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Music Media Portables Hardware

Dcube: Portable Audio With Ogg And A Scroll Wheel 556

Posted by timothy from the big-in-korea dept.
Slowtreme writes "There have been many attempts recently to cash in on Apple's iPod success. Napster, Dell, and others have made iPod clones. This Korean Dcube looks like they are going all out. With 1.5 gig, Ogg and MP3 support, grey scale display, USB2.0, wireless, FM radio, it looks like a nice device. Most noticeable however is the scroll wheel, Apple holds patents (pending) on scroll wheel design. How much noise will this make?" (The Napster-branded one is actually a Samsung product; Samsung, too, is supporting Ogg Vorbis in some models, though not in that one.)
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Dcube: Portable Audio With Ogg And A Scroll Wheel More

Dcube: Portable Audio With Ogg And A Scroll Wheel

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  • FireWire (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mpost4 ( 115369 ) *
    I would like to see more MP3 makers use FireWire. I speed of updates is very nice. When I got my iPod my whole mp3 collection was on it in less then 20 minutes. (ok I have a small 10Gb collection) But with speeds like this I can run a program off of it, or store large data files off of it. Also the iPod is more then just a mp3/aac/what ever player, it makes a great portable hard drive. I don't use the Pim stuff off of it because I have a good Palm, but that is another story.

    • Re:FireWire (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      +5 interesting? Errr.....OK.

      *I* would like to see more MP3 makers use USB2.0. It's faster than any MP3 player's hard drive can transfer data, so anything faster is superfluous. Virtually every computer in the world has USB2.0, so you can plug it in anywhere. Firewire's advantages are wasted on MP3 players, and it's not on many machines, so you get no speed advantage, and it won't work on at least 4 out of 5 machines.
      • Weird both my laptop and desktop (purchased last year for the laptop (Dell) and 2 years ago for the desktop (HP)) have firewire and USB1.1, no USB 2.0.

  • Rio Karma supports Ogg and FLAC with 20gb for $250 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:03PM (#8044104)
    Rio Karma supports Ogg-Vorbis and FLAC files already, is 20gig, and can be had for less than $250. Where's the justification for buying a 1.5gig player? Apple is on crack and the Dell is just a rebadged Creative Labs Nomad Zen.

    BTW: IRiver also makes an Ogg-capable portable, several of them, but their 20gig model is about $399. :(

  • OGG? What is that about? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:03PM (#8044109)
    When I hear OGG, I immeidately think that it must be whack, but slashbots constantly say that won't buy something unless it supports OGG. Is it like 220V power or USB something? What is it? good or whack?

    • Re:OGG? What is that about? (Score:5, Informative)

      by HeX314 ( 570571 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:12PM (#8044226) Homepage
      Ogg is simply a better codec than MP3. The codec simply makes music sound better when played back. In MP3, you get audio artifacts (usually higher frequencies). Ogg/Vorbis attempts to minimize this, and the result is simply a better codec. The downside to Ogg is that it takes a fairly hefty processor for a mobile player to reproduce the sound. Thus, the player costs more because you're using a faster/more complex processor. For audiophiles, Ogg is a very good thing. For budget listeners, MP3 is a compromise.

      • parent misleading (Score:5, Informative)

        by real_smiff ( 611054 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:51PM (#8044736)
        Ogg lets you avoid artefacts at a lower bitrate than MP3. To say "In MP3, you get audio artifacts [sic?] (usually higher frequencies)" is misleading because, if encoded properly (like LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard) you won't get audible (which is what lossy codecs are all about: hiding audible errors) artefacts in a very high number (like >99.5%) of users&songs. Granted, Ogg is a better codec pretty much but please careful with the over-simplification in explanations :)

        Sorry to go around Slashdot being some kind of mp3-champion but i think it gets an unfair bashing around here sometimes. The LAME team (which I'm not part of) has put an enormous amount of effort into getting transparency at around 200kbps and to say otherwise is doing them a disservice I feel. It is true however that the design of MP3 as a spec has some limitations which are not completely solved even by using very high bitrates, for example, however your post exaggerates the severity of these in real situations. OK I'm done :)

        OT: How do you spell art[e/i]facts anyway? :)

  • The price matters (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MooCows ( 718367 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:03PM (#8044115)
    If this is cheap enough, I'll definitely buy it.
    The one thing still preventing me from buying a portable audio player is the price.
    I don't need 20GB of music in my pocket, 1,5GB is more than enough for me.
    • Check out http://www.pcwebshopper.com/mp3.html [pcwebshopper.com] and http://store.yahoo.net/s168/mp3playernew.html [yahoo.net] for a small, cheap mp3 player. I have one and it works great. No display though.

    • WTF? (Score:5, Funny)

      by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:16PM (#8044302)
      If this is cheap enough, I'll definitely buy it. The one thing still preventing me from buying a portable audio player is the price... I don't need 20GB of music in my pocket, 1,5GB is more than enough for me.

      NO! Nonononono. Dude. Come on.

      This is Slashdot. "I don't need 20 GB of music".. of course you don't need it. But you will demand it. As a... nerd, or something.

      Now suck it up, and demand a 1 ounce 50GB overmediaplayer with a folding plasma screen and support for Ogg Stupidname. For $50. It is your goddammed right!

      :)

    • This is true for a lot of people I'd guess. My playlist of "A" grade songs is less than 150 songs long out of 4 gigs of MP3's. Yeah I've ripped all of my pearl jam albums, but for a good mix i'll be damned if more than 5 or 6 out of 60-70 tracks will make it in. I've got all of the "System of a Down" (no, this is not's Bill Gate's band :) ) tracks, but only 3 go in there. Metallica? I put "battery" and maybe another 1 or 2 that I really like (those I download off Kazaa though). I'll be damned if I can put 1
      • 1.5GB is an average of 22 of my (legally ripped to Ogg) albums.

        Plenty of music in such a small device.

        I wonder if it's got a HD or Flash memory by the way.
      • The simple solution in iTunes is to rate all your songs then have a smart playlist that auto-updates with all your 4 star or 5 star songs and plays randomly. That way you have all your music, but can also have your 'mega-mix'. Not sure how well other jukebox software handles this.
    • mate, that's what i thought until i bought a 15G iPod. now i'm regretting not getting the 40G one!

    • Re:The price matters (Score:5, Insightful)

      by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:48PM (#8044704) Homepage
      I don't need 20GB of music in my pocket, 1,5GB is more than enough for me

      Don't underestimate the convenience. 20 gig is enough for many people to rip and download all of their CDs. They don't have to plan ahead what they want to take with them.

      1.5 gig is 10-20 albums, depending on how you rip. I would not like to have to pick what 10 albums I'm going to take to work each day.

      Sometimes I listen to something like Pink Floyd or Neil Young, and then feel like more, and might end up listening to 5 albums in a row from that artist. Other times, after one album, I want something totally different next, like Garrison Keillor.

      It would be horrible to have to pick in the morning which 10 albums are going to fit in with my mood that day.

  • Something for the wife. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Geccoman ( 18319 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:04PM (#8044120) Homepage Journal
    It even LOOKS iPod-ish

    My wife would love the FM recording, too.
    • On the korean page you can see "FMT" in the list of features.

      On this page [nextway.co.kr] in the flash banner, it lists it as "FM Transmitter".

      I think that's quite a cool feature. Maybe it does both? Dunno... but thats nice to have an FM link built in so I can just carry it in my pocket but listen to it on my car stereo without connecting it to another little box.

      • Sorry, I was mistaken... it has both FM Reception, Recording, *AND* Transmitter. NICE!

        And here is what babelfish thinks it says about "FMT":

        FMT (Wireless)
        Only me small FM broadcasting station! Bold the Wireless MP3 which throws away the line! The NHD-150D the FM thu it will be able to apply a lance meter function with the remote control. The FMT when it selects a mode, what kind of machinery and tools (car audio, groove audio, the groove shear to sprout there is a possibility which the MP3 of sensitiv

  • Apple Music (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mgs1000 ( 583340 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:04PM (#8044127) Journal
    It's also kinda funny that, on the web page, the device's display shows a couple of Beatles songs. (The Beatle's record label is Apple Corps)
    • What's funny about that is that Apple Records has no damn interest in any technology more recent than the '70s and certainly has no interest in having any of their music on anyone's MP3 player.

  • Amazingly bad copy (Score:5, Funny)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot.elliotjohnson@com> on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:05PM (#8044138) Homepage
    I never fail to be amazed at how often companies try to copy Apple's design only to produce a product that looks similar but is noticably uglier.

    It's like on Charles in Charge where one of the sisters was noticeably hotter than the other one, and yet in one episode the ugly sister won a beauty contest just to show that there's more to a person than looks but that didn't change the fact that everybody still would rather jump the hotter sister.
    • Then the hotter sister (Nicole Eggert) moved on to "Baywatch." Moral of the story - keep an eye on hotter sister.

    • Re:Amazingly bad copy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by slim ( 1652 )
      I never fail to be amazed at how often companies try to copy Apple's design only to produce a product that looks similar but is noticably uglier.

      It's entirely subjective. WFIW I think this is marginally nicer looking than an original iPod.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Any Roland/Akai/EMU rack-mount synth or sampler.

  • Apple patented the wheel? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gst ( 76126 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:06PM (#8044148) Homepage
    Ha! Apple should be happy if they aren't sued because of patent infringement. The australians patented the wheel before them [essential.org].
    • And actually, the jog dial was on the beocom 6000 [danchan.com] cordless phone. It's used for the same functions -- to select a name from a big list and to navigate menus -- so I don't see how using it on an mp3 player would be different than using it on a phone.
      • I've used the one one the beocom 1, and on the iPod. The only difference I see is that the beocom 1 is actually a moving part, where the iPod (the one I used anyhow) was more of a touchpad - which to me makes it more of a scroll circle than a wheel. Don't most wheels turn? :-)
        • The first generation of iPods had a wheel that turned. The decided to eliminate the moving parts in the later versions. It probably had something to do with how annoying it is when pocket lint gets stuck in the wheel when you stick you 1000 songs in your pocket and can't scroll smoothly anymore.

  • Look at that dude's hand! (Score:3, Funny)

    by mr_luc ( 413048 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:07PM (#8044162)
    http://www.nextway.co.kr/images/products/temp.jpg

    On the DCude site. It looks like their hand model must be having a heart attack off-camera; if the picture gets slashdotted, just imagine a hand with fingers contorted into a clawed husk, with the nice little dCube in the center of the hand.

    Looks very freaky.

  • Babelfish Translation of the Korean Product page (Score:5, Funny)

    by rcastro0 ( 241450 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:08PM (#8044170) Homepage
    Easier if you can't read Korean:
    Babelfish Translation of the Korean Product page [altavista.com]

    However don't set your expectations too high, it seems they still need to work a bit on their Korean translation engine:
    The NHD-150D supports a next generation digital sound cause OGG VORBIS file format (ogg) . The MP3 the sound quality and the enemy who jump over a file 500Kbps until it will be able to remake the ogg file which is proud a dosage from the NHD-150D. (sic)
  • I realize they're pricey, but stop running and accept that you'll eventually pay extra to get an iPod. Stop running to the ends of the earth for every "iPod-killer" to come down the block. The amount of money you'll spend on each new pale substitute will be so much more than you'd spend on the iPod, which works so well with iTunes. This is an intervention, my friend.
    • Please expalin in one sentance why I would ever pay more for an MP3/OGG/ACC/WMA player just because it has an Apple logo on it? That seems to be the only real reason to get an iPod VS many of the iPod "killers" (some of which predate the iPod).
      • Please expalin in one sentance why I would ever pay more for an MP3/OGG/ACC/WMA player just because it has an Apple logo on it?
        One hand access to 2500 songs that just works. Two sentences? Access to all of that with _7_ controls. This thing is SO simple it makes everything else I've played with look like they're wearing clown shoes.

      • Re:1.5 gig? FM radio? USB 2.0? OGG!?! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by gerardrj ( 207690 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:38PM (#8044571) Journal
        You shouldn't pay more just because it has an Apple logo. You should pay more because:

        The iPod works with the music store that currently makes about 70% of on-line music sales, works on both major desktop OS platforms, plays the major audio formats (AAC, MP3, WAV and AIFF with others possible) for high quality compressed and uncompressed audio, operates as a portable hard drive (bootable for Macs), replaces most of the fuctions of your PDA(calendar, notes, alarm clock, contacts, games) and generally does the best job at melding all the requirements of a portable player; mainly small size, long battery life, easily readable display, fast file transfers, high quality audio amplifier, easy navigation, and the elusive cool/wow factor.

        It's long, but gramatically I do thing that qualifies as one sentence.
    • Too much to point out... but the iPod is completely overrated as are most Apple products.

      I have an iRiver iHP-120. After comparing all the drive based models and found that the price/feature balance was better represented with the iRiver.

  • Not to be confused with... (Score:3, Informative)

    by cb8100 ( 682693 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:09PM (#8044191)
    Don't confuse this Dcube with NEC's [nec.com] D-Cube [goldenshop.com.hk].

  • Dcube vs iPod (Score:5, Funny)

    by tarzan353 ( 246515 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:10PM (#8044196)
    As regards portable music playback devices, don't compare apples and ogg ranges.
  • Where can I get one before Apple crushes them?

  • "Scroll wheel" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gumpish ( 682245 )
    I'm sorry, but a scroll wheel is what sits between my left and right mouse buttons. Pick another name OKTHXBYE
  • FINALLY - an MP3 player with a digital FM tuner. Is this the only one? It's the only one I've seen.

    • Re:FM Support (Score:3, Informative)

      by AstroDrabb ( 534369 )
      Actually, there is the Neuros [neurosaudio.com] which is 20GB, supports Ogg and MP3 and has an FM tuner. It can even record. The best thing about it is the price at only $199, it is hard to beat.
    • Uh... I'm sure lots of mp3 players have digital FM tuners... iRiver players do, and my MSI Megastick 256 does too, and it can record straight from FM.

    • Re:FM Support (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MBCook ( 132727 )
      My brother has an old Creative Nomad II that has an FM tuner. This is by no means a new feature, I guess it's just not popular enough to be included on other players.

      Now the built in FM transmitter (which this seems to have) IS new, as far as I know. If they do a good job with that feature, that would be quite nice.

  • History repeats... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chief Typist ( 110285 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:14PM (#8044252) Homepage
    My prediction is that this will happen [apple.com].

  • _s (Score:2)

    by mbbac ( 568880 )
    You've got to love those underscores in the song titles! :)

    They're seriously apeing the iPod's look quite a bit with this one, though -- down to the white earbuds.

  • Scroll wheel == B.S. patent anyways (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theLOUDroom ( 556455 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:17PM (#8044308)
    IMO, the US patent system has basically desceneded into little more than a registry service. By submitting a patent you're declaring, "I had this idea on this date." There doesn't really seem to be all that much checking going on to see if the idea is actually patentable in the first place.

    I see things like this "scroll wheel" patent as an example of the ridiculous things that get rubber stamped at the patent office. It's not as if Apple invented the scroll wheel/jog dial. They've been avaible on VCR's, DAT's, etc for quite a long time. That leaves two things their patent could cover:
    1) Using a scroll wheel with *gasp* mp3s.
    2) The specfic details of how their scroll wheel interface works.

    (1) would be a junk patent. (2) would either be so broad it was a junk patent, or so specfic as to be worthless.

  • If I were to buy a new mp3 player... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by turkeyphant ( 648612 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:22PM (#8044376) Homepage Journal

    I bought a second generation 20GB iPod soon after they came out. However, I now have more music than I can fit on it and I'm getting interested in re-ripping my tracks at higher quality or even investigating FLAC. Also, Apple is doing me a disservice by preventing me from using Ogg-Vorbis which I still think is superior to LAME's output. If I download .oggs, I then have to go through decompression and another round of lossy compression to create mp3s that will play on my iPod.

    As such, I'm very interested in the latest releases of hard-drive based mp3 players. I especially like the look of the iRiver players and I'm hoping to try out my friend's new Rio Karma. Nevertheless, I will have to save up again if I want to get a new player and there are a few minimum feature requirements I can't help thinking would be easy to include on a new player.

    • Native Ogg-Vorbis and FLAC support
    • Regular firmware updates that include customer suggestions
    • Optional remote (preferably with its own display
    • Ability to input audio via line-in and/or microphone. On-the-fly encoding not required
    • FM radio tuner
    • Semi-decent interface with well-organised playlisting and options. So many cheap flash-based players coming out of Asia these days have terrible interfaces. Also, an iPod-style scroll wheel or similar input device is necessary for scrolling through thousands of songs
    • Ability to sort folders/playlists by date, album, last modified, year and artist et cetera (i.e. dynamic rearranging of playlists, song lists according to ID3 tab information)
    • Access to other parts of tag information including year and lyrics
    • On-the-fly playlisting
    • Gapless playback
    • USB 2.0 or Firewire connectivity. Additional ethernet highly desirable
    • Can be mounted as external hard drive
    • 15+ hour replaceable battery essential

    I don't give a shit for ITMS compatibility or crappy organiser-style features or games. I just want to be able to fit all my songs in my pocket and find the right tunes to play when on the train. Is it really too much to ask?

    • I don't give a shit for ITMS compatibility or crappy organiser-style features or games. I just want to be able to fit all my songs in my pocket and find the right tunes to play when on the train. Is it really too much to ask?
      Not at all....'cause you left out the PRICE! I can build ya one of those for, oh, $2700 easy! (you also didn't mention formfactor)

    • Re:If I were to buy a new mp3 player... (Score:5, Informative)

      by big_gibbon ( 530793 ) <slashdot&philevans,com> on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:44PM (#8044649) Homepage
      I can VERY strongly recommend the Rio Karma to you. Point by point . . .

      * Native Ogg-Vorbis and FLAC support
      Check

      * Regular firmware updates that include customer suggestions
      Check, double. The community surrounding the Karma is incredible, and the developers are amazingly responsive :)

      * Optional remote (preferably with its own display
      Not at the moment. The campaign goes on :)

      * Ability to input audio via line-in and/or microphone. On-the-fly encoding not required
      No, and very unlikely to happen IIUC

      * FM radio tuner
      No, ditto. But you've got 20Gb of *good* music in your pocket, why listen to the radio? ;)

      * Semi-decent interface with well-organised playlisting and options. So many cheap flash-based players coming out of Asia these days have terrible interfaces. Also, an iPod-style scroll wheel or similar input device is necessary for scrolling through thousands of songs
      An emphatic YES. The Karma's interface is amazingly intuitive and fast, particularly when it comes to navigating your collection. Artists appear under first-letter tabs, for example, which when you have 500+ different artists makes a whole lot of difference!

      * Ability to sort folders/playlists by date, album, last modified, year and artist et cetera (i.e. dynamic rearranging of playlists, song lists according to ID3 tab information)
      Hmmm. Interesting - I suspect not, though I haven't tried. On the other hand, this is exactly the type of thing the developers at Rio are eating up at the moment . . .

      * Access to other parts of tag information including year and lyrics
      All tag information is available. "Wicked cool" lyrics functionality in the works

      * On-the-fly playlisting
      Check

      * Gapless playback
      Check, for any format that supports it - including mp3.

      * USB 2.0 or Firewire connectivity. Additional ethernet highly desirable
      Check to USB2 and ethernet

      * Can be mounted as external hard drive
      Not at present, although apparently this is in the works

      * 15+ hour replaceable battery essential
      Check to battery life. It's currently replacable in Japan and the word is that this will spread to the US / UK soonish. However, the battery will last for about three years when used 6 hours a day as it is . . .

      The Karma is SUPERB. Really. I may come across like a fanboy, but that's cos I am - it's the first DAP which works EXACTLY how I want it to. The responsiveness of the community makes it second to none IMHO . . .

      P
    • Three points - why OGG if you have AAC? Unless you're encoding at 32kbps, AAC has consistantly beat Vorbis in listening tests at all higher (64+) bitrates. Sure, have FLAC, but why Vorbis over MPEG-4?

      Second point is minor, but the advantage of Firewire over USB (even USB 2.0) is that Firewire can supply 1.5 Amps, while USB can only supply 250 mA. If you use USB, you have to have a separate charger. Using Firewire, you can charge while you sync.

      Third point is that where can you find a device with all you'v

  • For the love of all that is holy... The Beatles and NSync on the same PLAYLIST?!?!?!? [rhas.co.kr] WTF? =)

  • The question no one is asking.... DRM (Score:5, Informative)

    by steppin_razor_LA ( 236684 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:23PM (#8044394) Journal
    I purchased a NexIIe from Frontier Labs [frontierlabs.com] because I wanted a player that had no (or at least did not require) DRM.

    My last MP3 player was a Compaq IPAQ-1. Compaq stopped supporting it and I had a lot of problems trying to get their software to work on Win 2000/XP/20003. I can't just copy my music to its memory cards because guess what? It is stored in a proprietary format. That means you need to have their software which means that if they go out of business or don't support your OS, your nice little gadget is worthless!

    With my NexIIe, I can just plug the device in via a USB cable to my computer and it shows up as a disk drive. I can copy music files (or even copy other files for storage). If I want better performance, instead of connecting the NexIIe, I just pull the CompactFlash card and put it into a card reader. I use no tool more complicated than explorer to manage my music.

    The current firmware even supports CF up to 2GB. I don't see why you would want a 2GB hard drive when you could have 2GB of solid state. That said, it would be nice to have a 10+ GB version of my player.

  • Neuros (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hate to mention it (again and again) but the Neuros 20GB model does everything that this promises to do, and you can buy it today for $200. http://www.neurosaudio.com/ Yes, it is bulky, but it does OGG, FM radio record, FM transmit, and a bunch of other stuff. Plus it has a nice Linux app.

  • the REAL winners in the mp3 player wars (Score:5, Funny)

    by sbma44 ( 694130 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:26PM (#8044430)
    are going to be models with gigantic hands

  • Calm Down Please (Score:4, Insightful)

    by subjectstorm ( 708637 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:32PM (#8044497) Journal
    Ok, this thing certainly has A TYPE of scroll wheel. And yes, Apple has patents for its own version of a scroll wheel - as well as the way the wheel itself works and how it works specifically with the i-pod. It could be that this company has absolutely ripped Apple off.

    But Apple isn't suing anyone or releasing statements detailing its intentions to do so just yet, mnk? Lots of things have scroll wheels. My mouse has one. I don't think we can patent a simple hardware control itself. i mean, why not patent a toggle switch if that were the case?

    How about we wait and get just a LITTLE more information before we start branding patents as ridiculous or, on the other end, start a wildly speculative crusade to protect Apple's intellectual property.

  • Down with OGG (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GerbilSocks ( 713781 )
    I swear if I hear another fucking complaint about the lack of OGG support I'm going kill you all!

    Who gives a flying crap about OGG. It's always like Linux users to root for the underdog. In this case however, OGG means shit in the "real" world.

    +5 Troll and +2 Flamebait modifiers.

    • Up with Ogg (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Dante ( 3418 ) *
      Depends on if you're another person who does not rip their own music, mearly steals it from other people. Kinda sounds like you might be in that catagory. There are people out there that don't belive in ripping off other people. Why not use the best codec? Why not expect products to support what you want? Why pay a tax to the frau^^^^houfenber people?

  • Dimensions (Score:3, Informative)

    by savagedome ( 742194 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:38PM (#8044568)
    The dimensions are comparable to iPod.

    The iPod mini [apple.com] is 3.6 by 2.0 by 0.5 inches
    The iPod 15GB and 20GB is 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.62 inches
    The iPod 40GB is 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.73 inches
    The D-cube is 88 by 48 by 19 mm (3.46 by 1.88 by 0.74 inches) using the conversion chart [reticles.com]

    So, the DCube is smaller in height and width compared to the mini although almost as thick as the 40GB iPod.
  • I have to say that design wise, it looks like a poor cheap imitation of the iPod. The iPod is expensive and there are better specced mp3 players out there. the rio karma [digitalnetworksna.com] is an excellent example (mp3,ogg, flac) and inclusion of ethernet socket along with all the other usual connectors. Some people claim the software management software is a little ropey, but at least it works with Linux as well and Win32 and OSX.

    I would personally prefer something like this than something that is such a failing iPod lookali

  • $1 (Score:4, Funny)

    by SengirV ( 203400 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:43PM (#8044637)
    I wish I had $1 for every iPod killer MP3 player that has been released to date. I could then afford an iPod.

  • I think that the scroll wheel patent would be a pretty minor point in Apple's legal whacking of this device. Its design [rhas.co.kr] is an obvious copy of the iPod, and would be actionable under industrial design law. Apple successfully sued EMachines [apple.com] for ripping off the iMac design, and this looks like even more of a rip-off than their machines did.

  • What I want to see in a player... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by k12linux ( 627320 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:44PM (#8044653)
    • Suport for MP3, OGG and FLAC.
    • Wireless for music download/upload
    • A standardized protocol for sharing music wirelessly with other portable owners (for legal sharing of course.. such as the mp3s from a non-evil record label. [magnatune.com])
    • Long battery life (when not using the WiFi at least)

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A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.

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