It may or may not be, and that may or may not be public knowledge!

That looks like THE SHIT! Congratulations guys.

Very cool Rob. I wasn't even considering getting another mp3 player since I have my Empeg, but now that I've seen some pics I can see how handy it'd be to have something so small. You can tell your marketing people you might have made a sale if I have the money when the Pearl comes out; too bad you won't get a commission!

Mmmmmmm.... 100 megabit ethernet port on the back.... RCA jacks..... DROOOOOOOL....

Cool man.... just don't send out any "Bad Karma" man....

Karma: +5, Dope Ass Shit (Mostly affected by involvement of the Cambridge team)

I'm so glad to see that dockable ethernet didn't end up on the cutting room floor as I assumed it would. Can you tell us if the dock going to cost extra? Soon it'll be time to break out the hammer and smash the piggy bank.

Matthew

Interesting...I don't see a DC power input. Does it charge with power from the USB? I think I'll be stashing away some shekels for this puppy.

Drooool.....

-Zeke

Looks like a DC power input on the dock to me, in between the white RCA jack and the USB connector.

That small? It looked too wee to be a DC input.

-Zeke

That small? It looked too wee to be a DC input.

Yeah, and the Pearl/Karma looks too wee to be an MP3 player with many gigs of storage.

Hey, I can get a USB charger for my PDA & phone, why not do it with this? Everyone hates wall warts.

-Zeke

edit: Not that having a wall wart would dissuade me from purchasing...

I agree with you in theory, but then people with no USB would be shut out. Bestest solution would be allow power from either, of course.

That small? It looked too wee to be a DC input.

If it's anything like the other recent portable players that Rio's done (such as the S50), it's an extra-small connector, much smaller than what's on the car player.

Interesting...I don't see a DC power input

The jack is a mini-USB connector.

Correct, the DC input is the small hole next to the micro USB port. It's that small so we can use the same AC adapter when the player is not docked.

Rob

Damn, no PoE?

You can only take 500mA from USB - this is not enough to run the player and trickle charge the battery.

500mA is enough to trickle charge a mobile phone, which doesn't have to contend with impulse currents when a hard disk spins up. Even so many mobiles take more, but the USB charger manufacturers don't care about USB compliance.

FYI our other (smaller) new portables do take power from USB.

Rob

Damn, no PoE?

No, sorry, neither of the installed POE users wanted a Pearl

Rob

If it's anything like the other recent portable players that Rio's done (such as the S50), it's an extra-small connector, much smaller than what's on the car player

In fact it's a smaller connector than the S50 one! We are using the same connector on Slate, so it had to be very small! It is a readily available standard, though, and of course you get an AC Adapter with the player.

Rob

I'm so glad to see that dockable ethernet didn't end up on the cutting room floor as I assumed it would. Can you tell us if the dock going to cost extra?

The dock is included with the player. The plan is to sell additional docks, if there's any demand for them (I believe there will be).

Rob

"...neither of the installed POE users..."

ROFLMAO!

Screen's dry as I'm out of coffee.

-Zeke

Cool man.... just don't send out any "Bad Karma" man

..so you should probably check out the firmware recovery mode if you get a Pearl

Rob

FYI our other (smaller) new portables do take power from USB

Ah, so you're also already working on the successor of Pearl ?

I think he means the non-hard drive based portables. You know, CompactFlash, et al.

I think he means the non-hard drive based portables. You know, CompactFlash, et al.

Not necessarily. We saw a really slick one at the West Coast dinner at The Stinking Rose. It was hard disk based, but small as hell. I'm not sure if I should say anything more about it though (capacity).

Slate was discussed with the press at CES so its not all that secret. 1.5GB capacity in a unit substantially smaller than the current flash players.

Cool. Didn't remeber its code name.

Bah. Way more than that.

I'm tired of having a cord for my Cisco 7940; I really want PoE here.

Which reminds me, I've only used it for SIP calls. I wonder what its phone number is?

How bout this name for the new (Pearl) unit...
-Empeg Jr!-

brian