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Diva Gem Bluetooth MP3 Player Review
i4u writes "I4U reviews the first Bluetooth-enabled MP3 Player. The Diva Gem from Daisy Multimedia enables users to use the player as a wireless Head-set or Hands-free device for mobile phones. So users can listen to music and can pick-up incoming calls with the MP3 Player. Pretty neat concept."
The Bluetooth function enables users to use the DIVA GEM as a wireless Head-set or Hands-free device for mobile phones. So users can listen to music and can pick-up incoming calls with the MP3 Player.
...oh great, now I have to worry about some ass bluejacking my Led Zepplin.
Sigs cause cancer.
Atleast they called it an MP3 player and not an iPod!
Hmmm.
Will it be able to work with other bluetooth devices, such as keyboards? I realize I'm stretching it a bit, but it might be possible.
On
They don't say how battery life will be affected while Bluetooth connectivity is intact. Any ideas anyone?
I think you'll find that sony ericsson released the first device like this called the HBM-30.
am not singing my songs loudly and annoying other people. I can have annoying phone conversations. Yippie!
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
Diva Gem Bluetooth MP3 Player Review
I know all those words and that doesn't make any sense.
In at least as good a sonic quality as 128kbps MP3?
The one thing I'd really love with my iPod would be a bluetooth remote AND bluetooth headphones. The iPod could stay in whatever inside pocket I put it in, and I wouldn't have to worry about headphone cords or remote cords.
What is the point of these mp3 players with tiny storage?
Why can't more companies make mp3 players like that one you can get off tiger-direct.com, $120 for a 10GB mp3 player? Surely that technology can be refined, and I am willing to pay $150 for a good quality 10GB portable MP3 player.
I am not willing to pay $200+ for any MP3 player, nor do I want to buy crap (cheap could easily break 10GB mp3 players or tiny storage mp3 players).
Site is pretty slow already... Here's the text of the article.. Posted as AC to prove I'm not karma whoring.
published: 06/09/04 last updated: 06/09/04
Daisy Multimedia sent us their highly anticipated DIVA GEM Bluetooth enabled MP3 Player. We reported about this interesting Gadget last November. Now I have the chance to try it first hand.
The Bluetooth function enables users to use the DIVA GEM as a wireless Head-set or Hands-free device for mobile phones. So users can listen to music and can pick-up incoming calls with the MP3 Player. Pretty neat concept. Lets see if it works.
large photo
Overview
This is now the 6th MP3 Player we review this year. The Jens of Sweden and the Vandisori Players stand out so far with their quality and breath of features. Daisy Multimedia is the first to offer Bluetooth in an MP3 Player. I stumbled across another one on the Computex Award Page from First International Computer Inc.
The Diva Gem is available in three colors (Fanatic, Stardust and Glamour). I received the red (glamour) one with 128MB storage. The Player has a good small size measuring 86x32x20mm. It weighs 25g without battery. The surface has a metallic feel to it, giving the Diva a high quality appearance. It is bundled with the usual accessories a head-set (necklace style), power-adapter, USB Cable, Audio Cable and a CD. The Audio cable is quite useful. It has on the same end the male 3.5mm plug and the 2 RCA audio inputs.
The Diva Gem comes with a 450mAh Li-Ion battery that is supposed to power the player for 20 hours. When connected to the Computer via USB the MP3 Player is charging. So the power adaptor is not really necessary if you have a Computer available.
Diva Gem accessories: Audio Recording Cable, USB Cable, Player, Necklace Head-set, Power Adapter.
Besides the Bluetooth functionality, which I will explore further down, the Diva has another not yet so common SD/MMC Card slot to extend the storage of the player. The card slot is in the battery compartment. In regards to the more or less standard features the Diva Gem provides MP3 and AAC ( Apple's favorite) playback, a 20 station FM Tuner, a very sensitive Microphone for voice recording and mobile phone head-set operation and a backlit 4 line LCD display.
In the battery compartment is the slot for the SD/MMC storage card to extend the storage of the Diva Gem.
Usage
Right away the Diva Gem is very intuitive to use for me. The Player switches on by clicking the Play button on the side (no waiting). To lock the buttons the Diva has a button that toggles the lock. A small key icon on the screen indicates if the player is locked or not. Many other players have a slider button to lock the buttons.
The display is very clear and bright. The Menu tree is very easy to navigate with the joystick button on the front. Holding the joystick button for 1-2sec takes me to the main menu. This menu has four icons: Audio Player, FM Radio, Voice Recorder and Settings. In each of this main modes a submenu with further options is available.
I uploaded some MP3s and the sound is excellent. The 5 built-in Equalizer modes are noticeable changing the sound. The volume control is very fine with 55 steps. It still sounds great on the maximum volume. So definitely the Diva Gem is a solid MP3 Player like the Jens of Sweden or Vandisori. Also the FM Tuner is working very well. With the automatic preset the Player finds me 20 stations right away. The sound of the radio is very good. I am actually inclined to say that the Diva Gem has the best FM Radio sound and reception quality from all the MP3 Players I tested this year.
The Diva Gem has 6 buttons and a joystick.
Using Diva Gem as a Bluetooth Head-set
Now the Bluetooth functionality makes the Diva Gem unique, so I was very excited to try this out. I tested it with the Sony Ericsson T610 (provided by MaterialSpieler), one of the view Bluetooth phones available on the US market.
Daisy Multimedia provides easy to follow instructions on
i was thinking of a bluetooth headset, does anyone know of mp3 players with blutooth headsets?
The "Diva Gem" from "Daisy"?
If they're not targetting 12 year old girls, I suspect they've made a mistake there.
There's no obvious straightforward way to buy this in the US that I can find. How much does it cost?
You have to pay for quality. Get used to this idea, you'll see it again.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
(From the Article) Features
* built-in memory (up to 256MB) and MMC/SD card slot
* Multiformat support: MP3 and AAC
* FM tuner integrated, live capture from the radio function directly in AAC
* Bluetooth Hands-free feature*
* Backlit graphic LCD and easy navigation through menus and play lists
* Multilanguage menu
* Various playback modes
* 5 equalizer presets & one 10-band custom
* Sensitive mic, voice operation recording (VOR), file folder system
* Over 14h continuous play on the Li-Ion battery
* Embedded charger, charges via USB or DC
* USB Removable Drive when connected to PC or Mac
* Driver-free for Windows 2000/Me/XP
USB Drivers:
Win 98; Driver free for Win Me / 2000 / XP / Linux 2.4.19 / Mac OS 9.1 and above
This seems to be a nice and multi-featured unit. The expansion slot is something that I have been waiting on for a little while now and the fact that AAC is supported is nice but too bad no OGG though. Seeing that the USB Driver for "Linux 2.4.19" was included makes this my personal top choice now as to MP3 Players.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. -- Hunter S. Thompson
But it should seem pretty self evident.
Bluejacking is the practice of finding bluetooth enabled devices that are not your own and sending data to them to cause them to do something.
Example given on the site is to create a contact on a Bluetooth enabled cell phone with some text as the name of the contact as 'Hello, you've been bluejacked'. Then do a discovery for other bluetooth devices, find another bluetooth cell phone, and send that contact to it. Guy's phone beeps, it says "hello you've been bluejacked" to him, and he's all confused by that.
It's basically just pranking somebody. In this case, the MP3 player can act as a wireless bluetooth headset. If you did a discovery on your bluetooth phone near somebody with one, you'd likely find it. Assuming they haven't changed the pin (assuming it is changeable), you'd be able to link your phone to their headset and possibly simulate a ring to them. They'd answer, get nothing, and wonder wtf was going on...
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
users can listen to music and can pick-up incoming calls with the MP3 Player.
i have been able to do this for ages now on my Ericsson p800 and now on my new p900
i almost feel sorry for you Americans using clunky old phone tech, perhaps i can interest you in one of these ?
$249 128MB
$339 256MB - Special Order
$224 64MB - Special Order
http://www.technipeal.com/product.asp?3=34
I believe the max bandwidth on bluetooth is 768kbps, or 1 mbps (not sure which).
So if the bluetooth device on your ears was doing the actual decoding, then sure. Plenty of bandwidth. If the iPod was doing the decoding, then you'd get some pretty fierce quality loss. Not big enough of a pipe to send CD quality stereo audio in real time.
However, it's entirely possible to build a bluetooth set of headphones with an MP3/AAC/whatever decoder in it, then use the docking port on the iPod to grab the undecoded songs, and send them via bluetooth. More than a bit pointless, but possible.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Though the Diva Gem use of bluetooth is interesting, I'm intrigued by another possible use of wireless: transfer of music files at the player level.
Do there exist portable music players that allow either transfer or broadcast of music files to other devices within a certain radius, through Bluetooth, WiFi, or some other means?
I can recall an earlier Slashdot story which talked about iPod users swapping headphones with eachother. The propensity for people to do this could be enabled by adding a swap or broadcast feature to players themselves.
Needless to say, this feature is begging for RIAA harassment.
Some of us like MP3 players that run for weeks on one AAA battery and have no moving parts. Look at it this way, there are two markets for MP3 players. In one you have people who want gigs of space for more songs then they can ever realy listen to. In the other you have people who want a small device that plays just enough songs and is realy durable. Two markets, two types of products.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I read the headline and got excited. I read the article and was disappointed.
The added bluetooth functionality is ONLY good for using this device with a phone. As cool as this is, this is not what I have been waiting for. I want to hide my MP3 player in my pocket, and listen without wires.
Sounds like its operating as a standard bt headset, which means that the sound quality for the wireless part is telephone quality only. I have published diy instructions in the german computer magazine c't on how to build a device that receives mp3 _over_ bluetooth. See www.bluemp3.de (german page) for details ...
Just in case you want to have a look into the Linux and portable (digital) audio players overview.
I'm using a better solution :)
I'm using the FM-transmitter on my iPod, which my Nokia 6610 picks up. If I get an incoming call, I get a tone in my ear and the phone picks up. If I want to listen to regular radio, I just change the channel on the phone.
It's not CD-quality, but it's good enough for me.
who would dread receiving calls when I'm at "the good part" of my favorites songs... One more example where putting two functions in one device is unnecessary and even detracts from the usefulness of either application.
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. -Henry David Thoreau
If you don't have it, and have an MP3 player already, try these headphones from coby they have a headphone plug for your MP3 player, and a headset jack for your cellphone without bluetooth.. the audio quality of the headphones is warbled (at least on my set) when the phone rings through
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
You know, some of us Americans are using P900's as well. I sure love mine. ;-) The mobile phone sophistication gap that used to exist between Europe and the US has largely been removed in the past couple of years, since GSM has become very wide spread standard on this side of the Atlantic. This has been driven largely by the fact that mobile providers who used to be TDMA based have switched over to GSM.
Not sure why people keep coming out with the "first" BT enabled MP3 player...These guys have had a BT enabled MP3 player for probably a year...http://www.mptronix.com/... It uses BT for control but also has built in FM transmiter and up to 80GB storage, I would want one with any less ;-D