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Napster's Portable Music Player

What does the line in record at?

16 bit 44.1khz stereo would be something. If its anything less, its really just for dictation/voice. It's not like you can record music of any quality this way unless you like AM. The record feature on the iPod seems like a tacked on/hobbled feature at this point for Apple. Line in is a GREAT idea though.
 
Agree with most here that Napster's new service is going on little but an old name that doesn't hold the same meaning that it did a few years ago. Still, I'm glad this product came out b/c now Apple will hopefully be forced to include some features in the iPod that might actually make me want to buy one.
 
Butt Ugly...it's a Bugly!!

There, in a single stroke of marketing genious, I have created a name for this little beastie. 😀

"What's that?"

"Oh, haven't you seen one before? I'm not surprised, not many people have them."

"What's it called?"

"It's a BUGLY!"😛

"True. But, why didn't you buy an iPod? They're beautiful, easier to use and they're the same price."

"What's an iPod?"

"Oh you poor b*****d! You don't want to know!"😀
 
Re: Korean chic

Being a designer myself the question I've been pondering with...

Is it form follow function, or function follow form?

Oh, that's right, it's neither... if you look at say Sony's products, at least they seem to know how to give a product sexiness and balance, this "thing" give you nothing and I can tell the quality of the make is ****e just from the photo (a second year industral design student could do a better job than that!)

AND really! the Napster logo is too comical for anyone over 30 to be carrying around evrywhere, and for anyone to pull out a "toy" with this stupid cat all over the thing - everyone's gonna laugh at him/her... the more I look at it, the more this player looks like a Walkie Talkie for the Boy Scouts to carry around when they go camping in the back yard.

This will definitely not capture the imaginations of it's potential buyers (if they have SOME taste)
 
The Best Buy in Bailey's Crossroads VA is already selling these. I noticed them this weekend. At $400 its no iPod killer I can say for sure. Maybe at $200 it would compete with some of the other GB jukebox players, but I think at that price point the iPod is still the best for the $.
 
Re: Butt Ugly...it's a Bugly!!

Originally posted by The Shadow
There, in a single stroke of marketing genious, I have created a name for this little beastie. 😀

"What's that?"

"Oh, haven't you seen one before? I'm not surprised, not many people have them."

"What's it called?"

"It's a BUGLY!"😛

"True. But, why didn't you buy an iPod? They're beautiful, easier to use and they're the same price."

"What's an iPod?"

"Oh you poor b*****d! You don't want to know!"😀
Click to expand...

I prefer "fugly," as in f***ing ugly.
 
No thanks...

Quote - "The iPod, by comparison, is much simpler: All the important buttons are conveniently - and intuitively - placed around the jog dial on the front of the unit."

Add this to the list of reasons why the iPod is a far superior product.
 
yes, it's ugly... but oh how i LOVE the name... YP-910GS... so elegant.

yes santa, i'd like a YP-910GS for Christmas

wtf...
 
Originally posted by Gymnut
Wouldn't mind seeing Apple drop the price of the 10GB ipod to $199.99. That'll give any mp3 out on the market a run for its money.
Click to expand...
I don't know for sure, but I would strongly suspect that Apple is at the mercy of the hard drive manufacturer. (I forget who makes the 1.8" drive Apple uses.)

I have an old-school 5 GB iPod, and I love it to pieces. It's not big enough to hold all my music, not by a long shot, but it's so easy to get music onto and off of it with iTunes that I don't mind choosing which songs and albums I want to carry with me.

I think a 5 GB iPod for $99 would be fantastic.

Problem is, if the 1.8" drives are priced like full-size general-purpose drives, you just can't get a 5 GB model any more at any price, and the 30 GB model is now selling for the price that the 5 GB model originally sold for.

It's not like smaller, slower drives get cheaper. It's just that smaller, slower drives disappear from the market altogether, replaced by bigger, faster drives at the same price point.

Have you ever heard the old saying that the computer you want always costs about $3,000? It's been true for me since the mid-1980's, and it's showing no sign of stopping any time soon. The same seems to be true of the iPod. The iPod you want is always $299.
 
Re: No thanks...

Originally posted by jcshas
Quote - "The iPod, by comparison, is much simpler: All the important buttons are conveniently - and intuitively - placed around the jog dial on the front of the unit."

Add this to the list of reasons why the iPod is a far superior product.
Click to expand...

Yes, but this is not true anymore, as the control buttons on the current gen of iPods are all placed in a row above the jog dial/enter button. Not that I mind that design either, but the reviewer is talking about first and second gen iPods in this quote.
 
The headphones look nice...

But other than that there is nothing good about it. I really like the huge antenna on top of it, it better get wifi access with something that big.

Yes, I am also shocked at how no one can make anything look 'cool.' What are these people thinking? Don't they test product designs before releasing something like this? Who knows.. who cares.. long live the iPod.
 
For some reason i don't find it all that ugly, and I own a 30GB iPod. I like the silver looking Toshiba offering only avaialble in China or Japan. I like the metal look, I love my white iPod, but this player isn't as bad looking as some of the others that I have seen. The RCA I saw the the other day was much worse and clunky. If it is the same size as the iPod and the napster music service takes off I can see this being a very sucessfull launch to put Samsung amongst the top players in the market. Line in and built on FM transmitter is pretty nice, but only if the FM transmitter works perfectly (which the article says it doesn't).

Mike

P.S. every time I hear Napster it reminds me of the Italian Job, call me "The Napster" lol
 
A demon

It looks sort of demonic! Somehow I don't think this one is going to be quite the hit with the ladies that the iPod is. Not exactly what you would call a fashion statement.
 
Sensationalism

I love how the article is titled, Samsung's Napster-branded player offers more than iPod, but the review says very little nice about it. The beta software is buggy and crashes while transfering files, the controls are not as good as the iPod, the FM transmitting feature sounds like bad AM radio and the FM receiver has problems. Yeah, that sounds like it offers "more than iPod" -- I think buyers will get more "wishing I had bought an iPod" thoughts thatn anything else! 🙄
 
A cheap knock off. I have to question the line in recording abilities if you can't even create play lists with out the computer. You might be able to record but can you control (i.e. sample rate, stereo/mono, etc.) if you can't even do something as simple as create playlists? If that is the case, well, I can do recording on my imac. Yes, I have to buy another device but is doesn't cost $400 and does an excellent job.

FM transmitter - obviously ripping off the idea of the iTrip and others. I just bought the new iTrip for my third gen iPod. But before I did, I check the available frequencies in my small market. Now, I live in the most populated place in Idaho but it is a mid-size market when talking bout radio air play. The bottom range of frequencies which this iPod wanna-be operates in will not work in the Treasure Valley very well as the air waves in that range are crowded. If it won't work in a mid-size market, how the hell do they think it will work in the major US metro areas?

FM reciever - now this is one feature I wish was built in to the iPod. Matter of fact would like AM as well. But it is not the "killer" feature that would make me want the Napster version over the iPod.

I agree with the others on here who have said competition is good. This is good because it will cause Apple to create more, keep prices low and innovate more frequently. It is nice the iPod is the unquestioned leader in the MP3 market. Oh, one last thing to think about. Add on devices and compatibility will be important for any future MP3 player. The great thing about being the market leader is companies will want to develop for you product because they can sell more than going with something that only hold a smaller percentage of the market. Other players might be able to do more but if you can get add ons for the iPod that do the same thing better - which one would you go with? Un-informed people would go with the all in ones until the realized it didn't really work as advertized which I think this Napester version will turn out to be.
 
For anyone interested, here is the Samsung Information page:

http://www.samsung.com/Products/DigitalAudioPlayer/yepp/DigitalAudioPlayer_yepp_YP_910GS.htm

It's not the best looking thing in the world (yuck), and the name is horrible "YP-910GS", but it does have a couple of cool features:

- Direct Line-In Audio Recording
- FM Tuner to MP3 Recording
- FM transmitter built-in

Now personally, building in an FM transmitter seems kind of silly to me, and it adds that butt-ugly antenna on the top. ..

And yes, the device can be used as an external storage device, although it doesn't look liek it's got calendar, contacts, etc.
 
Panasoanic

Ever been to Times Square in NYC? They have a slew of electronics shops that sells "Name Brand" products there. The hitch is the "name" is bogus. Example "Panasoanic" not "Panasonic" These are cheap knock offs of the real thing. The Napster iPud will be perfect product to sell there.

Who would ever want that nasty looking thing???

😕
 
One thing Samsung is doing that Apple should take a cue from; including 20 free song downloads from Napster with the purchase of the player. Apple should do the same. Draw people into the iTunes Music Store, let them download their 20 free songs, and subsequently get hooked on the service.

Other than that, this thing sux compared to the iPod. Who wants to record fuzzy FM radio anyway? And is it really a huge draw to be able to patch in your old 8-track deck and record all your Bay City Rollers tapes to MP3?

iPod + iTrip + iTunes Music Store puts Samsung + Napster to shame.
 
Looking at this thread to date, about 70% of the posts are saying how "ugly" this this is. Is this how superficial debate here has become. How about the features! I for one would love a proper line-in, and a radio receiver - heck, these are both really usefull.

I hope this gives Apple the motivation it needs to move on from the Belkin and give us the choice of input devices, and I would love to be able to tune into radio. Makes a great deal of sense to me to combine these.
 
Re: Korean chic

Originally posted by Belly-laughs
This thing´s just tacky. It re-defines the word.
Click to expand...

da thing is clunky

Look at the iPod: kaching!
Look at this piece of demon spawn: kerthunk.
 
Originally posted by LagunaSol
...Who wants to record fuzzy FM radio anyway?...
iPod + iTrip + iTunes Music Store puts Samsung + Napster to shame.
Click to expand...

There are non-music programs that I would be interested in recording. I use Audible.com to download Terri Gross' Fresh Air so I could see some use for it. But not enough for me to turn my back on my beautiful iPod.
 
Re: Re: Korean chic

Originally posted by hokka
a second year industral design student could do a better job than that!
Click to expand...

I can surely second that, as an industrial designer to be (I'm in my last year)! It really does look quite unattractive, compared to (especially) the iPod. But, then again, anything pales (design-wise) compared to the iPod, even most of Sony's (personal) music hardware.

Wouldn't it be a cool idea to search for a way to store data (especially music) on cheese? Then, a cheese-grate (G5 style) iPod would rock. Just grate some more cheese (that's stored in the iPod itself, of course) and off you go, another 5GB of storage is available! Why hasn't any company (Apple, are you listening?!) come up with an idea like that? Or is Apple investigating already?

😛
 
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