Image Courtesy: Gateway

Gateway has just released its MP3 Photo Jukebox that follow on the footsteps of numerous other players that are now offering photo viewing and music all on the same device. The Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox has a 1.6" TFT color screen with 128x128 screen resolution. It has a removable, rechargeable battery with a life span of eight hours and takes around three hours to fully recharge. The player has USB 2.0 connectivity option for rapid transfer speeds, power connection for recharging the battery, direct connect port for AC power adapter and an audio line out port for specified functionalities. The Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox comes in either a 4GB or 6GB version with different price tags, logically.

According to Gateway, this particular player supports MP3, WMA and JPEG audio and photo formats. The photo aspect of the player features an instant connect feature that would let you connect your camera to the Jukebox to do direct transfer of files. Various accessories include an AC adapter, a soft cover bag and a pair of earphones.

The faceplate includes a color screen with four buttons and a navigational pad. These four buttons include play/pause, skip forward and backward and an advanced options key. The top of the player has the headphones jack and the hold button for designated features. And finally, the back of the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox has a removable battery compartment.

The price for the 4GB and 6GB models is $199.99 and $249.99, respectively.

Initial Thoughts: First and foremost, Gateway’s MP3 Photo Jukebox doesn’t appear to have the standard FM tuner and recording capabilities that you would find in various other models from numerous manufacturers, which could be disappointing depending on your requirement. If are one of those people that never uses extraneous features in MP3 players, you probably wouldn’t mind too much. However, if you do prefer to use them, you are out of luck with Gateway’s MP3 Photo Jukebox. Adding to our list of disappointments, the battery life is only eight hours, which is not modest, but it isn’t the best in its class.

The resolution of the player appears to be pretty solid for image viewing. Even though it only supports JPEG as an exclusive format, we can let that pass, since Gateway’s competition isn’t supporting more than a single format either. The overall aspect of the player appears to be quite sleek with a refined exterior. What’s perhaps a very sweetening offer is that if you purchase the player through Gateway, you’ll get three months of unlimited downloads from Napster. Needless to say, this can lead to filling up your entire player within this time frame. This incentive alone makes the player far more valuable than competing products. If Gateway keeps up with the pricing, we must say it’s pretty attractive considering the value it proposes with the three-month Napster deal alone.