Creative Lab's Nomad Muvo2 4GB - Hitting the Mark Right Below Massive Storage
by Andrew Ku on May 25, 2004 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Nomad Muvo2 4GB - An Inside Look (continued)
As already mentioned, the 37 x 12 mm LCD screen is mounted on a separate riser, which interfaces with the main IC board. One might think that it could be embedded onto the board, and thus, cut down on the MP3 player's width. However, directly south of the LCD riser lays a riser for the two controls buttons and the storage device.
Click to enlarge.
In this case of the Muvo2 4GB, the storage device is a Hitachi 4GB MicroDrive. The other current Muvo2 players use CompactFlash cards, which explains why they only hit the high of 1.5GB. (NAND technology is still limited by low yields at high capacities.)
Click to enlarge.
In theory, anyone with enough tack can manually swap a lower capacity card on a CompactFlash based Muvo2 to something like a 4GB MicroDrive, or vice versa. This seems to be what some people are doing, and we even found some people selling modified Muvo2 MP3 players on eBay.
Aside from the warranty issues relating to modding a Muvo2, we could caution anyone to be extra careful when taking apart the player. Five points of circuitry are oddly interconnected via the electro-conductive tape that protects both sides of the board. Two of the points are visible in the picture above (the small window in the electro-conductive tape on the board would be what we are referring to). There is a small tab of the electro-conductive material of the tape that is soldered to the board. We ended up soldering and taping the points down to maintain connectivity.
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Foxbat121 - Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - link
XRaider - Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - link
Ok, what's the battery life on this model?Koing - Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - link
Imo the $50 difference between the Muvo2 and the iPod Mini isn't much even on a cash strapped budget. It would be worth saving up for imo. I always do this with stuff.The only problems I see is that the remote on any of the iPods to be quite frank is 'crap'. It is definately no MD remote. And the length of the headphone wires? Rubbish.
How is the length of the Muvo2 headphone wires with remote? I can't stand the length on my iPod.
Koing
madgonad - Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - link
Odd they never mentioned the fact that this $200 player houses a 4GB microdrive that retails for more than twice that price. I'm happy with my Muvo2, but I imagine eventually the drive will find its way to my camera.yanon - Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - link
The Muvo2 design engineers should consider adding voice recording function to it. This would be great for people who would want to use it as an recording device. it will probably only cost them $10 more to add this feature but they can claim this is a 3-in-one (mp3, voice recording, and data storage) player.