivity (that parallel port sucks!) it's one of the few portable electronics that I still use from the 90's.
I don't want features, I want reliability!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Da Blog
Adding bells and whistles to something dosen't make it better, only bulkier. I'll take my 64mb Rio500 over this new one any day. I mean, come on, who want's an FM Radio in there MP3 Player? Not me atleast. Same with a voice recorder. I have a real recorder, and I guarantee you the sound quality is considerable better. My 00000010 Cents.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
256 MG
Is that storage or a vehicle?
The Samsung Yepp YP-55V is one of the RAM based MP3 players that's added some pretty cool features at a reasonable price. 256 MG of RAM...How many people still consider a RAM based audio player when shopping?"
You bet your ass someone will consider that for $160!
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
iPods don't seem to care about movement at all. I'm really amazed though. People jog with them.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
At 256 meg, this mp3 player's capacity is about the same as a single minidisc, but it's not expandable. Minidiscs cost under $2 each, and the files can be re-arranged on them like with an mp3 player. The battery life on a minidisc player is better than the yepp player too which doesn't make sense since the yepp doesn't have to power a motor. A CD based mp3 player is much larger than a minidisc player (even if it's designed for the 8cm CDs), and the battery life is terrible.
Jason
ProfQuotes
They still make these?
I have to occasionally make a hard decision on what to include on my iPod. But usually it's between keeping every Magnetic Fields' song or switching to carrying every Beatles song. Ever.
I get bored to easily to ever carry around a player that only has 256 megs.
-B
...but this ain't it. Why? Not expandable. What I'm looking for in a mp3 player is a CompactFlash slot, so I can carry a large library of songs with me and have them available all with a simple change of the medium. Also, I don't like hard disk-based players, I prefer the solid-state ones for several reasons (battery life, sensitivity to shocks/vibrations, etc.).
I know there are several expandable mp3 players out there, but not CF-based. I don't want SD/MMC, SM, memstick, etc. because all of my other devices use CF and I don't want to switch standards. Besides, CF is arguably (still) the best flash memory standard out there.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Without RTFA I can say, why not the Neuros? Albeit a bit bigger you can swap in the hard drive module and voila. You also get the ability to transmit FM and song identification, not to mention support for Ogg and Linux via positron.
Reply . . . let's get it over with.
ugh
there ARE CF players although they are a little older because CF is horribly power hungry.
On that note, RAM based players consume considerably less energy and can go for many hours or days on a charge / set of batteries despite their size. And the weight thing, yeah, I wouldn't get an MP3 player that's too big to fit on my keychain otherwise I'll need a bag for it anyway. I don't have room in my pockets for all those gadgets. Just get a CD player with better audio quality for 1/10th the cost.
Best troll rewrite ever! And accurate!
Screw DVD-R. Betamax is the way to go.
Circuit City had an Archos Recorder 20 for $170 in their ad this Sunday. In case you're bad with math, that's $10 for 19.75 GB (approx.) more.
The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
With my ogg vorbis settings I *might* get 2 albums on it. Short albums. Far too little storage to be practical. :)
This is immaterial, however, as I rarely leave the house other than for work therefore I have no use for a portable player
Man, I would NEVER consider anything BUT a ram-based player.. I have one of the older models of these (128M), and the thing fits on a keychain and feels weightless..
Anything that plays off CDs, well, is bigger than a CD, and that's too big for me.
More likely, the submitter meant "flash memory" which is typically used to store mostly static data over long periods of time.
I wouldn't nitpick, but he repeated the word "RAM" so many times that I was forced to post this.
Anyone who seriously uses a walkman type of device can see this as the major selling point. I'm talking about joggers, cyclists, hell even people riding the subway.
No moving parts = wont break or wear out (yeah they will but not on the scale that their mechanical cousins will).
Now an FM tuner has always been, to me, one of those useless electronic things that gets integrated into everything because it's easy to do so. FM reception on old-school tape-based walkmans has always been terrible - unless you sit still and hold the cord 'just so'.
Anyways, I'd have thought you could get 256mb solid state mp3 player for well under 100 bucks by now. Guess I was wrong, or there's something special about this device, like its record button. Does it have a playback-only cousin for, say, 50 bucks?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Just because it is a bit expensive for it's storage and processing power ratings, as compared to other devices, there is no reason at all why we should not image a Beowoulf Cluster of these.
-><- no
Well, I think a better question is how many people consider a hard drive based system when MP3 shopping? A big clunky iPOD might be okay if all you want is music during your commute. But I use my MP3 player in a variety of situations (jogging, at work, etc.), and prefer the small size, better battery life, and ruggedness of the solid state storage based approaches.
You can get a pure Compact Flash based player like the NEX for around $90, and 512MB of compact flash is now less than $100. And as compact flash keeps getting bigger, and prices keep coming down, I think the hard drive based MP3 players will at some point become obsolete.
Give me ogg vorbis and I'll consider it! Slowly migrating that way, so I'm not going to purchase something unless it has the support.
256 MG of RAM, FM Tuner, ability to record from a line-in, from the FM Tuner and voice recording, USB Drive capabilities, upgradeable firmware, weighing in at 2.2 ounces all for around $160
All those features and 256 milligrams of RAM!
and I thought my cigarettes with 8mg tar were strong.
If you have the money for a HD player but don't want one b/c you need a player for running, small pockets, etc. the Panasonic SV AV series ( $400) has some pretty nifty features such as a camdcorder, digital camera, 2" LCD, and an AV cradle for recording TV shows. Sony also has some cool multi-use devices but are quite a bit more expensive.
These are Flash-based players, not RAM-based. Just wanted to clear that up. For the record, I have a USB1.1-based Rio 500 with 128 MB of FLASH, which I never use anymore. If it was USB2.0 or Firewire, I might, but the transfer rate ruins the whole usage model.
I know this one. I just bought it as a present for my girlfriend. It is pretty cool. And she likes it a lot.
I was considering getting an iPod for her. But every time when I decide to deal with Apple I always come to painful realisation that I just hate their attitude. They have this dumbass business strategy that only they know what you really need and they determined to shove it down your throat. I don't want to troll on them. Apple has really cool products, they have good engineers and designers. But at the same time they always try to sell you the most expensive one. Here in Bay Area it is impossible to find 10 GB version of iPod. All BestBuys and Fried electronics have only 30 GB versions (for extra $200) and I don't have 30 GB of mp3s even on my home computer (which is also a home entertainment center). Come to think of it I don't even have that many CDs yet to rip to fill this much space.
So I settled on Yepp. And I'm pretty happy. It is very sleek. Very good sound. You can actually change sound modes. Plus FM radio. Plus record your own stuff. 256 MB is almost enough for my gf. I guess when there will be version with more memory outhere. I'll get new one for her and take the old one.
- Back off man. I am a scientist
for an mp3 player that will hold multiple CF cards. They way the prices are falling on these, I expect 1 gig cards for $49 by next June.
joggers. Running around with a hard drive based player strapped to your are would not be pretty.
(Karma = auto -1)
Just how big and clunky do you think an iPod is? If you saw the first or second versions of the iPod, you should look again at the newest ones.. they are much smaller.
My ipod is like, the size of a pack of colts. Slightly thinner, and slightly longer than a deck of playing cards... it fits in a shirt pocket just fine. It's not heavy, either.
Now, I'm not saying it is as rugged or tiny as a solid state player, as I said.. but "big and clunky" is definately not a word I'd use to describe it.
Let's face it though, we're talking about two different markets...
solid state players are what you use to load up a few tunes, and go listen.. like carrying around a discman or walkman. Sure it holds a few more songs.. but it's the same niche.
The hard drive players are akin to carrying around a discman and a backpack full of cds, except in this case, the difference is a few ounces, dollars, and inches.
only has 32megs on board, and accepts 32 MB smart media cards. MIND YOU, those 32 MB cards are hard to find but when you do find them, they are 9 bucks a pop, new (amazon has 'em).
After rediculous rebates I got it 3 years ago for $50. Its also really small, less than half the size of a pack of cigarettes. I've got 5 cards, so if you include the on board 32, that makes 192 MB of music.
Is it worth it?
Yes, but only because I super-compress my MP3's (60 kbps MONO) since I only listen to it in noisy environments; Air planes, my raised-floor lab with h00j air handlers, and public transportation. That way I can stick an hours worth of music in 32 MB (there is something cool about having Stereolab's "Dots and Loops" on a smart media card!).
Otherwise, these players aren't worth your time.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
>From the article:
Net Dimensions
8.3"(W) x 8.3"(H) x 3.1"(D)
Yow! I could put an entire general purpose computer in that space!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
OK, I'm going to burn some of my karma here.
How many of you are not in the slightest bit fooled into thinking this is a legitimate ad, posted probably by the same likes as the geniuses who did that Gateway adver..I mean, uh, story, a few weeks back?
Please help metamoderate.
It gave me quite a few results - first one was relevant: Bizrate
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
spelling schmelling
(Karma = auto -1)
Moving parts. That is one of the biggest problems with the MD player, i.e. it has way too many of them. My MD player broke over a simple mechanical defect, but one that was cost prohibitive to repair. RAM based players make this much more difficult to happen.
Also I dunno about that capacity you quoted. I remember getting CD-comparable storage, with PERHAPS the option to lower quality for slightly more time (I really dont remember), but nowhere NEAR what you could put on 256MB.
MDs were great when they were first available. But with RELIABLE mini-hd based units, and cheap often-expandable RAM based systems (flash cards anyone?), MDs are past their prime in terms of usefulness
These use FLASH RAM. When you change the battery, nothing gets lost.....
How many people still consider a RAM based audio player when shopping?
Not me. I have a 10G Archos jukebox, and it still only holds a fraction of my collection. It can be upgraded to whatever I want, but it would violate the $10 even-if-you-drop-it extended warranty. 10G is enough to hold most of the music I listen to with any regularity.
But 256M? Forget it. That wouldn't even get me through the day until lunch. I understand they still have their definite strong points, but for me, the disadvantages of a HDD-based player disappear when I consider the capacity difference.
Believe it or not, they managed to get some padding around the hard drive.
Get a look at it here.
Do not follow that person's advice, though:
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
That samsung player looks awfully alot like this one:
www.jensofsweden.com
There is a **big** difference.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You can get the Merit MP2000 here.
I don't like the fact that there is no *.ogg support, but since the device is flashable, maybe the new firmware will add this (yeah right)-
There are a few reasons I would still consider buying a RAM based player...
*the size (smaller, lighter)
*doesn't skip/take a beating while running (vs HD based players)
*ability to act as portable drive (just handy)
*cost (cheaper than the HD based players)
Granted it is handy to have your entire collection with you (HD players)- but I generally use a portable device like this for only a few hours at a time (any longer than that and I'm usually at a stereo or computer)-
Now the new Arcos multimedia player looks interesting...
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
Pretty similar to the Archos Ondio except for the memory (Ondio has 128MB, but is expandable with MMC cards)
Net Dimensions
8.3"(W) x 8.3"(H) x 3.1"(D)
WHOA! That is massive.
How about being useful and putting the player size up instead of the size of the box it comes in?
It this was around 2 or 3" long then I can see a use for it, although I'd still rather pay more for an iPod and get 50x more storage at least.
Is that a MegaGig? That's a shitload of ram!
I honestly believe people don't need to carry 40 or 60GB of music with them in their iPod. I personally don't want to carry a clunky harddrive around just so I can have my entire mp3 collection with me. When I go jogging I only need a CD or two worth of music and thats it. ... now what would make it cool is bluetooth so you don't have to plug it in. Set it next to my Powerbook and it connects to the network as a storage device. Now that'd be awesome.
...But at the same time they always try to sell you the most expensive one. Here in Bay Area it is impossible to find 10 GB version of iPod. All BestBuys and Fried electronics have only 30 GB versions (for extra $200)...
So it's Apple's fault that the stores in your area don't have sufficient stock? Somehow, the 3 stores (2 Best Buy, 1 Frys) I just checked here in Vegas all had the 10GB and the 30GB. And scores of places online have all three models. It sounds to me like the 10GB model is very popular in your area and that stores there haven't quite adjusted their buying to reflect that. Regardless, I fail to see how lack of stock in your area means that Apple only wants to sell you the most expensive one and screw you otherwise. If that was really the case, they wouldn't have three models of the iPod to begin with.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Hey, I just want to store files on the darn thing. If they happen to contain sound, then I want to play them. I also don't want to worry about the battery dying every 30 minutes... (ie: it better last more than 8 hours a go)
If you can give me a USB storage device that just *happens* to play music for over 8 hours at time, then you've got my money.
Oh yeah... I want at least 1 gig... (Can I boot from it please too?)
---
I've learned that free speech is never free... I'm drunk and I don't want bad karma.
I have had a Nex II from Frontier Labs for the past 2+ years. It's a sweet device that stores music on Compact Flash cards.
Their latest player is the Nex ia:
Compact Flash Storage
Plays MP3 and WMA
FM Radio Player
FM Radio & Voice Recording
Can be used as USB Hard Drive
And several other very nice things
I really like my Nex II. If it broke tomorrow I'd get a Nex ia rather than an iPod. Honestly. It's smaller, lighter, holds as much music as I want, and is just as stylish (if not more so) than the iPod.
Just a very happy customer.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Once you go ipod.. you don't go back :)
MiniDisc and MP3 encoding algorithms are lossy and therefore are unacceptable audio formats. Let me know when there's a player that can handle WAV's, SHN's, Flacs and I might be interested.
Check it out
Looks like the specs are a bit messed up. 8.3" x 8.3" x 3.1" (21cm x 21 cm x 7.9cm) is about about 0.9 gallon (3.5 liters). And this huge volume is supposed to weight only 2.2 ounces (60/70 grams or so, depending on the kind of ounce).
Some other sources state the same dimensions, but a very different weight. http://www.aaaprice.com/saypmp3pl.html for example claims this portable weights in at a wopping 9 lbs. I tried, but I can't seem to find the correct weight.
I use my MP3 player when mountain biking, and would imagine that a hard drive-based player would not be an option. Back when MP3 players didn't exist, I tried one of those ultra-shock resistant CD players with 20 seconds or so of memory (something like that) and it turned out pretty much worthless. Even my current RAM-based player, a Creative Nomad II MG, can't take some of the shocks I subject it to. It will sometimes (very infrequently, like once every few months) lock up as a result of a hard landing. I'm not talking about crashing here, just landing a little harder-than-usual off a 2-foot or so drop on a hardtail mountain bike.
If there's a hard drive that will withstand such shocks, I'm very interested in upgrading.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
There is another purpose for MP3 players besides music. Book narration. I bought an Otis from audible.com. It's given me an incentive to get out and walk 1 hr/day. It only has 64MB, which is plenty: 8 hrs of voice-grade audio. An important feature is the ability to restart from where it stopped the last time you turned it off. You can skip through 3-min tunes, but you don't want to fast-forward through 8 hrs of voice to find your place. They have a great selection (6500 titles). You can also get an ASCII text-to-voice program, transcribe Slashdot items and listen to technical papers while you're strolling in the park.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
Maybe it's 8.3 cm x 8.3 cm x 3.1 cm, they clearly made a mistake.
http://www.aaaprice.com/saypmp3pl.html even claims it weights 9 lbs while one of the 'Supplied Accessories' is a neck strap.
You can never tell when your latest comment is going to get you those mod points, can you? Good grammar is a habit worth forming, and you're almost there, SargeZT. Just one sentence, two problems:
I mean, come on, who want's an FM Radio in there MP3 Player?
Everybody wants an apostrophe
Needs, we all got needs[sic]. But "want's"? Nope, nobody has those. Apostrophes indicate posession or contraction. Wants is a tricky one, because its a transitive verb (taking 'an FM Radio' as its object), so if you're having trouble determining if you 'posess' that want, that's why. No matter your desire, "wants" (no apostrophe) is the word you want here.
Their, there.
There is a second 'whoops' in there, and it's (can you guess it?) 'there'. The classic tricky triplet of there, their, and they're trips up a lot of typists. Specific to your case is the word for "belonging to them": their. An easy way to remember it is to think about Individuals (note the i) owning things, hence you need a their with an 'i'.
GrammarFairy dust for you:
~`.,.,'"`~,,.','~"
-GrammarFairy
I wind up disassembling them to figure out what went wrong when they start shorting out.. Its usually one of the following:
-Moisture damage (I'm a heavy gym and running user, sweat drips down the headphone cord)
-Breakage from repetitive tweaking of the headphone cord
-Breakage from dropping. Drop them on a hard surface and you have about a 50% chance it will survive.
Never had a hard-drive based player, and it probably wouldn't last more than a month for me.
256MB, FM tuner, recorder, expandable with SD, blah blah blah.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
I just got a Palm Zire 71 (187UKP at Heathrow). Out of the box it can't play MP3 as you need an SD card. (I can't see why you couldn't use the built in 16MB to hold a few tunes to try it out).
I bought a 256MB SD card and now I can carry about 5 hours of music in my pocket. I find that enough for the few long journeys I make. What I really like is that the same gadget is also my PDA and a basic camera. You can even play movies on it.
This way you get a much bigger screen than any MP3 player and possibly easier music organisation. Using Aeroplayer you can even have skins if that floats your boat.
Some people rave about CF, but SD is getting cheaper all the time and the cards are tiny.
home > electronics > bantam interactive
Bantam Interactive BA250 48 MB MP3 Player
Retail Value: $99.99
Our Price: $49.99
You Save 50%!
Qty
Usually Ships in 24 - 48 Hours - Flat Rate Shipping $6.95
Smaller and more sophisticated than your portable CD player, this MP3 player lets you bring your favorite digital music with you. Take it back and forth from home to work, and have a different soundtrack for every commute!
Details:
48 MB expandable, portable MP3 player from Bantam Interactive
Key Features
48 MB internal memory, expandable to 112 MB with optional SmartMedia(TM)
Built-in display LCD: displays elapsed time, name of song, artist name, graphics, bitrate & song duration
Bass boost
SmartMedia(TM) slot
Estimated battery life: 10 hours
Repeat and hold functions
Dimensions and Weight
3.3" W x 2.5" H x 0.5" D, 2.4 oz.
Included
MP3 player
Stereo ear buds
2 AAA batteries
Wrap around stereo headphones
USB cord
Instruction manual and warranty card
Software CD
Cassette adaptor
Clip-on pouch
System Requirements
Microsoft Windows 98 or later
CD-ROM drive
16 MB RAM or more
USB port
Model # BA250, Warranty: 1 year
I'm looking for the cheapest CF-based mp3 player on the market.
Small, light, long-life, all pluses. Don't need a fancy display, lotsa controls, or other snazzy features. Just something I can load an hour or two of music into for the train or the gym. The market seems going baroque in features and 'additionial value', how about just "plays mp3s - cheap, long, reliable"?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
You iPod lovers should take a look at the new HD-100.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
15 MB * 8 = 120 M bits. Which makes it a 120 M / 20 = 6 Mbit/sec device. Filling the whole thing therefore takes 256 * 8 / 6 = 341 seconds or 5 minutes and 41 seconds.
My USB 2.0 stick is about 5 times as fast so then it would take only a minute and 8 seconds to load the music.
Maybe this sounds strange, but almost 6 minutes is quite a lot of time. If you want to take some music to work, it would take the additional time to startup your computer. And consider that burning a CD nowadays takes about 5 minutes too (including getting the *(&*&^^ cd out of the *^%^%*& box).
So I think I know an additional feature it could use.
Warper
www.iriver.com
Fantastic. I just bought an iFP-395 and love it; rumor has it that iRiver will soon support Ogg, too!
Though it uses the proprietary ATRAC format (and the DRM that comes with it), I'm a big fan of the NetMD minidisc recorders. The media costs around $2 each, and has the capability to hold approximately 3.5 hours of music (although forget Sony's marketing that says you can fit 5 hours on a disc; that level of compression isn't very good for music!)
ram-mp3 players with these features have been around for years. and for less than 160$ too. why was this crap posted on slashdot? many better and more innovative products come out without getting posted
Off-topic, but if anybody has a Beosound 2 (from Bang & Olufsen) and is working on or knows of a Linux driver, could you please post to this thread? The Beosounds player is Windows only, and they have a proprietary data file which means you can't just throw files on the SD Memory Card (heh, also unsupported under Linux) and hope it works. (Why they didn't adopt a Rio model of just doing a recursive directory scan and try to play anything that appears to be an audio file is beyond me. They have to put all the songs into a proprietary play list format. Lame.
1) I'm still partial to these from Iriver (note firmware upgrade to mass-storage device). With either one:
- I have my files, radio and music when I travel.
- I can schlep new MP3's from the home server.
- I can pull some tricks with a loopback device and filesystem in a file to get ext3 support.
2) Have a 10GB Archos; I use about 1/10th of its space on average. Streamripping NPR and Radio Paradise, and the occasional CD from a fairly hefty collection of MP3's. Otherwise it's a brick. Sure, you can get bigger... hey, if I carry around my desktop and a UPS I'll have ~300GB, dual monitors and DVD playback ability. I win.3) CD, yes, neat, want one; but not too carry around. It's too damned big. The biggest iRivers are close to CD in MB and you're not schlepping media left and right.
... grumble, grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter, Millenium... Hand... Shrimp, I tol' 'em, I tol' 'em.
Rio introduced a new mp3 player this week based on the 1.5 GB Cornice "storage element." which is essentially a scaled-down 1 inch HD. RCA/Thomson, Iriver and Creative have similar players in the works. Granted $299 is too much to pay for the Nitrus, but I think this i inch HD opens up a whole new can of worms.
the ipod has a 40 MINUTE skip protection. that means.. unless you are jiggling it uncontrollably for 40 minutes straight (I can't run a marathon, or for 40 minutes at a time)
.02.
that's my
if carrying something that weighs 6 ounces and is about as big as a deck of cards is too bulky for you, maybe you should consider a pastime that isn't exercising, because you are obviously too out of shape to consider moving from the computer chair.
Dimensions
Height: 8.3 in
Width: 8.3 in
Depth: 3.1 in
Weight: 9 lbs
i dont know about yours, but my laptop is smaller than that...
Who is this Karma guy and why is he bad ??
What blows me away is the number of people on a geek/tech news site that don't even know the difference between RAM and ROM. Check out the responses to the parent for a good laugh.
Yes kids, we all know that ROMs are random access as well. So's a hard drive, a CD-ROM, or for that matter, a book. The terminology has been around for decades to distinguish between the read-only kind and the read/write kind, and ever since EPROMs came out, which are read/write (in a sense), we generally use RAM to describe volatile (data loss if no power) memory, and ROM to describe non-volatile (data retained even if no power).
Every mp3 player I've ever seen uses either a CD-ROM, hard drive, or ROM. With an O.
Yeesh.
(Hey, if there actually is a battery-backed RAM mp3 player on the market, lemme know, it'd be good for a laugh.)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Am I the only one with one of these? Go to Costco, pick up the 64MB version for $99, add a 256 SD for $50, FM tuner built in, single AAA battery that'll last all freakin' day, Stopwatch, water resistant, arm band, easy to control. What's not to like? It'll take up to a 512MB card too. Not bad for something that fits within the palm of your hand. Eh?
::raises hand::
I happen to be one of those too. In fact, I'm a personal trainer.
+++ATH0
The lack of USB2.0 support would prevent me from buying this item, but I really like the record from tuner option. I listen to a lot of college radio and some of the music can be really hard to locate digital copies of, or the obscure band names can be difficult to remember. The ability to record on the fly to mp3 format would be awesome.
I'd really like to see this in a mp3 CDRW player. Anyone know of such a beast?
ôó
can buy 1Gbit flash devices from digi key for $50
buy as many as you like and build your own player with a sta030 decoder and a cs4334 dac, toss in a pic or senix (or any other of hundereds of mpu's) and away ya go.
You're not supposed to shake around a hard drive too much or else there will be a head crash on it. Ram based mp3 players do not have this problem, obviously.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I really hope the specs page is wrong. The 8.3"x8.3"x3.1" and 9 pounds is obviously wrong. But I hope the max compression rate of 128Kbps is incorrect or is referring to it's recording capabilities. I don't listen to mp3s at 128K. I always use variable bit encoding and let lame figure out what the best bitrate to use based on the audio.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I own the JNC SSF-70 model MP3 player.
It's very similar. The only difference is that it doesn't have the ability to record from line-in and it only has 128 meg of RAM.
But, it Kicks Arse!!!!!!!
It's awesome for travelling on the trains.
The first portable CD player I had was a branded "Sony Discman" circa 1995. It was a square about the size of a minidisc player, the spindle was in the corner, and 3/4ths of the disc was outside the unit at any time.
Nothing new under the sun!
The article submitter didn't even RTFA. The specs clearly state 256 MB FLASH.
Or, the article submitter is too ignorant to know the difference between RAM and FLASH. Like those older newbies who ask "how much memory" does a computer have, and they mean disk space. I mean, yeah, disk, RAM, flash, cache, are all forms of "memory" if you mean generic computer storage, but that's just not how we talk about these things.
The Slashdot maintainer who let this drivel through should be modded down. Damnit, I have mod points. How can I mod the story down?!?
</rant>
Start Running Better Polls
I stopped using my iPod after getting this phone...it just saves space in my luggage (not that the iPod is huge, it's just nice carrying less cables and stuff around, and the SE P800 has an optional tiny travel charger). You can plug in regular headphones with a cheap adapter purchased from Radio Shack etc., the battery life is really not bad when playing audio files, and (this is the most important feature), there is an .ogg player (aside from most other formats, including MP3 and MPEG4 video)!!! So far the largest media this phone has is a 128MB Memory Stick DUO (a smaller version of the memory stick which comes with an adapter to turn it into a normal sized one), which is plenty for shorter trips (these cards are so tiny that it's possible to bring a few, but 256MB would be nice). The phone is actually very well designed for audio playback, as the players work either with the clamshell open or closed, and the jog dial multi-dealie thing controls everything including song change, pause, and volume. I was surprised that the volume goes more than high enough (at least with the included stereo headphone/headset combo), and they even make a headphone/headset combo that has a little FM radio built in with volume control and a little blue display. I really couldn't be happier with this solution (just add more storage space, but that's always on the wish list)...
The iPF-390 cost more but beats everything else in its range.
Uses a AA not a AAA battery. Longer life.
Line in, built in mike, along with FM.
New software makes it a drive or you can have it the same as it been using iRiverManager.
Good FM reception with long headset.
Records in MP3 for Line in, Internal Mike and FM.
You can record or playback from 8kbps to 320kbps in sample freq 11.025 to 44.1khz.
Max 72 hours voice recording for 256mb. (144 hours for a 512mb unit.)
EQ in 5 bands +-12db in 3db steps. Or use a preset one.
Full graphs/four lines display. More of a micro GUI as the best description I can make.
MP3/WMA/ASF format.
Firmware is upgradable.
Even at lower quality 20kbps is still decent quality.
Super to have on a 4 houre flight or wating for your next flight.
And as soon as powers to be figure that a broken CD makes a few good point objects that can hurt humans dout if you could haull any more on board a plane.
The specs indicate a maximum MP3 bitrate of 128kbs. That's just not adequate. Most people I know encode their music at rates *starting* at 160kbs or 192kbs. Otherwise you wind up with those "warbly" artifacts. Seems like a non-starter just for that reason alone.
perhaps some of the metric/english impaired nasa engineers when to samsung?
don't believe me? check the specs.
Could you please point me to an example of a RAM-based player?
Every player I know of uses flash memory, with the exception of MP3 CD and HD players using RAM for a buffer.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Technically, "MG" is not short for milligrams. The abbreviation for milligrams would be "mg", lower case. MG would be Mega something. Goofballs maybe.
"MB" for Megabyte is also wrong. It should be "Mb", as the abbreviation for byte is a lower case b.
There, now THAT'S some serious nitpicking.
When they say "Accepts all compact flash cards, including IBM MicroDrives", they're trying to trick us.
Saying "The sky is green" is not trolling, it's just being stupid.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I own a 10Gb ipod, and have made more than one attempt at jogging with it. It will last about 1 mile until the device stops working. I was afraid I fried something permanently, but luckily, it came back to life a few hours later.
Yes, the battery was fully charged.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
The NiHM rechargeable batteries can solve this. they are cheap, high capacity and last for at least a pair of years with intense use. My CD MP3 player (a german Jamba) can last for up to 10 hours of music play with a pair of 1600 mAh batteries
It seems such a shame not to include a timer for recording from the radio. Surely that's a cheap thing to add.
I tend to downsample my mp3s to 128k ABR, or just load them on as the original lame preset standard VBR encodes.
128k ABR is tons better than 128k CBR, because it uses 112k or 96k frames where the target quality level can allow it, and saves that space for 160k or (rarely) 192k frames where you need them the most. The final quality lies at about 160k CBR, not at all bad for an encoding that takes up no more space. And yes, the MuVo is perfectly capable of playing VBR mp3s, as should any player costing that much.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
You say that like we're weird for "considering" a RAM based audio player, as if we're choosing between either a car or hot-air ballon as our primary form of transportation.
My reasons for RAM:
-- lower price than HD
-- easier to access than HD
-- (potentially) better battery life
-- easy upgrade (just add larger RAM)
-- no moving parts = less likely to fail
-- small player (than CD, but HD is catching up)
My Nex II was less than $100 2 years ago and 512megs of CF is about $100 now. $200 for 512megs isn't a bad price, I really don't have a need to carry my entire music collection with me everywhere like HD based players offer.
Transferring music is easy: pop out card and put it in CF reader. No propritary software, no special drivers, works with any OS that can use a CF reader. Battery life is only around 10 hours, but modern RAM players should easily trumpt HD players. Upgrading is easy too: just buy a larger memory card. Only limit is the maximum size the hardware can access, which I believe is 2gig on this unit. And with no moving parts the player is less likely to fail, even if the CF card does fail all I need to do is replace the card, not throw out the player like with a HD player.
The time for HD players will come, but it's not today, at least not for me.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone