It's up.

PhatBox. Neo. Riocar. Have at it.

Clickable link: (auto)mobile Jukebox matrix

Copyable text: www.mypocket.com/mobilematrix/index.shtml

This will be a work in progress. I left out a few things on purpose, such as measurable audio qualities - mainly because I didn't yet have the figures for all three products. I will add this soon.

If anyone can think of any other points of comparison to add, please let me know.

Oh.. This isn't intended to be an "rio/empeg kills everything else" matrix. That would have been easy to do, but this is to stuff all the one-sided "marketing" matrices I've seen lately. I'm trying to be as objective as possible, all things considered (I own of course an empeg and also a Neo.)

If you find the table a bit too wide for your browser, or if you just want it narrower that you can make it by shrinking your window, click on the link that says "smaller window" on the top left corner under the title logo. It will sub the begining of the page with smaller graphics which will let you squeeze your window much smaller.

Bruno

Wow, cool!

Looks great! At first glance, it's very non-biased, until you realize that it's still no contest to the empeg..

Well done. Very pro. Etceteras.

Excellent effort! Great information on the other models that I wasn't aware of (when you drive a Ferrari, you don't look at the specs on the Saturn.)

A few corrections/observations:

1. In the "Storage as Shipped" column, I think you mean "principal distributors" not "principle distributors."
2. In the "Third Party Software Releases" for the Empeg, the link is broken.
3. I think you should mention in the "Drive Mounting and Protection" row that the 2.5" drives in the Empeg and the PhatBox are better with shock protection than the 3.5" in the Neo. This is an often understated point.

Mega-props for putting this quality comparison together. Too bad this wasn't around when it could have helped the Empeg's cause in the Slashdot and mp3.com forums. Well, maybe they wouldn't have "gotten it" anyway.

Most of the editing on the doc is done late at night when I get in. I'm surprised it's not riddled with typos and grammatical errors.

The link for 3rd party empeg software links to an empty anchor "#" which should just keep you on the same page. If your browser complains about that - it's got a problem itself. I have a small list of apps that I'll put into another page that will pop or I'll be putting it at the bottom and flip to it with an anchor. So I left it empty on purpose for today.

Touched up the other points and I've got a small list of additions I'll make in a day or so as well.

I'll also accept additions for the 3rd party software list. The only requirement is that the software must already have at least 1 complete and released version (just to be fair :)

Bruno

/edit/ Someone feel free to post a link in the mp3.com forums and by all means send a note to slashdot. It's a shame SONIC halted retail production. Then again, they've got a nice investment in IP and continued OEM work - if the market opens up to this type of product, let's hope another incarnation makes it to retail.

The link for 3rd party empeg software links to an empty anchor "#" which should just keep you on the same page.

Actually it comes up in my browser (IE6) as "Empty Reference!" in the status bar... When I click on the link it tries to take me to http://www.mypocket.com/mobilematrix/(Empty%20Reference!) which of course, doesn't exist. Might want to check into that. But if you're going to link it to some other page, don't bother.

I'll ask you to put the link for my trivia game up as soon as it reaches that "complete and released" status. I've got a lot of work to do on it before that happens, though.

One thing I noticed for the Neo that might be inaccurate is the max drive capacity. If it only supports ATA/100 or lower, the max theoritical drive would be 137GB, and released drives would put it equal to the empeg at 120GB. The reason is that ATA/133 widens the addressing bus to 48bit, allowing the 137 GB barrier to be broken. I can't find anything to show that the Neo has an IDE controller capable of ATA/133.

Beyond that, it looks awesome.

Fixed the drive spec. The DiamondMax will work in ATA/100 machines, but should obviously only give up to the max allowable with 28bit addressing: 137GB as you mentioned.

I had briefly read about the 48bit addressing, but had completely forgotten it would need support at a bios level. I don't know what the Neo is using for a drive controller, nor if it's upgradeable, so I've put down 137 as the hard limit.

This means that within the next year or so, the empeg will be able to claim the crown for mobile storage solution when IBM (it will be them without question) break their current 60GB mark per mobile drive.

Have you seen the beefed up environmental specs of the new 3.5" Maxtors? Very impressive compared to older drives. I remember 10MB (yeah, MB :) drives you had to be careful about looking at too sharply, let alone touching them. Drives that wouldn't survive a trip on someone's back seat for a few km.

Bruno

I think I'm long overdue to hit the sack.

Great stuff!

Another minor keyboard stumble; in the Voice Feedback (unit speaks menus and tracks) line, for the empeg, what should be 'upgrade' is actually 'upgarde'

/Michael

Sweet! Just one minor minor comment. Could you set the table cells to top alignment? (i.e. {td valign=top}) It would make it a bit easier to read and everything would line up.

Greg

Suggested by someone during testing. I'll try it again in a day or so, but I thought it looked odd top aligned due to the differing amount of content between product. I'll reply here when it's been changed. Or I may put it up as an alternate and you can just toggle the one you want.

Bruno

The only correction I can add:

We don't ship a 40Gb model - 10, 20, 30 or 60

Rob

I can change that. But I think it would just be easier if you started shipping a 40GB model. That would clear up the overstock of 20GB drives.

Or of course I can go edit the file. And you can just send those drives to me. :)

Bruno

Top aligned with some other small changes and fixes (including the bit about the 40GB config).

I may include mention of SQ properties if I can get figures for all 3 products and song-to-song gap (pretty seamless with 2.0b3 right now).

Bruno

BTW, as I think I mentioned, any other criteria I should add, just let me know.