We have a Sound Expo on here in Auckland this weekend. I wandered in there to check out one of the live acts and to see if anyone had some decent component system mp3 players.

I found someone who had a midi component CD, mp3 hybrid on display. Strangely they were buried on the car audio floor. In the process of picking up brochures I noticed a small black box chained to the end of the table. I picked it up and to my amazement realised that I was holding an in dash, removable car mp3 player, and it wasn’t an empeg!

The player is called the NEO-35 (Matrix connotations?) and is being sold by Rivo Systems. A sales person approached me and a discussion ensued. I fairly quickly decided that it was no real competition with the empeg based on features. Its redeeming value is that it’s half the price of an empeg and would probably do the job for a large percentage of the general non-geek population.

Much of the details are on their (slightly sloppy) website.

Cons: 3.5” HDD (I guess they must have some shock mounting), LCD, Non-Upgradeable S/W. Don’t know about VBR etc.
I liked the fact that it docks in a drive bay and comes with a home dock too, although this does make it impossible to transfer files at different locations.
It has a key lock on front, which spoils the look but it probably useful if you have a convertible.

I didn’t have time to play with the software or the interface (I had to go and see Tadpole live) but I’ll go back tomorrow and see if I can check it out.

That thing looks good, and not like some homemade unit. Although it is way too long to fit in most any car dash. The docking unit is almost 10 inches long, for all the ass backwards americans, and 250mm for everyone else. I know for a fact that to install that in my trucks dash I would have to have 2.5 inch sticking out. And that would severly hamper my manual transmission.

I would gladly pay double for an empeg tuesday than a neo today.

-Waiting to replace the hole in my truck with a Mark2