Convergence of MP3 & phone technologies

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Last Post 9/17/2006 1:44 PM by klootfan

Convergence of MP3 & phone technologies

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klootfan

Advanced Member
Posts:851

9/17/2006 1:44 PM
I bought my first MP3 player a few years back. A 40gb iRiver H140. A nice piece of kit at the time if not a little ugly. It was no iPod but in my humble opinion it offered more. All was fine and dandy with this player until my misuse caused the harddrive to fail. So after much research I ordered an iAudio X5 with 60gb of memory. Its only since Ive gotten Broadband in that ive started ripping my CDs, and i reckon I will only fill up maybe 60 % of that if even. However, even tough my player could be full with music, I personally find myself playing the same few albums over for days at time before moving on to other albums, depending on the mood. So I began to wonder, whether I was getting full use out of my player. Sure it will have all my albums on it but thats only useful if your habits of listening to your music collection is more sporadic. Which, im just guessing here, most peoples arent. The other component of the player that I use alot is the radio. Very handy for the player. I also use the player as a portable Hard Drive. However, Ive to drag this player around with me everywhere to cater for those moments where time alows for music listening...Thanks you Dublin Bus!! Anyway, to get to the basis of the topic. A few months back I bought a K750i mobile phone which comes with a 64mb card. It has a built in radio, 2mp camera and plays mp3. Today I forked out around 120 notes for a 4gb card for this. I reckon I could fit 100 odd albums on it. Sso here for a cheap enough price I have a portable mp3 player with a radio and a nice drive size which will probably meet my mp3 playing requirements. Granted, the sound quality will not be as good. But its not that bad either. The great thing is, that id have to be carrying my phone around with me anyway. Apparently the memory card can support up to 32gb in its current form. Which is an amazing thought. So I wonder if the days of the seperate MP3 player could be nearing the end. Has the iPod got maybe 2/3 years left before a merged entity takes over in full. I reckon that the company who successful manages to merge portable audio & video requirements, with a mobile phone ( and some are not far off, although I reckon Apples first entry here with motorola is a disaster) could stand to corner a nice share of the MP3 market.

palace

Basic Member
Posts:392

9/17/2006 9:06 PM
that sounds sensible enough, kloot... i may consider buying one of them things eventually... i have no interest or need for an mp3 player as things stand... my system at home and portable cd player do me fine... i'm still very old fashioned when it comes to actually listening to albums only and then from start to finish

Binokular

Veteran Member
Posts:1665

9/17/2006 10:36 PM
I've been going on about this kind of thing for ages. SD cards are great, they're cheap, compact, tougher than hard disks and you can easily carry a couple round if needed, you can even get 8GB ones now. Combined with newer cheaper to manufacture solid state memory, I reckon hard drives in portable devices will be a thing of the past within 5 years. The reason phones that can replace your iPod have been slow to market is not technological. The technology is there, all you need is to design a phone that allows you to easily transfer MP3s on to it from your PC and give it decent storage options, like an SD card slot. The problem is the pig-headedness of most of the phone networks. They don't really want you transferring your collection from from your PC, they want to sell you music downloads direct to your phone, so this has held handset design back a bit (not to mention the fact that certain features of handsets are often delibertately disabled or modified in firmware to suit the network providers interests). Of course it's all sort of backfired on the networks as unlike ringtones, the mobile music download market has mainly been met with complete indifference by most. At the moment only the high end PDAs (which make you look like a nerd) or smartphones running windows mobile or Palm OS or similar offer the full functionality needed, but I'm sure market demand will eventually see proper, easy to use MP3 player functionality trickle down to mainstream phones.

Vent My Spleen

Advanced Member
Posts:500

9/18/2006 8:54 AM
Yep, a single device for phone, mp3 and video is the future. With this in mind, I recently replaced my broken iPod with a 90 euro 1G Creative Zen MuVo which does exactly what it says on the tin. OK, you dont get playlists but with only 1G, simple randomise of tracks is fine. As Bino points out, it'll be a while before the phone companies standardise with relation to moving mp3 to phones but the manufacturers will eventually wake up when it starts to bite their bottom line. Sooner or later one of them will produce a model that uses standard USB to move data to the phone and if they also put a standard earphone jack so you can use a proper set of earphones rather than the crud they currently ship and that'll be pretty much the endgame. Probably a year or two away but it'll come eventually.

Mully

Advanced Member
Posts:849

9/18/2006 9:42 AM
Kloot, Use the shuffle feature (if it has one) on your iAudio ... Its a great way of not listening to the same old stuff. I love when I have to check to see you is on, as its generally something I wouldn't have selected by choice. As regards 1 SooperDooper machine, research has shown that the market doesn't want such. People want their phones to be seperate. I know I don't ... I've lost too many things whilst intoxicated, so I'd rather not lose a mp3 player/phone/camera/remington fuzzaway all at the same time. http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71000-0.html

Man in a can

Basic Member
Posts:106

9/18/2006 9:54 AM
I reckon the companies are just waiting until everyone has an MP3 player and they have made all the money possible and they will bring out a really good phone/MP3 player and get us all to spend again. I'm sure its made and ready to go.

klootfan

Advanced Member
Posts:851

9/18/2006 9:58 AM
Mully.. Shuffle is too much effort. All that skipping.. As I was saying, when im in the mood to listen to a certain sort of music I dont want the randomness of shuffle.

Pilchard

Advanced Member
Posts:699

9/18/2006 10:24 AM
damn, i thought this was another twink thread

Goat Boy

New Member
Posts:72

9/18/2006 12:39 PM
quote: Originally posted by klootfan Anyway, to get to the basis of the topic. A few months back I bought a K750i mobile phone which comes with a 64mb card. It has a built in radio, 2mp camera and plays mp3. Today I forked out around 120 notes for a 4gb card for this. I reckon I could fit 100 odd albums on it. Kloot. I also have a K750i and it's a beaut. Though there is a USB bug you might want to look out for. When transferring music from your PC to the phone via the supplied USB cable, it somehow manages to drop some of the content along the way. Copy 10 songs and you'll discover only 5 came across. To get around this I'm getting myself an SD card reader/writer. Much quicker transfer this way too. The K800i with a 3.2 megapixel phone might be worth an upgrade soon too

klootfan

Advanced Member
Posts:851

9/18/2006 1:08 PM
Nice one Goat Boy. I hadnt heard that, but luckily i paid out for the dirt cheap USB 2 card reader that accompanies the Chip. Small job that slots in the side. Should make things easier. Been keeping my eye on the K800i.. Until the K750i, I had been a siemens fan, and once they went bust I had to look hard to find a replacement and the K750i is just spot on.. right down to the SOS feature on the light :) where do they come up with these ideas.

comet

Basic Member
Posts:485

9/18/2006 1:34 PM
I have the iaudio x5 60GB too, very nice player, I'm very happy with it and have a tonne of music on it. I see the benefit of the big storage space being choice. I think its great to be able to dig out an album you haven't listened to in years on the go at the touch of a button. But yeah of course convergence of technologies is the future without doubt. You possibly won't even think of it as a mp3 player on your phone or a phone on your mp3 player, it'll just be your portable device. Personally I have yet to even move to a colour screen/media messaging phone. I just don't think its really there yet. The big industry players are well aware of the potential though e.g. Motorolas link up with apple on the ROCKR and all the nokia phones.

alameda

Basic Member
Posts:121

9/18/2006 1:39 PM
interesting....have a K750i but haven't really availed of the mp3 aspects of it yet it's a good phone alright but it does have one or two very annoying features: If you're listening to the radio and somebody calls you, the phone rings AT FULL VOLUME (even if phone has been set to low volume), simultaenously jolting you with what feels like a pulse of radiation coursing through your brain Not pleasant at all admittedly there's the 'divert calls' option but having to divert your calls everytime you want to listen to the radio is a bloody nuisance It's also damn near impossible to see the screen when it's sunny - don't remember having this problem with previous phones (but then again they had simpler monochrome displays) still, that aside it's a decent phone so don't le the above put you off! ;)

blackmarker

New Member
Posts:16

9/18/2006 1:40 PM
Dunno the full details but I hear Nokia are releasin an MP3 phone in October. It'll also have a feature called 'Recommender' whereby 10 songs are recommended by around 40 Independent Retailers (Road Records is one) from around the world each month. You can download any song directly to your phone for 99c. The artist gets 48c for each song downloaded..

admin

Basic Member
Posts:399

9/18/2006 1:47 PM
Being a luddite and all that I only got my first mobile phone a few months ago back. I was going to lump for an entry level model but the more and more I read about the k750i the more and more I got excited by it. I ended up going for it and, yeah, it reallly is an excellent device. Camera is top notch (did you check the macro lense function klootfan and Goat Boy? Extraordinary). Have to admit though i have not been using the MP3 functionality in the k750i, because I just find ear buds you must use with it an annoyance, so i have continued to use my 40GB iRiver H340 for my on-the-move music listening (although I do feel like a bit of a commando with all the equipement I lumber around now). Having said that, this thread is making me re-asssess whether I should not look into the MP3 fucntionality of the k750i for my own use... Klootfan did you shop around much for that 4gb card? Was that 120 yo-yos the best deal going? Where did you get it? eoghan

klootfan

Advanced Member
Posts:851

9/18/2006 1:55 PM
Yeah, The camera is top notch. Even does a panorama. And the effects are pretty impressive and all. The ear buds are a joke, but again, you can get around that with an adapter http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/7265.htm I havent gotten around to ordering this yet but I will soon. Not necessarily from the site above though. Thats just for illustration. I did a bit of research for the card alright and I reckon you wont get cheaper then 120. It was in fact £79 pounds including the adapter for the laptop/pc. So converting to euro should work out around €120 or so. I ordered from http://www.mobymemory.com/. I priced the 1 gig in the shops and sony are doing it for €75 and carphone warehouse for €100. As far as I know the 4 gig is pretty new, so there might not be many selling it.

klootfan

Advanced Member
Posts:851

9/18/2006 1:56 PM
I know this isnt a mobile review site :), but I should add, that there are a few bugs in the k750i. It has a tendency to reboot every so often. And yes, that loud ring when using the radio can be embarrasing on a packed bus.

nerraw

Basic Member
Posts:475

9/18/2006 2:40 PM
Apple are said to be releasing an 'Iphone' early next year.

Goat Boy

New Member
Posts:72

9/18/2006 4:13 PM
quote: Originally posted by klootfan The ear buds are a joke, but again, you can get around that with an adapter http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/7265.htm I havent gotten around to ordering this yet but I will soon. Not necessarily from the site above though. Thats just for illustration. Excellent spot Kloot, I'll get getting one of those. The supplied buds was one of my few gripes. Defo seems cheaper on ebay than on this site... Cheers!

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