Hard Disk Music Players

Finally we’re beginning to see cheaper generic music players coming through. I got an email from Novatech today advertising their 20GB music player for 149.95 – the NPOD if you will! I’d been wondering how long it was going to take for some Chinese factory to start knocking out generics.
The specs don’t look too bad, and it claims reasonable playback. I’d say that there was a pretty good chance that the price will have come down by a few quid by Christmas. And this is only days after the 24 July launch in Europe of the 5GB mini iPod was announced by Apple. That’ll set you back 180 quid. So take your pick.
On a related note, there was a letter in today’s Guardian Online section berating the fact that Sony very cleverly failed to allow the transfer of music from their NetMD devices back to a computer. Indeed the same is generally true of iPods I’m lead to believe. Of course there are ways and means around the iPod issue – but I’ve yet to come across a Sony solution that didn’t involve using analogue sound card ports.
(And now to go off on a complete tangent, can I just recommend that everyone read the Online section of The Guardian in general. Today’s articles were an excellent representation of what to expect on a weekly basis: Ben Hammersley on software patents – a bad thing; a piece on Phil Gyford; and the usual round-up of new technology announced this week. All this and a fabulous science section up front.)


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