e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[Tinroad]

Nice T3 article found by simonk22 at RB:
http://www.t3.co.uk/rev_print.asp?rev_id=2017
Date printed:4/25/02 Date reviewed: 4/1/02

Blaupunkt Compact Drive MP3 Player

Pull out the tiny hard drive from under the cover and there's 1GB of storage in the palm of your hand. The future of in-car music?

Key features: MP3 files stored on IBM 1GB plug-in Microdrive, 18 hours of music at 128Kbps (supports 32-320Kbps), Compatible with 14 Blaupunkt head units, Maximum 99 albums, each with 99-track capacity, Album and track listing shown on head unit display, Dimensions: 136 x 84 x 30mm, Microdrive supported by Compaq iPAQ and other portables.

Blaupunkt's new player is a bold format move in a car audio market currently dominated by MP3-friendly CD head units. It uses IBM's Microdrive housed in a strangely retro-looking brushed aluminium and black plastic box. The box clips onto a small bracket complete with sticky pads, ideal for attaching to any shiny surface on the centre console of your car.

With the player mounted in the desired spot, the installation is completed with a single multiway cable between the box and the back of any Blaupunkt FunLine or Skyline head unit with disc autochanger titling. The music files appear on the Blaupunkt head unit display with album and track titles. Albums and tracks can be scanned by prodding the arrow buttons on the set in the same way that discs and tracks are selected from a CD autochanger.

Sound quality from the internal head unit amplification is good at 128Kbps and even better at 192Kbps and beyond. Sound shaping facilities from Blaupunkt sets range from bass and treble on the cheaper units to awesome digital sound processing on the top-of-the-range tape and CD tuners. Ultimate listening pleasure depends, of course, on the quality of your external amplification and speakers.

At the computer end of the business, a Microdrive port with USB cable is provided, plus Blaupunkt's own management software. Anyone who distrusts half-baked, semi-bilingual installation instructions is likely to feel uncomfortable using the manual supplied. Luckily, Blaupunkt in the UK has included an additional instruction sheet which successfully explains some of the vagaries of the process.

The long-winded management program does its best to deal with music file transfer from CDs and the Internet, but insists on wrapping files in an extra folder. The folder has to be deleted before the files will play. The good news is that you don't have to use Blaupunkt's program to drop MP3 tunes onto the Microdrive.

Part of the appeal of the Blaupunkt system is that the Microdrive - which would cost upwards of £250 on its own - will carry a massive selection of music that can be played in the car, home-based computers and most laptops and portables.

Portables such as the Compaq iPAQ which accept PC cards can use the Microdrive with a dedicated card adaptor. There are also MP3 players that accept the Microdrive, such as the e.Digital MXP 100. More than 12 hours of battery life is claimed, and album/track changes can be made by voice command using the VoiceNav speech recognition system. Check out the details at www.edig.com.

So, if you've got lots of devices to use the Microdrive with and you like the idea of a tiny drive that can store 1GB of data, then this Blaupunkt player is worth a look. However, if you don't really care about the IBM component and just want to play music from the Internet in your car, there are plenty of alternatives. You can save a fair bit of cash by opting for a unit that plays MP3 CDs, or you could try a system based on another storage format which might better suit your needs.

Verdict: If the tiny IBM Microdrive is the centre of your file storage universe, this could make sense. Anyone looking for a cheaper and more universal system might opt for MP3 on recordable CD as a more flexible alternative.


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