Mp3 player...

[annexion]

Well, I've NEVER had an mp3 player, because the cost was never worth it and the space available on them seemed relatively small.

I am going to Arizona next week and I have a 7 hour layover in Pheonix from Tucson en route to Detroit... So I figured I'd need some entertainment...

In my doing research I came across the following, and after doing a days worth of research, I broke down and ordered it, including the camcorder attachment. Although, from a site that has it cheaper.

http://www.archos.com/lang=en/products/prw_500375.html?country=us

Anyone have this at all?

I read a multitude of reviews and 90%+ said it was well worth it. Anyhow, if anyone has it, I'd like to know what you think.

[simontheak]

This is scarey ... I ordered one of them about a week ago. In fact it should be arriving today, so I'm looking forward to playing with it over the weekend.

I read all the reviews as well and it does sound awesome. If you've done research then you've probably read most of the reviews, but here's a link to the most indepth one I found from the archos site.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20020809/index.html

I'll post something up again once I've had a bit of a play with it, but from what everyone has said, it's supposed to be great. When are you expecting yours?

[Jesse]

Woah. That looks groovy. The biggest problem I have with such devices is still the batery life or 'power autonomy' as they put it on that site. Compare 7 hours of MP3s to 110 hours on a Sony MDN1 minidiscman. Plus the size thing. Now that I think about it... if I really wanted to watch movies I could just watch them on my pocket PC ;) *runs off to find some movie that will look good on a 3 inch screen*

[annexion]

Yeah, the battery life is definitely a consideration.

As far as the small screen and battery life as a whole...

I think I am going to try to build a bigger screen for it. By buying a bigger lcd and using the TV OUT from the player. Maybe I'll make a battery pack or something that goes into the AC adapter.

I'm really excited...YEAH!

[annexion]

Okay, by building a bigger screen, I meant buying an LCD display that you'd commonly see in a vehicle. And I did buy one... Problem is, it's not portable. Ah well...

Anyhow, so I got the FedEx package today...

After toying with it for some hours I think I really like it. I haven't pushed it to it's limits thus far. But I assume my extensive trip to Arizona will yield plenty of opportunities to use up some of the disk space.

Simon, what do you think of it so far?

[simontheak]

I'm just transferring a load of music on to it now.

I really like it. Yeah, the screen is quite small but as you say any bigger would make the whole jukebox less portable. Besides I think it's big enough for what you need and you certainly get used to it.

I love the way that it's so easy to connect to your computer though. Transferring files on to it is as easy as dragging files from one folder to another and the sound quality of the MP3's is really good too.

The only thing that I'm slightly worried about is how fragile the camera extension looks ... and they didn't provide any sort of cover or protection for it. I know it's only a small thing, it's just that if I take it somewhere, I'm not going to need the camera the whole time, and I'd be wary just putting it in my jeans pocket. Having said that, the camera's cool! Takes good pictures (as long as the light is good) and the movie clips are pretty cool too.

So overall I love it - I think it's a really cool piece of kit. You'll have a great time with it on the way to Arizona annexion. You can fit a whole lot of stuff on there!

[annexion]

Yeah, I'm extremely excited. As far as the camera goes, there are tabs on it that interconnect to two slots in the player... Makes for a more secure connection. And I agree, it does seem kind of fragile, it is still a camera, though, ya know?

I downloaded some music videos and put the on there. They quality is excellent. The screen is small but man, the quality is amazing.

The video recording seems to have a time limit on it though... I don't know what is up with that.

I read the review that you posted, and I couldn't agree with them more.

Have fun.

Dave

[simontheak]

Originally posted by annexion
The video recording seems to have a time limit on it though... I don't know what is up with that.


Is there? I thought that the only limit was the amount of disk space you had ... I haven't really used the video to record much more than short things at the moment anyway. What is the limit? Do you know?

[annexion]

It seems to be about 15 seconds...

Although, that may be user incompetence.

What I think happens is that there is a memory buffer that it stores the video into, then upon stopping recording, it writes it to disk.

[simontheak]

Ahhh ... that would make sense I suppose.

Well there go my dreams of becoming the next Spielberg I suppose! ;)