Napa DP600 DataPlay enabled Portable
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4.12.01 By Dereck Willis
(PREVIEW)
The people who brought us the DAV310 and most recently, the DAV311, are now displaying one of the first DataPlay enabled portable music player. Don't get too excited. . .these units and DataPlay disks will not be available in the US until October 2001. So why tempt us?
A-Max Technology (maker of Napa devices) wants to be known as a cutting edge manufacturer. They introduced the first MP3/VCD portable over a year ago in the U.S. (DAV309). In these days of high tech portable devices, someone must step up to the plate, and deliver what the end users want. Actually it is very simple. . .we want really small portable MP3 devices with enough storage to contain hours of music. Well, the 500MB DataPlay disks should give you 8-10 hours of MP3 tunes, depending on encoded bit-rate. And the size? The DataPlay disks are about the size of a quarter, so these players can be very small, indeed.
Napa has limited information on the DP600, but I'll tell you what I know. It will use 2 AA batteries and a USB (1.1) interface for transferring files. It also has a voice recording mode for those important meetings, and a EQ to boost the sounds from lower quality recordings. All the music artists out there will appreciate the SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) support, which we believe most DataPlay enabled devices will include.
The large LCD screen appears to display ID3 tags, but we will not confirm this assumption until we receive further details. A-Max did not provide the unit's size or weight, but given the DataPlay's size, it should fit in the palm of your hand.
Get ready for more DataPlay enabled devices to be introduced in the near future. Everything from digital cameras to portable audio and video players. Trust us, these little disks are gonna give CDs a run for their money. According to a DataPlay rep we spoke with at CES, these disks have a theoretical limit of 2GB of storage! First to be introduced are the 250 and 500MB blanks (and many pre-recorded titles from popular music artists), and will retail from $10-15 each, depending on quantity. Is it October yet?
Here is a list of key features provided by A-Max:
Built-in Data Play Engine support Data Play Disc
Sound Effect EQ Mode
USB Rev.1.1 interface
SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative)Supporting
Voice Recording
Storage data format: as same as DVD
Power Supply 2 x AA cells
USB transfer rate 12Mb/s
MSRP and Availability Date Not Confirmed
