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Jens Of Sweden MP3 Player With OLED, Ogg
rune-bare-rune writes "Gadget manufacturer Jens of Sweden launches a nice-looking MP3 player with an unusual OLED display that doubles as a mirror. Supports MP3, WMA and OGG Vorbis. And as a few other really small players it handles the USB connection nicely."
the Tom of Finland MP3 player...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Jens of Sweden normally has excellent product design, so it's somewhat unfortunate that the button size appears to be as small as possible. The 4-way rocker doesn't look like it'll be fun to manipulate.
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Ah, great. A mirror. Just what I was looking for in an MP3 player.
Good thing, 'cause I think they're gonna need one. ;)
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It looks like a rebranded iRiver to me...
They're still making devices with USB 1.1? Especially for something like an MP3 player, where you're moving large amounts of data, USB 2 is a must. For low-end devices with only 512M of storage, you're going to be doing a lot of adding/removing of files, which makes having to constantly wait during every session a hastle; for the larger devices, it's insane to have to wait forever for your collection to transfer over the outdated 1.1 spec.
In a world where modern machines come with USB 2, and it's also backwards compatible with USB 1, there's no excuse to make an mp3 player that only supports USB 1.1.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
Personally, this form factor (similar to Creative Labs) has some appeal to me. I know everyone says that the HD's in iPods are shock proof and this and that, but for using at the gym or while running, you can't beat this super-mini form factor and solid state construction. Great to see they're offering some value-adds such as ogg support.
Need more information. Please help.
Anybody got a mirror?
..does it play Ogg Vorbis?
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
"And now with our included mirror, you can insure that your eye patch is correctly aligned so your other (music) pirate friends don't point and laugh!" Argh!
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I find the ad disturbing- why two left hands????
Look at the photo yourself- that's weird huh?
+5 Observant
and with 512mb you could store ... 2 albums!
As a true blue slashdotter, I have a bit of an acne problem. Can I get one without the mirror?
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
Hammacher Schlemmer, the listed reseller of Jens of Sweden's product in the US, has one of the older models - the MP110 - for $249.95 with 256MB of storage.
o =e l_audio
http://www.hammacher.com/publish/70549.asp?prom
I would think this model, the MP130, would be at least as expensive, but likely more.
-B
Okay, that's just cool looking and I give them huge props on the look and feel. Even the USB-port-slide-out-feature is very cool. Not as certain about the "joystick" feature.
But what is with the 256MB capacity? I am not trying to be an Apple zelot here, but with the iPod Mini, hasn't Apple really drawn a line in the sand where Style and 4GB capacity intersect at a sub $250 price point?
The way I see it, no one who ever uses a high capacity digital music player (remember back when we called them MP3 players?) will ever go BACK to a low capacity sub 100 song player. Just won't happen. You get hooked on the ability BROWSE.
But anyway, nice looking toy
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
>Isn't that a man's hand holding the mirror to allow
>lipstick to be applied to a woman's face??
It had BETTER be a different person, or they have two left hands...
*grin*
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Did anyone actually spot anything on their site that mentions that the display is OLED? Looks to me more like the OEL (Organic EL) display that some newer car stereos have (new Pioneers, etc). Last I heard blue OLED had some MTBF troubles...
That is, if you can keep it clean and free of scratches. I know some people who have their caseback so badly scratched up that its pretty much lost its reflective properties.
I've been to the vorbis site and listened to the ogg samples (Scroll down to the bottom and listen to the 45k/sec samples) of low bit rate compression. It sounds really good at really low bit rates. Scroll up a little and listen to the mp3s at 64 and 128, and then listen to the OGG at 64. That's the quality of mp3 at 1/2 the space.
Couldn't these companies take better advantage of the ability to play OGG files and include the compressor to actually fit more music in less space? They could advertise a player that holds "more music" in a less expensive package. Instead of advertising the storage space, advertise the number of hours of music, and compare to competitors that cost 2x as much.
Would be good if the player is actually made and designed in Sweden. Too bad it's not. Fact is, the flash-based MP3 player market is largely dominated by the koreans.
Try to pose your hands like that in a mirror. You'd have to have some pretty funky elbows or a reality distortion field or something.
I guess the RSD(TM) is already patented
I agree that bashing a product or post the lifts up a product, simply because it is not made by Apple is bad. However, i would not go as far as to say we shouldn't be allowed to automatically hold the product to the standard Apple has set.
After all, Apple has created a 'reference standard' for the digital media player industry by which all other digital media players are, in my opinion, rightly judged. The same holds true for Windows. Apple Linux and before it Unix were and remain compared to Windows, the reference standard for desktop OS.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
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It probably DOES work, but you need to tell linux that a 'vendor 1234, device 2345' (or whatever it is) needs to be activated with the usb-flash driver.
Dinking around with the ID/Driver database generally solves my 'compatibilty' problems. Even with modern kernels, unless the company, or a fan of the device, decides to submit the mapping to the linux project, it'll remain 'apparently' incompatible.
IOPS players have been on sale in Korea for some time now.
Although most of us will see the mirror display as, at best, a novel cosmetic touch, I've shown these pictures to a girl I happened to have about the place and her response was instant enthusiasm.
She pointed out that it's always good to have a mirror handy, especially in situations where you aren't carrying your usual bag-of-tricks, such as when you're jogging - with one of these and a tube of lippy in her pocket, a girl would be ready for anything.
Her one criticism was that that small mic hole, right in the middle of that otherwise unobstructed stretch, would be an irritating distraction for anyone giving their make-up a quick check. I figure that such an infrequently used feature could have been placed elsewhere without affecting its utility. Also, I think they should have extended the right up to or even around the corners, increasing the mirror's ease of use (I presuming that the mirror is just a protective fascia placed over the actual OLED display).
At the right price point (and I think it is), this could seriously challenge Apple's mostly female targetted Mini ipod.
If Natalie Portman has hands like that, you can keep her (it)?.
Eeek.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Tell me what you see here: IOPS
It will work with Linux 2.4+, according to the manufacturer.
Actually, it seems to be targetted at geek guys who think that, if they were carrying around a mirror, attractive women would stand close to them while putting on makeup.
OLED implies a thin-film organic LED. If it's an LED, I expect a device that behaves like a P-N junction and operates at low voltages like a standard silicon or other inorganic LED. Organic Electroluminescent is totally different. OEL is a monolithic material that fluoresces under high voltages and low currents. OEL is what is used for backlights for many portable devices and is ultimately not as efficient as OLED (because of the HV stepup) and does not have as easily a tunable color range as OLED.
So who told you that they were the same thing, huh?
If you were actually using a PCMCIA 16 bit adaptor then it's likely that you couldn't reach near 9MB/s anyway. PIO 16 bit with no buffering (there probably isn't any in your CF PCMCIA adaptor) is going to be slow as heck. The connection you get is akin to pre-UDMA hard drives. The maximum theoretical speed on 16 bit PCMCIA is 33MB/s (the same as ISA) and using PIO (since you don't get DMA using this for IDE) there is only going to be half of that (16.5MB/s) available to transfer data. Without any ram to buffer the IO you are likely going to drop your performance below what the card is even capable of.
Try your benchmark again with an IDECF adaptor plugged directly into a drive controller (or IDE/Firewire bridge if you are limited to the laptop) and see if it makes a difference. It ought to!
The IEC TC 110 WG/4 recently agreed in April 2004 to call them all OLED now. Here's a news report, in Korean. I can't find any links in English though.
Is it just me - or does it look like this woman has two left arms? If I'm right, her thumb in the reflection should be on the /other/ side.
Jens of Sweden has never developed any technology of it's own. Their game is to rebrand other manufacturers mp3-players and make the exterior look somewhat better. I don't have the energy to find a link, but this is common knowledge.
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I bought their MP300 a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely love it.
One thing that isn't mentioned on the MP300 page (since usage is illegal in Scandinavia), is that the player includes an FM transmitter that can be enabled by running a small program.
Does the MP130 have this functionality as well?
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Actually, they often develop the specs themself and let the koreans develop the tech.
Jens of sweden is a company that brings cool korean gadgets to europe. But not any cool gadget, only those up to their specs. If nothing fits the koreans adapt their products. Capitalism in a nutshell.
I have a link but its in swedish so its of no use anyway.
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http://www.i4u.com/article1489.html