Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
edig's portable video player vs. iRiver PMP-120?
this one looks like it's going to sell more than a few:
http://gear.ign.com/articles/518/518971p1.html?fromint=1
The dmp-x20 was pulled after only 5 months... with no replacement. I think it's highly unlikely they recouped thier investment in such a short time considering it had almost no penetration in the market, as far as I can tell. Through my webpage I've spoken more than a few owners but no one that actually bought the GW player. My review was pretty favorable, but others pegged it as mediocre. Some user reviews at Amazon, Shopping.com, etc indicate there may have been a number of hardware failures but its impossible to guage if thats a fair sampling. There was also the price. Other players out there cost less and offer similiar features, or more, and from brand names that people are more familiar with. Add it up and the DMP-X20 wasn't too compelling. Gateway never offered it for less than $300 which made it the 3rd most expensive (behind Apple and iRiver). Compare that to the 30gb Zen or Dell DJ that you can get for $200, and the Rio Karma at $250. In any event, it was a business decision: either it wasn't profitable enough, or it could have been a money-looser after factoring in returns and support. These things have a higher return rate than flash-based players, even with companies who have more experience at it than eDig/Gateway, like Apple and Creative. IMO manufacturing hasn't matured to point where laptops are at yet they have to be twice as durable; they take more abuse traveling in people's pocket. Anyway, a company like GW that just shut down all its B&M stores, and is focusing on profitablity, probably would not see this as a worthwile endeaver if it's sitting on the shelves, or if the returns and associated support costs are higher than is justified.
just my $.02
c'mon, it figures that they killed the dmp-x20. it never measured up to others players on the market that offer more and cost less. dell dj, rio karma, creative zen, etc. build quality was below average as well. they couldn't even manage to fix that problem with albums where the tracks play back in alphabetical order instead of the original order on the CD (without taking the time to build a playlist). so, if they can't compete, they should get out and cut thier losses. you can't half-ass a product like this in such a competitive market. the same factors doomed the o1000 and treo.
just so its clear, i don't make a single dime from my website about mp3 players. no advertising, no product sales in the US. it's not a business for me, and the bandwdith is paid out of my pocket. this is only a personal interest and i am willing to help people pick the right player for thier needs. i don't have any company affiliation, i just judge the players on thier own merits. if you don't agree with my assesments, whatever, fine with me.
i do have a "partner" in belgium who has sold MP3 players from the website, but there is no money exchanged between us. just a guy i met online a few years ago who shares the same interest and writes reviews, posts news items, etc.
clear?
As usual, you did not understand the purpose of the message or even the reason I returned it. But you are quick to make judgements. If you actually read the review, it is clear I did not buy it for the sole purpose of doing that review. I liked the player when I demo'd it at the Gateway store, and they said all gateway products have a 15-day money policy. I asked because I sometimes find problems with these players that make them unsatisfactory to me, which is what happened here. I bought it, tried it out, and found that it doesn't playback albums in the right order. That was important to me, and since it didn't work the way I expected, I decided to return it, which I think is perfectly reasonable. The post I made was just intended as a caution to other people here that might want to order one. If you like it great. If you need to return it, for whatever reason, I was making it clear they you may have problems getting your money back. And theier online return policy is vague about how much if any restocking fee will be charged (it does NOT say 15%). Anyway, I got several negative reponses about the message, so it was a wasted effort.
newb question - what does DD mean (Due Diligence?) .. not finding much consensus through google. TIA :)
thanks licky, but that's not really a 15-day money back policy then is it..? I mean, I can probably resell the player on eBay and lose less than the 15% restocking fee. Well, leason learned with this company. I would only advise buying Gateway products through Amazon.com which has proven to be a high-quality company that will refund full purchase price. But there are a lot of good 20gb+ players below $300 now, so Gateway is out of the picture.
A Warning about buying from Gateway:
I bought the new DMP-X20 mp3 player in late December, reviewed the unit, and found it unsatisfactory for my needs. I contacted Gateway within 15 days about the return. There was supposed to be a 15-day money back guarantee (as written in thier terms) - but this is highly deceptive, considering they said that they will charge me a 15% restocking fee. Deceptive, and possibly illegal, but for now I just want my money back. The player was returned in like-new condition and using the proper return procedure given by Gateway. They recieved the player on the morning of January 21 according to UPS tracking. I still have not recieved any refund, or even an acknowledgement of receipt from Gateway. My emails to customer service go unanswered. Now I will have to contact my credit card to have the charges reversed, which is easy enough, and I will not take a 15% hit on the charge. As a result of all this, I feel compelled to put up a warning about Gateway at my mp3-player review site (www.DAPreview.com) about the risk of dealing with them, and I will have to write an addendum to my DMP-X20 review and lower the score to a C-grade, which puts it in the do-not-buy catagory. This is not the kind of experience I will recommend to anyone, and I don't think my expectations were unreasonable.
Best regards,
Austin
Coby 7" LCD tablet-style DVD player $330
http://www.i4u.com/article1094.html
looks like one of those IFE units that eDig makes... but cheaper? can buy it on amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000W2G46/ref=nosim/i4ufututechne-20/103-5957343-4779830?dev...
sorry if this has been posted before
Austin
tenderloin, the RipDrive is just a rebadged Xclef HD-500.
http://www.austinv.com/galleries/XclefHD500/index1.html
moxa1 just FYI the Creative Nomad Zen series all use 2.5" disks and are widely available at Best Buy, CC, etc. They are bigger and heavier of course but have the advantage of being easy to upgrade with higher capacity drives, unlike the 1.8" variety which are not readily available to consumers. I upgraded my Nomad Jukebox 3 from 20gb to 60gb using a standard 2.5" notebook hard drive.
FF, I'll be around. I don't own any EDIG stock, a little too risky for my blood, but this is a good place to find news about digital audio players that I may have missed. Thanks to the watchful eyes of you guys.
I am still returning the DMP-X20, but I am hopeful that Gateway/EDIG will address that one problem so I can recommend it to others.
I'd love to get a job on the design side, with any company, but I have not come across the oppurtunity yet. My day job is telecom. It's rather boring, but at least it affords me lots of nice toys :D
I do have my own (workable) design for a DAP that combines the best elements from each, and a few new features, but I have no connection to that side of the industry yet.
For one thing, I'd like to these companies start implementing a removable battery in the same fashion as modern cell phones. A thin, slide on module that goes on flush against the backside of the unit. Newer Creative models (like Muvo2) have a plug-in type battery, but they use a swing-open latch that could be easy to break. That also adds a few extra millimeters that could shaved off with the cell phone approach. A user-replaceable battery is a good selling point because of people's perception that these things will die in a year or two and are then expensive to send back for replacement. There's additional profit to be had in selling spare batteries.... just an idea, but it makes sense. For $300, people expect a product that's going to last for 5 years.
ttyl,
Austin
has edig ever made a profit?
new DAP from RCA for 2004
RCA will expand its portable digital audio lineup in 2004. The new products are nothing revolutionary -- the company almost has to release them in order to remain competitive -- but are impressive nonetheless. Two new hard drive players will be available early this year. The RD2850 (20G B) and RD2854 (40GB) will both use 1.8-inch drives. RCA smartly added FM radio and FM recording to these players. Both also use USB 2.0.
The mini HD market has really gone bananas over the last few months. RCA had such a player, but this year we will see a much improved model. The RD2762 will have a 2GB drive, FM radio and recording, and a USB 2.0 interface. The design is a nice improvement over last year's model, which was a chubby little bastard. In the following pictures you can see black and silver models.
http://gear.ign.com/articles/461/461609p1.html
drhunt, maybe eDig could add ATRAC support to its MP3 players? That would be useful. And make it compatable with Sony's new Connect service. Minidisc Players use ATRAC and some people prefer the sound quality over MP3.
sounds cool, any pics of the new player?
moxa1, do you know from where? I heard the same thing in an earlier post but can find no such thing on Gateway's site.. thanks
Austin
murrayhill, i understand. I know hardware manufacturers have to work with the content providers to try and make DAPs that make all the copyright holders happy. But consumers don't like all the restrictive measures because it's not thier problem. We just want to listen to music. Cheap, easy, and portable music. If the corporate giants can't provide the same kind of experience we are used to, then its going to be hard to convince us to go thier way.
well, the DMP-X20 is going back to Gateway. I found out that the 15-day money back policy isn't as clear-cut as I thought - there is a 15% restocking fee. The album-order playback thing doomed it for me. All my MP3 albums (2000) are fully tagged and run in correct order on my other players. The Gateway DAP is just crippled as it has to rely on playlists for each album, but only supports 20 playlists. Hello? The 20gb hard drive can hold 10 times that many albums. Hopefully they will put out some new firmware, but I just don't know. I would not be happy with it if it stays the way it is. And I'm not inclined to risk waiting for an upgrade because Gateway has no track record like iRiver, Rio, and Creative do. The DMP-X20 has potential to be an A-list player but it needs some tuning. Too many of my albums are the kind that need to played in the orignal track order. That may not be the case for everybody and it should still be a good player for some people. Just not for me :(
in that article it says gateway announced new firmware? where? I can find nothing. maybe it was new firmware loaded prior to my own purchase.
bleh... i don't like closed, proprietary nonsense. No one I know does for that matter, its just a hassle for consumers. Hard for me to recommend people pay for music that has all kinds of restrictions, or can only play on one brand of DAP.. when you can get plain-jane MP3s for free that play on 5,000 different audio players. i know Sony's side of the story, but I ain't buyin.
who's gonna buy songs from sony (in ATRAC compression) when you can't play them on ANY MP3 players?! none!
good question... it seems digital video players are going to explode in 2004/2005. The Archos AV320 and RCA RD2780 are 1st generation garbage but the real players have products rolling out this year. Microsoft's Media-to-Go design is OK, if a little bulky and bland... but check out the various toys iRiver will have. Sleek, and they play more popular Codecs like DIVX.
http://www.atozia.com/board/board.php?table=tableboard02&action=re&l=779&de=0&p=1&am...
but, i don't think IFE is really in the same catagory. it takes a good amount of work and preperation to load up a DVP with movies you download or make from DVD's. Most people, even the iPod-savvy types, probably won't want to lay out the money ($500) and time for something occasionally useful. I like gadgets, but they don't grab me at that price. I'd rather pay $8-10 and see a newer movie on an IFE device...
haha - http://www.edigital-store.com/edig/
still alive! sorta
lickily, I am unable to follow your train of thought here. but i think it was Steve Jobs who made us all a little dumber
murrayhill//lol!!
lickily, what??? The Rio Nitrus is the closest thing in Rio's library to compare with the Mini iPod. It's been on the market just as long the Rio Chiba that he compared it to. I mean, the Chiba uses flash memory even, not a hard drive like Nitrus and Mini iPod. Terribly dishonest comparison.
why spend $250 on 4gb when $300 gets you 15gb??? stupid price point and gay colors
Jobs was being downright deceptive to compare it to the Rio Chiba instead of the Rio Nitrus.... which is cheaper, better looking, 2xbattery life, and it's been out for months!!!
i guess fast is relative... fast to me is iPod with iTunes (PC).. 1 song/second or faster. 2-3 seconds i can handle. longer? too damn slow
on the Nitrus, downloads are fairly slow for USB2... on a Muvo2 using the same Cornice drive, they are pretty quick. Nitrus requires Rio software, while the Muvo2 is a simple Mass Storage Device.. no software needed. bought my gf one for xmas
except that Corince is selling 1.5gb and now 2gb drives as of today... yet Toshiba or Hitachi have a 4gb version in the same form factor allready in production (Muvo2 4gb, Nitrus/4gb)
new FM transmitter for Mp3 players
http://web.belkin.com/presspage/Releases/1_05_04tunecastII.html
cost, and supply. creative still uses 2.5" drives for most of thier models to keep them inexpensive. and they are the #2 selling brand...
Samsung YH-1030, 30gb, MP3/WMA/OGG
110 x 75 x 25mm
2.5" drive, 30gb
8-line, greyscale LCD
USB2
15 hours playback
MP3/FM encoding
ID3 tag database
on-the-fly playlisting
MP3/WMA/OGG
custom EQ
http://www.samsung.com/DigitAll/GlobalExhibition/Exhibition/ICES2004/ppk/YH1030/ppk_YH1030_over.htm
I've bought 2 players with the Cornice drive. Rio Nitrus and Creative Muvo2. It's pretty durable. Slower though, even with USB2 its not as fast to load music an iPod or DMP-X20. Edig/Gateway should make a mini-juke. Growing market.
MP3 player sales have doubled for 2003
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2003/sales.html
New Samsung yepp portable to feature Synaptics LightTouch screen
http://gear.ign.com/articles/446/446455p1.html
who said a new firmware was delivered to Gateway? Can that be substantiated..? I'm trying to figure out when a patch would be available from Gateway... still on the fence about returning the DMP-X20 until they get the album-playback thing worked out. I bought the Odyssey right when it came out and kept it for 2 months waiting for a firmware fix. I think it was 4 months or more (?) before edig finally had it ready... too long for me. :(