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Groove armada: 5 MP3 players previewed

By , ZDNet.com.au on September 1st, 2003 
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Overview

We preview a quintet of next-gen MP3 jukeboxes to decide which will be the new audio trendsetter.

 

Groove armada: 5 MP3 players previewed We preview a quintet of next-gen MP3 jukeboxes to decide which will be the new audio trendsetter.

When it comes to objects of aural desire, any magic mirror will tell you the iPod is the fairest of them all. With its sleek body, slick user interface, and sonic prowess, the iPod is the one true thin-and-young Elvis, surrounded by a crowd of second-rate aging Tom Joneses.

Fortunately, other companies have slowly begun to understand the monetary significance of an eye-catching design and cool moniker. The new batch of hard drive-based players have taken the audio jukebox concept to a new level, with impressive advancements in design, functions and user interface.

Here, we examine five next-generation players. Some sport pocketable super-slim form factors, while others are packed to the brim with cutting-edge features. But which model exudes enough mass-market mojo to topple Apple's uber toy from the top of the MP3 roost? You be the judge.

Philips HDD100 Digital Jukebox (15GB) Potential Kill Rate: 9 out of 10
Out of all the iPod killers coming out during the spring and summer months, the Philips HDD100 looks like the early favorite. Its case, made of high-gloss magnesium and hardened glass, is about the same size as the iPod's, but Philips packs in a bevy of features that should embarrass the Cupertino crowd: Line-in recording (with a meter for levels), USB 2.0, a full-fledged remote control, voice recording, smart navigation, and a display that shows some pretty nifty spectral analyzers, if graphics on Philips's site are any indication.
Global availability: September 2003

Rio Karma (20GB)
 Potential Kill Rate: 9 out of 10
 This player has a 20GB hard drive, like many of the other hard drive-based players out there. What makes it stand out from the crowd is its compact, cubic design. While thicker and slightly wider than the iPod, it's more than an inch shorter in length and can connect to an Ethernet network to act as a digital audio receiver. It's also the first MP3 player to support two burgeoning open source codecs: Ogg Vorbis and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), of which the latter sounds as good as an uncompressed WAV file.
Global availability: December 2003

iRiver HP-100 MP3 Jukebox (10GB)
 Potential Kill Rate: 8 out of 10
 While other manufacturers have been amping up PR campaigns for their upcoming iPod competitors, iRiver has quietly been working on the one that might slay them all, thanks to analog and digital optical inputs and outputs for crystal-clear recording and encoding. Not much else is known about this one, except that it should be relatively small and that the iRiver message board once listed its release date as June.
Global availability: September 2003

Toshiba Gigabeat (20GB)
 Potential Kill Rate: 7 out of 10
 Due in Japan later this year, this 20GB hard drive digital audio player stands out from the crowd with its compact, wafer-thin design--at just 1.27cm thick, this Toshiba makes even Apple's 1.55cm-svelte iPod look like an overweight piece of metal slab. And at 138g, the Gigabeat 20 is also possibly the lightest hard drive-based player in the market right now. The two models announced by Toshiba--clad in either dark blue (for limited-edition models) or standard aluminum--both feature individual docking stations and backlit LCDs plus support for Microsoft's new compression format: Windows Media Audio (WMA) 9.
Global availability: End year in Japan only
Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen NX (20GB)
Potential Kill Rate: 7 out of 10
 The Nomad Jukebox Zen NX is the newest member of Creative's family of hard drive digital music players. The NX models are just a shade thinner and lighter (20mm and 42g, respectively) than their predecessors. Battery life is rated at the same 14 hours, but a removable, rechargeable lithium-ion cell has succeeded the old Zen's sealed-case design, so you can replace a bum battery. Support for USB 1.1/2.0, rather than FireWire, ensures compatibility with just about every PC on the market.
Global availability: Now

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