User
Opinions: MiniJam
| madcoweater | Nothing else to compare it to. | 
| I think the miniJam is great!
The sound quality is great.I use Koss sportapro headphones so that might help too.
It functions easly.
Getting music in and out of it is much better now that I got an AC addapter from radio shack.
Don't be such cry babies about the transfer times. Just go hug someone or do some work while it's loading in music.
I got the 32mb which is fine for me because I don't listen to music for more than 15 minuets at a time anyway. |
| grayrest | a (mostly) solid product |
| Cons:
The only physical problem with the module is that it covers up the top of the visor so that the plastic screen cover that came with my visor deluxe no longer fits (documented in the review). Most of the problems are software and have been noted already. My 64MB memory card came formatted for 32MB, so I had to spend half an hour reformatting my card to get what I paid for. The transfer is the standard 2MB/min, causing it to take about 30 minutes for the entire card to be filled. Changing the balance causes the volume to creep to maximum and reajusting the volume under these circumstances occasionally causes the balance to change. I assume that a software revision will fix this. The popping that has been mentioned is the MMC being accessed. This is audible when starting a playback, when a song changes, and when skipping forward and backward on a track. You'd think that the engineers could fix this without too much difficulty with better software. The playback button not responding is a known issue that will be fixed in a software upgrade. The battery complaint is valid. The direct access to the disk must use more batteries than the playback. I listened to the included songs for about 3 hours after first inserting the module and used about half my batteries. After replacing the batteries, I spent about an hour and a half loading songs onto the module, then formatting the disk when I realized that I only had 32MB available on my 64MB card, then reloading the module. This activity left me with half a battery. For this reason, I think that an ac adapter should be provided included in the $250 (I actually think the visor should run off the computer's power when on its cradle, but that's just my opinion). I'm pretty sure I'll be purchasing some rechargable batteries to save money.
Pros:
The review was pretty accurate. The sound quality is good and the thing works as advertised, a lot of the complaints below would have been answered. I've had no crashes, my module fit, the card, once formatted can hold 62MB of music, the playback time is about 5 hours after transferring a full disk of music on one set of batteries.
Wish List:
I would like for the onscreen browser to work much like WinAMP (my preferred mp3 playback app). I should be able to drag the playback shuttle to get to the part of the song I want without having to use the forward and back skip buttons, the playback should have the total length of the song displayed, the main playback screen should also have the next song or two as a scrolling list at the bottom of the screen, the playlist manager should have the length of each track displayed as well as the total length of all the tracks. I would like to know how to make a skin, but that information is unavailable. |
| The Captain | Several Problems..but sounds OK | 
| Whilst there is no question the minijam delivers in the sound quality department, there are several problems which need to be addressed before I would recommend this product to others.
The issues I have found include:
a. The Hardware playback / pause button does not always work. It seems to be rate sensitive and freqently fails to start playback when opening the minijam app for the first time.
b. The Visor locks-up frequently when trying to remove the minijam module; even with the Visor powered off.
c. The formatted capacity of the 64MB version is about 50% which severely limits the number of MP3 files you can load.
d. The minijam module moulding is not well designed, meaning it does not precisely slide into the Visor expansion bay. I have other springboard modules which fit well. The minijam has to be carefully inserted as it has a tendency to slide in off square to the docking bay. I was concerned I might bend the edge conector pins in the Visor.
e. Moving the minijam skin R-L control causes the sound volume to jump to maximum.
f. There is no sound recording capability.
g. There is a noticable click or pop in the speakers / headphones when you start a song for the first time by either using the hardware play button or application icon. This more noticeable on higher volume levels.
Its a pity there are so many problems with the minijam and that it was released before without all promised features.
I was a little dissapointed to find the external power option was not included for the money I spent. Not to mention, I can only store MP3 files.
However to be fair to Innogear the sound quality is impressive and the minijam adds another dimension to the Visor. Notwithstanding this, if you want a fully functional MP3 player then for the money you
would be better off buying a standalone MP3 player dedicated for this task.
For my money the reduced formated storage capacity and problems with the hardware playback button are major detractors. |
| carl lewis | Doesn't work |
| Problems over problems
MMC defective
slow file transfer
too big
expensive
locks visor |
| skippyjones | If you don't have a portable Mp3 Player and PDA, the Minijam is for you. |
| If you already own a good portable Mp3 player w/ 64mb capacity don't bother buying the Minijam. But If you're deciding which PDA to buy and you never had an Mp3 player, buy the Visor and the Minijam. You may have to invest $20 in rechargable batteries and a charger but it'll be worth it. |
| slow rider | Download too slow |
| It's easy to download songs, but it takes sooo long. USB is supposed to be fast, but this thing is not fast. |
| Bought too soon | Battery sucker |
| Even when you're not playing, the minijam sucks your batteries. When you are playing you can see the battery level go down in front of your eyes. |
| Testes | Get rid of all the controls |
| The idea of an expansion module is to expand the original device (the Visor), in this case it looks awfully like the Visor is expanding the MiniJam as an oversized, overexpensive....display.
Get rid of the stupid buttons (to have buttons I would buy an independent MP3 player), reduce the size or put an independent battery, and lets controll it from the Visor.
That would have been great, as it stand is a hughe rip-off. |
| Patrick | Resets the PalmOS constantly!! |
| Maybe the unit itself works OK, but the software they provide is extremely buggy and will crash your Visor all the time! |
| gayguy | WARNING TO MACINTOSH USERS! |
| As currently shipping (September 2000) the MiniJam is NOT usable with the Macintosh running in native mode. InnoGear does not have any functional Mac software on their CD -- the only way to use their host computer software (a necessity, since that's the only way to download mp3 files to the unit) is to run Windows on the Mac (either via software or hardware -- I used Virtual PC 3.0 and it worked fine).
InnoGear says that full Macintosh support will be available soon, but history indicates that they have a little trouble estimating delivery times. |
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Product
Details
Name: MiniJam
Company: InnoGear
Size: 2½ x 2¼ x 1-1/8
Weight: 1.4 oz.
Memory: 37 K on Visor when inserted
Hard Cover Compatible: No
Price:
$199.00 (32 MB), $259.00 (64 MB)
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