Gateway DMP-X20 20 GB Jukebox Player

Pros: Sound, size and supple.
Cons: Minor design flaws.

I have tried the Neuros GB20 and Rio800 and the Digital Gateway DMP-X20 is the "Jukebox King." Elvis is performing live on this stage. This is the player we have been waiting to buy.

MP3 players are purchased for sound, sound and sound. The digital Gateway DMP-X20 delivers Loud, Clear and True Fidelity. That is not the only reason I call the Gateway DMP-X20 the "Jukebox King."

It is not size and contrast that makes the display. Content, readability, menu design and the intuitive menu system allows me to play a song or a book quickly. Makes this display peerless.

Take it to the beach, go skiing or take a long walk and hear your favorite tunes, get the news, weather and scores, listen to a book and record an idea or a speech. 10 hours of total audio mobility. No, you cannot take it in the shower with you!

WARNING: I have dropped my Gateway 3 times from my desktop while writing this review and it has not skipped a note. DO NOT TRY IT FROM OVER 100'.

THAT WAS NOTHING I RAN OVER THE GATEWAY AND MY MOTOROLA CELL PHONE WITH MY CAR!! DON'T ASK!. THE CELL PHONE NO LONGER WORKS, THE GATEWAY DMP-X20 HASN'T MISSED A NOTE, THE FM TUNER IS PERFECT AND VOICE REORDING ARE FULLY FUNCTIONING.

In my school the Gateway DMP-X20 is the valedictorian of this year's class of MP3 players for the GPA earned in the demanding courses listed below:

SOUND AAAA++++

Size & Weight A+
It's slightly larger than a cigarette pack at 4" x 2 5/8" x 7/8" and weighs a little less than half a pound.

Support Formats A- It plays WMA, WAV, MP3 and Audible file formats.

Transfer Speed A+ USB 2.0, 6' cable included.

FM Tuner
12 presets A- Default is the last station played, can overwrite presets.
Tuning A+

Remote
Control B+ Wired, I think it's a little small my hands.
Features B- Lock - Volume; Forward, Back, Fast F, Fast Back

Headset
Ear bud No Grade
I do not like ear buds, I use my Panasonic RC-HP70 Noise Canceling headset. After spending $300 for an MP3 Player. Who does not use a noise canceling headset?

Display
Readability A+
2 " - I am totally color blind so if it works for me...Indigo blue backlight, 60 x 128, I found the size just right.
Boot up A+ 2000 songs & 40 Audible songs took12 seconds to load.
Scrolling A- Very responsive.
Menu System B+ Select by Playlist, Genre, Artist, Album, Track

Playlist
Creation A+ Very intuitive - no learning curve.
Number A+ Unlimited
Access A+ Quick song/track access. Click on choice and select
Buffer A+ 16MB, no dead spots during jogging or cycling.
Capacity B+ 20GB HDD
Battery Life A- Li-Ion. Gateway say it's 10 hours. I did not test their claim.

Voice recording is quick and easy. I have discovered that this feature is just like having a tablet with me.

Neither the Windows Media Player nor the Audible Manager support playing a song/book from a Player. This is a deficiency that should be corrected by Microsoft and Audible.

DISCLAIMER: I am not an employee, subcontractor of Gateway nor do I have any financial interest in Gateway.

Jeremy

ON/OFF Switch not convenient

Case should have a opening for power supply and the USB connection.

In my school the Gateway DMP-X20 is the valedictorian of this year's class of MP3 players.


Audible and voice recording - could be better for me   March 16, 2004
C. Craver (OH United States)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

I've had the DMP-X20 for about 3 weeks. It's a nice piece of equipment but as far as I can tell it's not the holy grail of players.

I should preface my review by saying my primary interest in the Gateway was not for the MP3 player, but for the Audible player. I was also interested in the voice recording feature. While the DMP-X20 provides both options, they're a bit clunky. Previously I was using a pocket PC (Dell Axim) as my player, which worked pretty well but didn't have the capacity I wanted.

The DMP-X20 only supports Audible format 4. This format is 4 times the file size of format 2 (the format I had been using), which means more disk space is required and longer download times of books over the internet. I found this very disappointing. The other drag is that I cannot drag-and-drag Audible files to the player as I could with my pocket PC (at least by any means I can understand). This disappointed me as well because Audible's user interface program isn't what I would call user friendly.

There is a limitation in the number of bookmarks you can use, and I'm not sure why.

The voice recording works pretty well, once you get it going. However, it takes so long to switch to the recording mode. This makes it impractical if you plan to use it to make quick voice recordings. It also doesn't have a convenient way to stop and start recordings with the intention of separating a meeting into different tracks. Not as fluid as other digital voice recorders I've used. The upside to the voice recording is that the mic does record fairly well. One thing that seems a little weird is that I haven't been able to delete my voice recordings. I've followed the instructions but the menu they say should appear doesn't. Either I'm doing something wrong or their firmware upgrade has a glitch.

Customer support was not very helpful when I contacted them via their web site. I just received back from them a canned answer that didn't answer my question. But hey, they're primary business is computers, not MP3 players ... though my experience would deter me from buying a PC from them.

There also doesn't seem to be a feature that "wakes it up" the player. If you let it sit and it shuts itself off, you have to turn the power switch off and back on again for it to come on ... just tedious, you know?

The protective case - nice concept but it frays along the edges. Sloppy craftsmanship.

The radio - works about as good as any FM radio without an antenna. If you don't need the antenna where you live, you'll love it.

NONE of my criticisms add up to this being a bad player, it's just not the holy grail.

On the upside - it feels pretty solid, though I haven't dropped it yet. A tad heavy but nice dimensions. The scroll wheel is awesome! As compared to my pocket PC, the controls are much more user friendly, especially when driving.


Gateway DMP-X20 short comings   March 18, 2004
Dan Miller (Peoria, Illinois)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I just bought the Gateway DMP-X20 yesterday, and I am not very impressed. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful jukebox with excellent sound quality. But, some of the options that it is lacking will cause me to return it today. Frist, I am used to having Archos jukeboxes. Unlike the Archos, the Gateway WILL NOT sort your tracks according to track number, instead sorts them alphabetically. I do not like this. I am used to hearing my CD's in a certain order, and I know which tracks I want. I don't want to have to think of all the songs on that CD, then figure out where it will be placed in an alphabetical sort. Secondly, you have no option to browse the harddrive. This is an option I love! Why connect your jukebox to your computer to find out what data you have stored on it. I prefer to browse the jukebox itself to see if there is something I need on it. Over all, it is a very decent jukebox, but not what I am used/acustom to. If these complaints don't bother you, I would highly recommend getting the Gateway DMP-X20


ANGRY PISSED AND DISAPPOINTED (Gateway to Hell)   October 29, 2004
DJ Beast (LOS ANGELES, CA)
6 out of 10 found this review helpful

I bought my player thru Gateway.com thru financing. Well it just turned utself off & never turned on again, & I just had for 7 mos. I emailed Gateway's tech Support, it took 3 weeks for them to realize that they could'nt help me at all..The Tech Dept STINKS!!!! Then I called the custmer service to tell them my problem, guess what ''TOO BAD SO SAD'' they couldnt do anything about it because the warranty expired but I told them a year had'nt even passed yet, what kind of junk are they selling I asked. $300 down the drain NEVER AGAIN...& another little thing I saw on the Consumeraffairs.com page, there was a woman who complained to Gateway about her problem and they gave her an address to send her written complaint to. Turns out that the address given to her is a dead end, letters to never be read, So she found an address to the Execs office and they finally responded to her problem, found out that some of the stuff they sell is REFURBISHED. DON'T BUY FROM GATEWAY!!!! DON'T BUY FROM GATEWAY!!!!cus GATEWAY really is a GATEWAY TO HELL!!!


Great Jukebox but it broke - 0 stars   February 12, 2004
Thomas B. Cass (North Syracuse, New York United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

*** Final Update. After 20 months of use my player died. My wife had one and it too died. This is unacceptable. My new rating is 0 stars. On a positive note we had the extended warranty and they refunded our money no questions asked and didn't even want the player back! It still works as a portable hard drive so all was not lost. It just won't play music properly. 5 stars for customer support. With the return money my wife bought an iPod. We're dissapointed with that product. Doesn't sound as good as the Gateway. iPods are way overrated. I bought a Creative Zen Touch which is a superior product to either the Gateway or the iPod. See my review elsewhere. ***


I have owned this jukebox for 6 months now (as of May 20 2004) and love it. It sounds great (with good headphones), is easy to use, well made and the price is right. So far I have loaded over 3000 songs and I use it every day. The unit has performed flawlessly. I would recommend this over any other jukebox on the market. Almost all the problems that some of the other reviewers had are corrected by the following update. Don't pay any attention to what they say. This is a fantastic jukebox. We own 2 of them.

Tom

Update!!!

There is a Firmware update that allows 4000 playlists. It also corrected numerous other glitches, most I was unaware of. This seems to indicate Gateway is serious about supporting this player. The update was easy and went flawlessly. I still highly recommend it after 3 months of regular use.

Here's the improvements

"Reason for Update

Version 2.3
Increases the maximum number of playlists to 4,000.
When the unit tries to play an unsupported wave format, a message displays noting that the format is unsupported. Before, the unit would hang up.
Added support for WAV files created on the PC in the following format: PCM at 8000 Hz, 16 Bit, Mono.

In Audible Menu, the default selection was changed to always be the top of the list.
Long WMA DRM files (> 12 min) caused the device to lock up.
Player was resetting when selecting any playlist while playing any voice recording file.
While playing the voice recording, sometimes the player shows "No Items" for MFM menus.
During Audible playback, when PREV key was pressed, the player either reset or go into fast forward mode.
While playing an Audible book, there are a couple of places that skip 10 minutes of the book.
Audible automatic bookmark did not save when switching from Audible to Voice Recording Playback and from Audible to Bookmarks.
When playing different types of tracks (MP3/WMA) from playlist menu, the player resets but starts the track after reset.
With MP3 and WMA tracks in the hotlist, pressing the back key was not giving the same list view every time.
Playlist names are not being displayed correctly.
Resume last track does not work properly in from WMA module.
Playlist name with 128 characters was not properly showing on display after scroll up/down.
Playlist with identical names were blocked but last character was not nullified.
Bookmark index was not correct. Selecting an existing bookmark played the wrong track.
The X of Y on the play screen sometimes is incorrect or it disappears.
While adding an artist to the playlist, it goes to the artist list menu in that state. If the play button is pressed, the wrong track is played.
When more than 8 playlists were added, all the playlist names were not visible and the scrolling was missing when viewed by pressing select button through the play screen.
If Output Setting is set to Line Out, the volume information screen is not displayed when in Play Mode and the scroll wheel is used.In Playlist edit mode, when moving a track, the Delete and Add selections should not be allowed to be selected."