CNET review of the "iPod clone" was surprising.....
I am skeptical about this reviewer's experience with MP3 players because he should have mentioned that the Odyssey can't display ID3 tag information, like nearly all other MP3 players on the market. It's a huge gap in the Odyssey's functionality compared to the iPod, Zen, Nueros, etc. Several people I've talked to ended up buying another DAP on that reason alone.
"device seems almost bulletproof."
That doesn't seem take into account that the face is a single clear piece of PLASTIC. Better keep it in that (ugly) case.
"Our other favorite control is the Back button, which works like the identically named icon on a Web browser, returning you to the previous screen."
Yeah, if it actually worked, like after you select a song, which it doesn't! It only works when navigating directories. After you select a song you have to use the Menu button to exit all the way to the main menu. How did e.dig miss that bug?
"The player is too large to fit into most pockets"
True...and no in-line remote like iPod, Zen.
"Voice navigation is a neat trick, but it's somewhat frivolous since the hardware controls are more practical. "
Exactley, whats the point. Plus, they didn't mention it can only search 85 files at a time, not the whole hard-drive.. so even if this could be useful like while driving a car, really its not, since before it even looks for a song you have to direct voicenav to the appropriate directory and subdirectory.
"eDigital claims that the Odyssey's battery will last for about 1,000 charge/discharge cycles, which translates to about three years of heavy use at roughly one charge per day. When the battery becomes too fatigued, eDigital pledges to replace it for $35"
Hmm... i never saw this on thier webpage or product manual... I guess they don't want to really be held up to such claims.
"But most people looking for a player with this much capacity already have tons of music organized in multiple methods, and rearranging even 10GB of music to the desired directory structure takes hours--trust us. Compared to Apple's iTunes or even average file-transfer software, Music Explorer is a major pain."
Exactley, its overly simplistic and makes you take hours to manually rename and re-arrange your music in the one way e.Digital allows (2nd-tier directories).
Also I clicked on CNET's "Where to buy" link : "The eDigital Odyssey 1000 is not yet available from any of our online merchants." Not even a link to the e.dig etail store.
Keep in mind there's at least 11 new DAPs that are going on sale in the US this year from Bantam, iRiver, RCA, Samsung, Archos, Classic, SonicBlue Rio, GPX, Evolution Technologies, and Poloroid....
AI
