Color display and photo support can`t save oddly designed player.

Tom Mainelli, PC World

Monday, January 03, 2005

Gateway`s MP3 Photo Jukebox is an interesting combination of good ideas poorly implemented. The $250 player has some intriguing features--including the ability to store and display digital photos--but in the end its weaknesses far outweigh its strengths.

Gateway MP3 Photo JukeboxOne of those weaknesses is the display. The Jukebox is the first ``mini`` hard drive MP3 player to offer a color LCD, which Gateway touts as a major selling point. Unfortunately, at just 1.6 inches across (measured diagonally), and with a meager resolution of 128 by 128 pixels, the oddly square screen is much too small for comfortable photo viewing.

The Gateway has other size issues, too: While its light weight (3.4 ounces) and capacity (4GB) are similar to those of small-fry competitors such as the IPod Mini, Rio Carbon, and Creative Zen Micro, the Gateway is noticeably bigger than each of those players. In fact, its dimensions are close to those of the heavier 20GB Apple IPod. As a result, the Jukebox feels a bit hollow in your hand.

And then there`s the battery. Gateway has clearly heard customers complaining about other MP3 players with nonremovable batteries, so the company wisely equipped the Jukebox with a rechargeable, user-replaceable lithium ion battery (a second battery sells for $30). In my informal tests, the unit ran just a few minutes shy of Gateway`s stated time between charges, which is good. Unfortunately, that time is just 8 hours--comparable to the battery life of Apple`s aging first-generation IPod Mini, but dramatically less than the category-leading Carbon`s nearly 20-hour run time.

Not Much Fun

The Jukebox`s laundry list of near-miss design decisions would be easier to live with if the unit were simply more fun to use. Unfortunately, the interface is strangely unintuitive (due in part, perhaps, to the lack of any sort of Enter button), and the graphics look a bit cheesy.

Sound quality is decent, but Gateway doesn`t throw in any extras like an FM receiver or a voice recorder. Moving files (music or photos) onto the unit is a straightforward affair, but even charging the unit is onerous: You`re forced to connect the AC adapter cable to the USB cable through an add-on jack before you can plug the whole mess into the wall.

A mini-size hard drive MP3 player with a color screen and a removable battery sounds pretty good on paper. The reality is far less compelling.

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