"Breaking" things

[Guest]

Well this message doesn't have a place that will fit it (it should be called "Nerdism in General"), so I'm posting it here because I want to comment on "The Disassembly Of The Nomad Jukebox": Don't you love the fact that when you buy some new electronic gadget, the first thing you'll do is take it apart and see what it has inside? I say "you" to refer to people who know who they are..

That was kinda cool for Creative to use a standard laptop harddisk for its Nomad, but I guess it was predictable; they don't make harddisks..

 

[slvr_phoenix]

You just always have to take things apart. And those darn 'removing this voids waranty' labels only make you want to see what is inside even more. It just isn't fair.

Speaking of the nifty upgradability of the Creative Nomad Jukebox though, I'd love to see them take it ten steps further. If they just made it a little larger they could add a tape deck and a CD player in as well. Then you could rip from casette or CD and the files could go right into the hard drive on that little ah heck. Or you could actually just play music on casette, CD, or MP3 all from the same device. Who cares if it's a cube the size of a diskman? To let it do all of that together, I'd get one. (Though they would have to fix that uploading to the computer problem.)

And does anyone know if you can link two of the Nomad buggers together via the USB cable to transfer files to each other without a computer as a mediator? And if you can't, why in the world not?

 

[Guest]

They scaring of copyright issues :frown: . C'mon, there will be some stuff (device) that will crack this feature.
Anyway Slvr_phoenix, I had the same idea and features as you described. Wouldn't be nice if that device would also include CD or tape and download it to itself (wow, that' amazing, no computers you will need after that). I also wish this big storage MP3 players to be very small (like one that Sony created recently - pencil size MP3 player). As it was said nothing is ideal in this world. But good news is technology will go further.

 

[Michael]

I guess they could build an MP3 that could use the new IBM Microdrive that is CF II compatible and is used by some of the newer digital cameras on the market now. I think they have a 1GB size for that and it is about the size of a USA quarter dollar/25 cent coin. Much better than a 64MB smart media card. If they do this, I think the whole device could be much smaller. However, I think the IBM Microdrive isn't as cheap as the notebook drive that Creative is using.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

All we need now is for someone to create the super music device. It'll have a tape deck, a CD player, USB support, headphone jack, 5.1 speaker support, a 20gb hard drive, a backlit color LCD screen, a flashable bios/operating system, an audio driven screen graphics 'screen saver', a video port for hooking a TV up to it, an infrared panel with a remote control, a hardware and a software graphic equalizer, a pop-up microphone, a microphone jack, and maybe even built in micro stereo speakers. It'll run on two rechargable C batteries, come with batteries and a spare pair, and an AC cable to run it from an outlet and recharge the batteries currently in it. It'll also come with a car stereo adaption kit. It'll have a nice carrying case that has zipper flaps to allow access to the various ports in it and has an adjustable shoulder strap. And maybe it can even read DVDs as well as MP3 CDs and music CDs.

And with this comes a micro-sized child to this that has a gig worth of storage. It's shaped like a slightly large pen. It has a USB port on one end to transfer files from the 'mother' device to this one, and a headphone jack on the other end. It runs off of two AAA batteries and has micro buttons for 'play', 'stop', 'pause', 'foward one song', and 'back one song'.

- Anything can be fixed with duct tape, a swiss army knife, and WD-40.

 

[Guest]

Hehe. That's cool.
Have you heard that Korean manufacturer CMC is showing a 20Gb player that also plays CD-RW media (but it will come to market somewhere in May 2001). Almost perfect - except weight, style and price (around $450-500). By that time I am sure someone else will come up with better device. Sony and Creative Labs are not slowing down on these technologies.
Here is <A HREF="http/www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14740.html" target="_new">source</A> from The Register about that 20Gb player

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Sheesh. What's the point? I mean for five hundred bucks I could just get a refurbished laptop that can play MP3s from it's hard drive or from CDs. And it'll have a MUCH better screen. And can do things like play games. Sure, the hard drive won't be 20GB at first, but that's easily upgradable.

You have to wonder at the great minds behind these portable MP3 devices. If they start selling their portable MP3 players for more than the price of a refurbished laptop that can do the very same things, then it kind of makes their devices pointless to buy.

Besides, all that these things are is basically a sound card with a battery and a hard drive. So why are they costing so much?

Maybe I'm missing something grandly important, but it seems to me that these portable MP3 players are overpriced when you consider the hardware actually involved. Maybe the prices will drop after Xmas.

- Anything can be fixed with duct tape, a swiss army knife, and WD-40.