MPIO's 2005 lineup, pt.1: The MPIO-1, MPIO-2, and MPIO HD-400, HD-500
posted Feb 28th 2005 11:43AM
Up-and-coming company MPIO must be doing
something right, because they're hitting back with a vengeance today, no less than ten new leaked players. Round one:
the MPIO-1 and MPIO-2 are flash players that will range in sizes from 128MB to 1GB, and will play back MP3, DRMed WMA,
ASF, and OGG Vorbis, and feature FM, line-input, and USB-On-The-Go (2.0). The MPIO-1 will feature a 65k color OLED
screen, the MPIO-2 will feature a larger 1.8-inch color TFT. And from the looks of things, they ain't too shabby in the
design department, and are certainly small enough: the MPIO-1 is a rather impressive 2.1 x 1.2 x 0.57-incher.
The followups to their moderately successful HD-200 and HD-300 players, the HDD-400 and HDD-500 are also both drive based—the HDD-400 swings the 1-inch drive angle, in either 5 or 8GB flavors, and has a 1.8-inch color LCD, and USB 2.0. The HDD-500 will come in either 20 or 40GB varieties, and will also feature a color LCD and USB-On-The-Go. Both players will play back MP3, DRMed WMA, ASF, and OGG Vorbis, as well as having FM tuners. Please continue to excuse the godawful watermarking.
[Via DAPreview]
wow, those are some sweet looking mp3 players. No info on the pricing? That's a bad sign as they color lcd adds $100 easily to the pricetag. The vertical scroll thingy seems to be the competitors' take on the scroll wheel as this is the 3rd mp3 play i have seen it make an appearance on.
Whats USB-On-The-Go???
"Whats USB-On-The-Go???"
It can act as a USB host, so can connect to cameras and whatnot OOTB. Hopefully.
I don't think these look too bad at all but specs are seriously only part of the equation in mp3 players. Eventually somebody's gonna make a better player than the iPod (please, it has NOT happened yet) but to do so they're gonna need to attack it from all angles, not just by cramming in every music format and feature they can think of. What software does this thing use? How much will it cost? How big is it really, how big does it feel in your hand? (I'm talking about the 20 and 40GB models; I don't care much about the smaller ones.) How does it charge, only through USB or is there also a separate charger available (or included)? What's the interface like? What about battery life? Will it even be available here?
Tons of unanswered questions, but these players look more promising than most. I will say, though, that those dome type buttons are pretty well-known for a lack of reliability, so that's one strike against it.
Nothing MPIO sells reads ID3 tags. My brother has one, and after toying with it I woudn't buy one for $5, much less whatever these things are gonna cost.
Looking at some of the user reviews on Amazon for their previous models, looks like they had some quality control problems. Hopefully they have addressed these QC issues, as these new models coming out look pretty nice.
I bought the HD200 for my girlfriend last christmas and will answer the above questions in regard to this particular model:
1. Software
No software required, mounts as an usb disk nicely. One of the reasons I preferred the MPIO over other models: it actually plays any music files copied to the device as opposed to creative where you can copy files onto the device but it only plays those copied with their proprietary software. MPIO does supply a software utility for transfering music (Win&Mac) but it's added value is that it creates m3u playlists on the fly to be able to browse by artist, genre, etc. The same be be achieved using a free perl script available on the net (Linux).
2. Charging
It comes with a separate charger and does not charge via USB at all.
3. Interface
Sucks monkeyballs. Slow and unintuitive (Be aware that I never touched another player, so maybe its top-notch compared to others).
4. Battery life
As announced in the data sheet (~10hrs???)
5. MP3 tags
are processed and displayed just fine. Maybe suntiger should change his tagging software to something that works.
6. QA
The hardware's look and feel is pretty robust, no proeblems here. The software performs in best current industry standard manner: hangs now-and-then.
Not specifically asked for, but given the fact that the software has some room for improvement:
7. Aftersales Care/Support
The software (updater+firmware) offered on the site as well as the one delivered with the player do not match! It is impossible to do an software update with the tools provided by MPIO (at least with only 15years of computer experience). It is possible in an undocumented way, but not witout hassle. I sent an support request to MPIO using their contact form two weeks ago and did not get an reply until now.
Despite the mentioned problems I would still recommend the player. My selection criteria were: no proprietary software, a not too heavy device, >4GB of storage and a well reduced design so that it can be used by non-children/non-geeks. Those criteria are fully met.
Looks like a knockoff of the iRiver H10. But it looks like juicy looks for similar things in a mp3 player as me.
PS I can fully excuse the cheesy watermarking, I know it's a pain when it can't just be cropped off or cut out. If I wanted to keep my name on a pic I would just use a jpeg comment. True someone would have to look for it, but whoever did would probably give me bonus points for not being a cheesy jerk.