Olympus M:Robe MP3 players

[Firesun]

Well i just picked up an Olympus M Robe:500 i mp3 player last week. Its a 20 GB. unit with a 1.2 megapixels camera on it. The screen is a touch screen and is slick. I got the unit at circuit city for $249 and $50 gift card included. I think you can fine one at home shopping network online for $200. Only downer to this is ...if you want to download the music into your m:robe player, you have to use their software to download. I bought a leather case from olympus site to cover up the touchscreen from being accidently touched while in my pocket or holding it.
Olympus has another smaller unit call the m:robe100. It comes with (5GB.) and is on sale at radio shack right now. $129.00 and $30.00 rebate. I am thinking of picking that up also. not bad for $100 for 5 gigs of music!!!
check prices @ http://www.shopping.com/xFS?FD=0&KW=mrobe+olympus

:smile:

 

[NsXMas]

That is very slick.

While I love my 40 GB iPod, something like this with a digital camera makes sense.

 

[ncdogdoc]

I just bought one also. Put it on the charger and left town

Will see how it goes over the next four days and how long the battery lasts on the flight from Raleigh to Phoenix.

 

[dawggpie]

Olympus had high hopes for this device. They wanted it to go head to head with the iPod. For whatever reason it just never caught on. If it could also do video it would be a neat device.

 

[WillErickson]

Olympus had high hopes for this device. They wanted it to go head to head with the iPod. For whatever reason it just never caught on. If it could also do video it would be a neat device.

Perhaps they should try advertising it. I'm very tech savvy and an absolute gadget geek, yet I've never heard of this line of mp3 players.

Will

 

[Firesun]

ya, they should advertise it more for what it is. i found a website that is an unofficial website www.mrobe.org (its new.)
I only saw the commercial during this year SuperBowl in january.

 

[dawggpie]

Perhaps they should try advertising it. I'm very tech savvy and an absolute gadget geek, yet I've never heard of this line of mp3 players.

Will

It was actually first announced and advertised during this year's Super Bowl =) The ad was run for a little while after that, but disappeared soon after. At this point Apple has everyone brain washed with the iPod so it's basically impossible to penetrate the market. Sony, Creative, and iRiver have all invested a lot of money and the results have been mediocre at best. Eventually MP3 players will become a commodity item like the Walkman and Discman did, but until then Apple is king.

Check out the iAudio mp3 player. Neat device, much like the iPod and will play videos in addition to music and photos. Supports more formats than the iPod too.
http://eng.iaudio.com/

 

[Firesun]

as paris hilton would say "dats hawt" :biggrin:

 

[jordansx]

I also just purchased one and I love it. $200 off ebay. battery life isn't all that great but showing off your pictures on that huge touch screen while listening to your music. . .everyone asks me what it is. I really need a protective case for it though. Ipod's have so many accessories and unfortunately the m:robe only has a rubber bumper as an option. But its great go and get one.

 

[heySkippy]

Question - why would I want a digital camera with resolution from 5 years ago in my MP3 player? No Firewire is a strike against too.

I don't see any system requirements listed for their software. Is there a Mac version? What happens if they quit supporting the product and the next version of Windows doesn't work with the current software?

 

[Firesun]

yah, the camera thing is a bit in the low resolution category for me, but is just a lil perk that comes with the mp3 player.

As for the case for protecting the m robe. you can go to the olympus website and fine the leather case protector for $19.99 and if you register your mrobe with olympus you should get an email with 10% off coupon in the email.
site: https://emporium.olympus.com/innards/emp.asp

:smile:

 

[heySkippy]

site: https://emporium.olympus.com/innards/emp.asp

Gives me:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14'

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Line 1: Incorrect syntax near '='.

/innards/emp.asp, line 87

No problem, I'll just hop over to http://olympus.com

Except that gives

No web site is configured at this address.

Wow, Olympus is truly not good at this newfangled internet thing!

Okay, put a www in front of the address (even though the rest of the world has aliased their sites so you don't need to do this) and hey, an official Olympus web site that I can't use because I don't have Flash installed on my work PC. I really truly hate websites that don't have an HTML alternative to Flash, especially sites where Flash is nothing more than flash and not in any sense necessary to deliver content.

So I do a little digging around and find the downloads section with a link to Mac OS X software and I go there, encouraged that they do have a Mac version only to find on the Mac downloads page the text "No software is available at this time."

WTF? Why bother having a download page for software you don't have?

I don't hate Olympus - I own their C740 camera and it's a pretty damn good camera (not great, but good). Fortunately I don't need any special software to use it because I don't think Olympus can be trusted to do software. Hell, they can't even do a website. My 4 year old 1st generation iPod is really due for replacement someday soon but I can safely say Olympus doesn't get it.

 

[Firesun]

ya, the flash site for the mrobe is retarded. Just give me a reg. html site. As for the mac o/s stuff, they should make the olympus mrobe for mac users.