Two of my friends have been blabbing about this phatbox thing. I told them to look at the Empeg/Rio car, but I decided to go look up this phatbox thing so I knew what I was comparing to.

Has anyone here used or had any exposure to the Phatbox? It does seem to have some advantages - mostly with portability. But my main complaint is with its limited interface. Its nice to see the support for SSA and voice recognition, and unfortunately jumping on these bandwagons early seem to draw a lot of people (like higher GHz is good for Intel...). Unfortunately people that would not typically do their research are typically drawn to these new features that no one has yet.

I did not like the playlisting features too much - it seems kind of flat and limiting. It does not seem to be very flexible, and you're limited to whatever screen your head unit has - provided it is Kenwood.

I must admit that the Phatbox appears to pose some decent competition for the Empeg. I stand by my empeg though. The ability to customize and modify the interface, plugins, etc these are things the Phatbox does not seem to be able to do.

- I just wanted to see what other people thought about it.

BleachLPB

One 20 or 30 gb hd wouldn't cut it for me. Also, I don't know if I could live without the wonderful hacks, equilizers., screen selections etc.

The phatbox doesn't have voice recognition, just voice prompting; it also isn't as flexible as the empeg in that the pull-out part doesn't play music.

We (as empeg) did the first changer-bus MP3 player back in 1999 (I think there are some pics on riocar.org?), but the UI is pretty limiting when compared to the full empeg-car setup.

The products are aimed at different markets though; the Riocar is for a high-end audio enthusiast with a huge music collection. The phatbox is more for someone who has some MP3s and doesn't want to (or can't) change the head unit in their car.

Of course, our new automotive developments cover a wide range of markets...

Hugo

I don't know. It's as if Empeg set the benchmark for car MP3 players and anyone who comes in later with a lower price, even if the device is crippled, wins. WTF is that all about?

PS - I'm pretty sure you can change the drives out of the Phatbox cartirdges.

How the heck would you pick what you want to hear from 40GB of music with a Phatbox via a Kenwood display?? Navigating 10 CD's is hard enough!

There are a lot of things one unit or another has or doesn't have. People are generally really confused. The biggest drawback preventing an all-out competition is the fact that SONICBlue has EOL'd the emeg (riocar).

In any case, I have made the mother of all comparative matrices to look at the Rio, PhatBox and Neo for good measure.

I have only shown it to a couple of people so far. It is not yet complete: I am waiting for some details on the PhatBox, etc. I also have to clean up the text and then make sure I put all the info into a relative order.

I would like to show it to a few more people however to make sure everything in it is cool. This is supopsed to be an UNBIASED matrix, unlike the marketing-inspired one on the PhatBox site or that you would see on the back of a product box.

Hugo, if you'd like, and have a few minutes to read it over and give me some feedback, I will forward you the URL. Everyone else, I will be more than glad to give out the temporary URL if you private message me. I'll only do this for a few people until I have the chance to do more work on it and finish it up.

Bruno

In case anyone is wondering, yes, I have also shown it to a couple of PhatBox people who think it is currently unbiased. :)

And, Of course, the susspense over these "new developments" is going to kill us. ;)