Making memory manufacturers rich
11 Oct 2004Josh has splurged. It wasn’t entirely an impulse buy, but something close.
I had, of course, planned (and publicly announced) my intent to buy memory sometime this morning… so that part is okay. I failed to clarify just how many different pieces of memory I’d be purchasing. I bought the cheapest possible 512MB stick of DDR-RAM (PC2700) that my favorite stockist had in store, despite it being cheaper next door.
I walked into Computer World, to the desk of someone who was desparately trying to look busy (as they do in that place, in an attempt to avoid actually having contact with customers), and lent across his work area asking “How much is your cheapest 512MB stick of PC2700 RAM?”. He answered, somewhat reluctantly — “$125″ (this is Australian dollars, for any foreigners who think this is ridiculously cheap/expensive: exchange rates are crazy things). I said thankyou, turned, and left the store. Just to clarify for those who haven’t been reading my online ramblings for too long, that store was the bane of my life for a few weeks over warranty issues… I’ll now never buy anything from them, but maintain that they are a useful resource for bargaining leverage at other stores. Like the most excellent THX (or TX, they seem to be having an identity crisis at the minute) across the foyer.
I went next door, and asked the same question… they were, of course, far more helpful, so no leaning-across-desks was required. The price was $139, from memory.
“Over there can do it for $125, how much lower can you get it?”
“Hang on, I’ll check for you.” She looks at the screen for a few seconds. “Sorry, the lowest I can go is $130.”
“That’ll do!” I shout, ever eager to avoid the perils of Computer World after-sales, should something go awry. To me, avoiding those people is worth far more than five dollars, any day of the week.
The inevitable question cropped up, as it always seems to in retail, “Is that all” or “Can I help you with anything else?”. In recent times, I’ve been more and more dissatisfied with my clunky Walkman in which the tape player doesn’t work, and I use exclusively for listening to radio. Not only that, I never did own a portable CD player, so all my music stayed at home, and the radio went with me. Motivation for an MP3 player? You bet.
The MP3 player part of my spending was the “impluse” element… I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but if there were something with a nice feature-set, I’d buy it. My requirements were simply that it be solid-state, compact and DRM-incumbency free… and preferably under $150. With this in mind, I was expecting to get some MP3/USB drive thingo with 128MB of storage, towards the $100 mark. Admittedly, I ended up spending more ($149 — right next to my limit!), but it hits my requirements pretty nicely… not only can I carry my music (and 256MB of it, no less!) with me, I can also get FM radio on this thing. That’s okay, but the “killer feature” on this thing is that it doesn’t need external batteries.
I know, I know: if it’s anything like an iPod’s battery, it’ll bite me in two years. Big deal! I think I’ll have moved on from 256MB in a few years, but that’s a problem for then. Right now, I can have 12 hours of usage between recharges via USB. How cool is that?
I’ve got three gripes with the thing right now:
- The interface is seriously crap.
- From the speed of transfers, I’d guess it’s only USB 1 — no blazingly fast uploads, which is a shame
- Tuning digital radios really gets to me. I need knobs and dials!
Of those three complaints, only the first is significant. I’ve taken to dumping music in the root folder, because it’s easier than screwing in the menu until I figure out how to change folders for playback. Admittedly, I’ve only been using it for a few hours, and I’ll probably get used to it later, but it seems a tad prohibitive. That’s what you get when there’s only a five buttons (“Menu” and playback controls), I suppose.
The worst thing about the design is the positioning of the 3.5mm audio socket. It’s designed so that when a cable (or headphones, whatever) is connected, it’s amazingly difficult to press the menu button in a natural fashion. Whilst human physiology would dictate our fingers press buttons from the side, the positioning of the button is such that you’d need to stick your finger through the audio connector to get to the button comfortably. It doesn’t look so bad, but believe me, it’s irritating.
It also does 20 hours of voice recording (in what format, I have no idea), and yes, it is tiny. I just grabbed a ruler (I don’t think dimensions were listed on the specs sheet, which is generic to the firmware and whole line of models in different form factors), and it’s about 56mm x 38mm x 11mm — about half the size of my phone. What can I say, I like small tech!
This computer is noticeably more snappy with three quarters of a gig of memory… I like it! I’ve got the GIMP sitting editing about 10 moderately large files, with two windows of Firefox filled with tabs, a WISH app, my email client, an RSS reader, and my code editor of choice open, and it’s still zipping along. Sweet.