Posted by: booey
But Nitrus doesn't recapture the music player crown for Rio. The sleek black gadget is too pricey, its software lackluster and hard drive too skimpy for the price. It simply doesn't offer as much bang for the buck as the iPod, which itself isn't cheap.
At $299, the Nitrus offers 1.5 gigabytes of storage, enough for about 375 songs. The $299 iPod, Apple's low-end model for either Macintosh or Windows computers, has 10 gigabytes of space - enough for 2,500 songs.
It's disappointing that AP couldn't find a reviewer capable of doing so.I don't think one reviewer can buck the press and industry trends towards judging products on one or two specs. All of the favorable AMD reviews on the planet couldn't impress upon the public that AMD chips are faster per clock cycle than their Intel counterparts, which forced AMD to stoop to the "XP" naming system.
... if its software were more fully developed....I have to admit I'm a little shocked myself that RMM2 doesn't rip CDA straight to MP3. Is the thinking there that people who buy MP3 players already have better, dedicated ripping/encoding s/w?
Is the thinking there that people who buy MP3 players already have better, dedicated ripping/encoding s/w?More like the thinking is people are downloading MP3s. My brother has truckloads of MP3s on his computer but he would have no idea how to rip a CD (of which he owns 10).
I have to admit I'm a little shocked myself that RMM2 doesn't rip CDA straight to MP3.Actually, it does, if you've got a suitable codec installed into the Windows codecs. I think the problem is that some versions of Windows don't come with a licensed MP3 codec.
I find it bizarre that one reviewer describes the button placement as "random" whilst another "well-placed". And the software, "incomplete, lacking" vs "polished, powerful".Then you'll probably be completely amazed by the fact that many people prefer Coke, while others prefer Pepsi...
That's a personal taste preference and purely subjective.Exactly! So is one's opinion on button placement, and one's like or dislike for the software.
We know that the button placement is not random.True... I do agree that his tone is definitely pro-iPod and anti-anything-else, but most reviewers throw snide comments like that in when they don't like something. My main gripe about reviews of *anything* is that reviewers are so conscious about not appearing "wishy-washy" that they go to one extreme or another. Either a product is the top-of-the-line best-in-class killer app, or it's a piece of garbage. He probably doesn't hate the Nitrus as much as he says he does, but feels the need to leave the reader with a "buy no-buy" decision. You know, sometimes products are just *average* and should be reviewed that way...
Its only advantage over the ipod is form factor.The Ipod's only advantage over the Rio Riot was form factor. That was enough.
The Ipod's only advantage over the Rio Riot was form factor. That was enough.mumblemumblemarketingmumblemumble
The Ipod's only advantage over the Rio Riot was form factor. That was enough.But in that case, they were both "big disk" portables. So in that case, the form factor was the only major difference between the iPod and the Riot. (I don't know what, if any, price difference there was between the iPod and the Riot?)
The odd thing is, there are a few ACM implementations of the excellent Open Source "lame" MP3 encoder out there, but so far I have been unable to find one that RMM will work with.I'd better check whether we even claim to support that in current RMM. At one stage at least we were considering skipping that for first release, as all the ACM Lame encoders we found were so utterly nonstandard ACM that we couldn't come up with a common subset of features that actually worked. Either way, we hope to improve support for third-party encoders in future (free, Web-upgradable) releases of RMM. We can't install any of them with RMM for patent reasons, but I reckon that if users have previously installed one themselves then we can assume that they've taken care of the patent thing, or perhaps are in a no-software-patents country.