If you want hi-fidelity in a moving vehicle you have to go with a reel-to-reel tape deck. 8-track had quite low sound quality because of the compression, as did cassette tapes of that era. Clearly a reel-to-reel deck installed in the glove box on a slide-out platform is what is necessary for the best vintage audio experience in a vintage automobile.
I use their first generation unit (the one dissed here...the Vega) which has a smaller form factor and I *really* like it. Ya, it's not a speed demon...but with portable apps and the fitaly virtual keybd it's da bomb. It's waaay handier than I expected it to be, the wireless thumbstick less of a problem than I thought, and a portable keybd lets me type w/o problems. Solidly built too. What attracted me to the first gen was the SMALL size, this unit is bigger in ways I wouldn't find helpful....the Vega essentially replaced my palm....this one is too big for that.
I just bought one of these from dynamism. Frankly, I couldn't be happier. I installed portable apps (light footprint) because I can also use the vega as an external hard drive, run the portable apps on the external machine, and still access all my files. I installed fitaly (www.fitaly.com) as an onscreen keybd. Bought a "stowaway" portable keybd. Frankly, the need to use a thumbstick wireless adapter isn't a huge problem. I'm WAY happier with this than I expected to be. Setting it so that the power button hibernates the system (which hasn't crapped out yet in 2 weeks) means it boots up in ~20s. Essentially I'm using it instead of my "palm"....and it's way handier. I was going to buy a lifedrive or something else small with reasonable storage space, I'm glad I bought this instead.
This claim by the MPAA is clearly bogus. Read further at http://www.thestar.com/article/178181 ... further contrary arguments are from Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Technology, at www.michaelgeist.ca
The "proprietary cable" thing kills it for me. I've learned to never buy things with those....d'ya hear me you manufacturer's? Do ya? Huh? Huh? I don't buy e-toys that use proprietary cables (I bet others don't either)....when you travel the odds of losing them are too great.
Looks just like an all white one I bought on ebay from Australia for $9 + shipping. All white. Huh....wonder what "look" they were going for there??? Wish I'd waited so I could've gotten a "Stitch" version....of course, that's probably why the price is higher.
Okay, I received the RM150 from Hong Kong (ordered through ebay) in 9 days after payment. Darned good. (Cost of unit & mailing was ~$58US). As far as I can tell it does NOT play xvid files raw....nothing I've downloaded would play w/o conversion (to another AVI format) (an english converter is findable by googling RM150 aviconverter Ramos). The unit arrives with chinese characters active. You need to go to the bottom of the first screen (setup), then the 5th item, then the first item, and then you'll see "English" as the 3rd item. After that things work pretty well. Overall??? Two thumbs up. Video is clean and sharp (even in middle conversion quality), audio is good, fm reception is acceptable, text viewer is good, photos are good. The screen is AS good if not better than my gmini 400. Lack of a bookmarking feature (in audio/video) is a bit annoying, but fast forward is pretty darned good. Bookmarking in text reader is useful for long texts. Battery life seems pretty good. Audio has personal equalizer (and 7 presets or so). Recorder is okay (a bit muddy). External speaker (believe it or not) allows you to watch video in a quiet room w/o headphones. The "game" is a tetris variation (probably the weakest part). "Standard" USB connector (one of the small ones) so no "proprietary" probs. Overall very, very much worth the money compared to other cheapie MP3/Video players I've tried. The ebay guy has an english version of the manual he'll email you too.
I just bought a 1G one on ebay for $30US (plus $30 postage from HK).....I'll post comments about screen, navigation, battery, etc. here when I get it and use it a little.
Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
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