Too Many Choices... RioVolt, Rio 800, Nomad II MGs, Jukeboxes, TDK Mojo and so onMar 09 '01 (Updated Jun 01 '01) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Know what you want from your MP3 player and know your budget. Costs, memory, and storage space are the big factors to always keep in mind in this market!
MP3 players are proving to be the hot new audio technology in recent memory. It has gained quite a bit of success where other formats like MiniDiscs and DAT tapes have found more niche markets. This probably is most related to the easy availability of MP3 files as well as the ease of creating and storing these digital files. What that leaves the average consumer is whether they want to jump into MP3 technology and what to use to play such files. Flash Memory Based MP3 players The most common dedicated MP3 player is the flash memory based players that started with the first Rio player created when the parent company was still named Diamond Multimedia. The player was a big hit. No moving parts meant skip free music that you could take jogging or to the gym. 10 sec anti-shock memory portable CD players didn't cut it for a good skip free experience. The only problems with early flash memory MP3 players was that the memory was too limited. 16MB in some players... 32MB was a gift! Today, things have changed to some degree. Diamond is now SonicBlue and their Rio players are still the most popular flash memory MP3 player to date. Creative produces the Nomad series which has also gained in popularity. Even Intel has made plans to enter the flash memory MP3 market. What is nice about the flash memory based MP3 players is that they are extremely small and highly portable. The majority are not much bigger than current numeric pagers and just as lightweight. These units are skip free because they have virtually no moving parts. In addition, other features like voice recording or a FM tuner is included in the unit (in some units, you get both). Adequate memory is provided on most units for an hour or two of cassette grade quality music... although this is halved for CD quality music (I consider this higher than 128kbs... 128 still is below CD quality with songs with a wide dynamic range). Many people will be satisfied with 128kps ratings. Recent flash memory players will support other digital music formats like Microsoft's WMA format as well as other... or the player can be software upgraded in the future. Many of these players' memories can also be upgraded to a certain degree. The bad part of flash memory players is that these units are generally expensive. Quality players with 64MB of internal memory will run around $235 at street prices. Upgrading the memory is also expensive. Nomad II MG used SmartMedia cards that cost $59 minimum for 64MB of flash memory. The average price is around $80 as of February 2001. The Rio utilizes special Rio backpacks that house a rechargable battery and additional memory. As of March 2001, the 64MB backpack with rechargable batteries costs $180. The battery life of these units are also relatively poor... 2 AAA will hopefully get you 7 to 8 hours of play time. Definitely investing in rechargable NiMH batteries would be a good idea. I have reviewed the Nomad II MG (cut and paste the link) http://yusakugo.epinions.com/content_12093918852 My review on the Rio 800 (cut and paste the link) http://yusakugo.epinions.com/content_11880205956 I have also written a review on the I-Jam IJ-100 as well. The Intel Pocket Concert is now available for pre-order at most e-tailers for $275 to $299 for the pocket concert itself and $321 to $350 for the unit with accessory kit. This is a 128MB flash memory unit where you cannot expand the memory. It comes with a FM tuner with 10 available presets as well. You can read some preview reports from CNET.com and formen.ign.com gear section. I have preordered the Intel PC-AP and will review this when I get the unit. One thing to note as of this writing (March 27, 2001) is that the Rio 800 Extreme and the Nomad II MG Limited Edition give an enormous amount of memory for a hefty price tag. The Rio 800 Extreme costs $599 but gives 384MB of flash memory. The Nomad II MG Limited Edition gives 256MB for $499. SonicBlue is also releasing a 128 Meg Rio 800 for $299 and a 64 Meg Rio 600 for $219... looks like the competition is really about to heat up folks! Overall, if you crave portability and uninterrupted tunes, check out a flash memory player. Otherwise if portability is not your goal and memory size a problem, there are several other options that are also much cheaper than a flash memory player. Hard Drive based Jukebox players Okay, so portability isn't a big deal for you and you need massive storage for long hours of music play time. Time to look at some of the hard drive based jukebox players. The two that come to mind are the Creative Nomad Jukebox player and the Archos Jukebox (I don't remember the exact name of the Archos unit). There are a few other companies as well. These players typically come with 5 Gigabytes of storage (6 GB in Archos's product) so you can store at least a day's worth of music at good to fairly high sampling rates (128 and higher!). These units typically have rechargable batteries and can last for a few hours from what I know. (I don't own any units of this type and have relatively few friend who have purchased this kind of unit) They can also act as portable hard drives as well... increasing the unit's usefulness. The price difference is a bit more than a flash memory player. The Archos unit is about $300 (before $50 mail-in rebate) street and the Creative Nomad Jukebox is about $279 street. Again, this is not a unit you would go jogging with or carry around in your hands for any substantial period of time. The units are fairly large when comparing to a flash memory player. Another thing to consider is that the products available in this catagory are first generation products although the Archos and Creative units are pretty good overall. So the short of it is... while you pay a bit more for a hard drive based unit, you get storage of 120X more than your typical 64MB flash memory player. The recent March and April 2001 price drops have made hard drive based units much more appealing! You also get in some units the functionality of an external hard drive. You sacrifice size and ultimately portability of the unit especially for active and semi-active sport lifestyles. You also lose FM tuning and voice recording as compared to some flash memory units as well. The units aren't skip free players but they do a pretty good job still. CD-MP3 players One of the player types gaining popularity quickly is the CD-MP3 player. Actually in the second to third generation of players, popular units are the Rio Volt and the AVC Soul Player (in reality, they are the same unit) and the newest player is TDK's Mojo player. Current players have the ability to play regular CDs and CD-Rs and CD-RWs with MP3 files on them. The units look like portable CD players (or should I just call them discman) so are just as portable as discman are. These units are also the cheapest units available to the market (not counting older discounted flash memory players). The most popular units are the SonicBlue Rio Volt and the AVC Soul Player (as I already said, they are the same unit and look almost identical) and the newly released TDK Mojo player. The RioVolt/Soul player play regular CDs with anti-shock memory of 10 or 40 seconds (user selectable). A decent LCD screen shows information on the CD such as lay time, battery power, and so forth. Now, you can put in a CD-R or CD-RW with MP3 and WMA files and play them straight off the CD. The players have approximately a 120 sec buffer for the MP3 file so are relatively skip free in light exercise. The LCD will display the name and information of the file (if the ID tags are in the file). The player can last 10 hours or so on 2 AA batteries. The best part is that your music files are stored on CD-Rs and CD-RWs giving a lasting media and a low cost one in one fell swoop. My RioVolt review can be found at http://yusakugo.epinions.com/content_16976219780 My AVC Soul Player review can be found at http://yusakugo.epinions.com/content_19010981508 The TDK Mojo review is on my hard drive and will be posted as soon as the catagory appears. There are quite a few differences between the RioVolt and Mojo players. The Mojo has 45 sec anti-skip buffer, feels better constructed, and has one of the best navigation systems I've seen in any MP3 player! You can read my upcoming RioVolt vs. Mojo CD-MP3 quick comparison and the utility of firmware upgrades that I'll post soon. The only problems that I've encountered is that vigorous activities can cause the player to skip and that navigation through a CD-R and CD-RW can be a pain due to the large number of files that can be placed on a CD-R (650 or 700MB) and CD-RW (500+ MB). The units are still fairly large compared to the flash memory players as well. Your PC An expensive solution to be sure, but you get so many other functions out of a PC... like downloading more MP3 files over the web. Actually... when I think about it, 500mHz Celerons and other low speed Celerons, Athlons, and Duron cost under $1000. Really base systems can cost under $500. The PCs aren't much more expensive, but you can't bring the PC with you on jogging... even a laptop or so. Well, maybe you can use a Pocket PC unit, but with such limited memory on Pocket PC units, the costs can't be justified. Other upcoming toys and trinkets By now, you probably have heard of MP3 car stereos (SonicBlue is selling such units... i.e. Rio Car), Springboard MP3 devices for a Handspring handheld unit, and even Cybiko MP3 attachment. All I have to say here is that the MP3 device list is growing... and growing rapidly. It will be interesting to see what kind of devices will pop us in the near and distant future. So what did I choose? I have a Rio Volt, a Nomad II MG, and an older I-Jam IJ-100 MP3 player. For activities, I use the Nomad II MG or the I-Jam unit. For home and car travel, I use the Rio Volt. I still like to use my portable CD player because I still like have high quality for some of my musical tastes (I have a 3 portable CD players... an older Technics (i.e. High end Panasonic) slim player, a 10 sec antishock Aiwa, and a Panasonic Shockwave 869V with AM/FM tuner). I feel that the Rio Volt/AVC Soul Player doesn't play pure music CDs as well as the portable CD players I own and that the sound output/volume for the music CDs were in my opinion lower in the Rio Volt/AVC Soul Player. The best advice, determine what your primary usage of an MP3 would be. Portability, storage space/memory space, and cost are the biggest factors that should guide you to the player you want. Look online for better deals too and read my epinion on the ebates.com site for further rebates to online shopping. Ebates.com epinions address http://yusakugo.epinions.com/content_11868081796 P.S.- I had a Rio 800, my brother bought a Nomad II MG after playing with my cousin's unit, and we wound up swapping units. What players do I own (includes my brother's units): RioVolt TDK Mojo AVC Soul Player Nomad II MG Nomad II MG SE Rio 800 Intel Pocket Concert I-Jam IJ-100 Returned Rio 800 Extreme due to ridiculous short rechargable battery life!  |
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