Customer Reviews

Gateway DMP-X20 20 GB Jukebox Player

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

"Jukebox King" takes the stage & steals the MP3 scene! Priced at $ 299 it's a good buy if it's a good groduct.

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 ½" - 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.

*** 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."

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.

This MP3 player is a pretty good investment. I know that some have said that its not worth a darn but I havent had too much trouble with it yet. At first it did have some trouble with the track lists but I updated the firmware and that fixed it all. The files for updating the firmware are at http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/search.asp?st=pn¶m=7004768
But after the update I have not had any problems and the tracks are staying in numerical order. And unlike other reviews have said there is a way to change WMedia Player to include the track number if needed. This Mp3 player is also very user -intuitive, very easy to use.

UPDATE....If you have any URL bases songs that Windows Media Player sees as MP3's it will crash. after hours of coming through my "all music" list I found the songs that were crashing WMPLAYER 9 and deleted them...I then had clean runs...Windows Media Player 9 is still pretty lame and unstable. No syncing of changes in title or genre etc.

I bought the DMP-X20 after reading all the reviews and looking at the ipod, nomad etc. Windows Media Player 9.0 chrashes like crazy when I load songs on it, and scrables all the songs and info on the unit. Telephone support was week, I knew more than he did, but online support told me to update the firmware (flash memory ) on the unit. I did it and no luck...same error loading after about 3gigs of songs. I am now downloading the most recent version of Windows Media Player to see if that helps, but the errors say it is with the Plug In, which would be gateway. I have a new dell running xp pro and I even turned off all the drivers from the msconfig command to avaiod conflicts. In the end I think it is crappy windows media player to blame, but I can't tell. The unit is cool, and if I copy 100 songs over at a time it does not crash,(...) Also WMplayer is kind of dumb in alway wanting to load all the songs all the time, without syncing changes to artist, genre etc.

Also the rubber stopper for the power and USB cable are really week and don't stay closed. The Chinese fab must be using playdough instead of a good rubber tab like IBM uses(...)

I received my DMP-X20 jukebox as a Christmas gift and really, really like it! The big back button below the scroll wheel makes it very easy to use. Although the user interface is a little boring graphically, it's straight forward and simple to navigate. I also like the way it feels when I hold it in my hand. The metal bottom case and mirror front makes it feel and look like a quality product. And the sound quality is great. My only complaint so far is the case. To charge the battery, you have to remove the player since there isn't a hole cutout for the power adapter. But overall, they did a very nice job on this product.

I have had a few ups and downs with the player and my warning to you all is this: If you have a computer with a USB 1.0 port, do not get angry or expect the gateway to be as fast as you thought. On my desktop, i have a 1.0 USB port and the transfer leaves much to be desired. However, this is only a problem during the intial transfer of songs. After that, when you are only transferring a few songs or cd's at a time, the player is fine. If you have a 2.0 USB port, then you have clear sailing ahead. The tabs for the USB and power charger are weak, but if you keep it in its carrying case (which i love), then the tabs are fine. I love the look of the player and I love the fact that gateway supplies the USB cord with the player. The Ipod doesn't. Also, the ability to record meetings and then play those recordings and my music over my big stereo's speakers' is a definite plus. I heartily recommend this player.

Mine died after seven months, and Gateway's response to my question of how to get it repaired was to "take it to a local electronics shop." They've obviously realized these things are junk, and have disavowed themselves of any responsibility to people who bought them. I'll never buy another Gateway product again, period. ZERO stars.

I bought my Gateway DMP-X20 last week and I'm returning it today. I read all the reviews but I thought I could get around the "Playlist" issues. Here are my comments:

1) The unit only accepts music through Windows Media Player (which I don't like in the first place). Even if you drag & drop mp3's from folder to drive, they will not show up on your unit until you open Media Player and reconcile them.

2) Most of the reviews I read talked about the unit not playing songs in track order, but in alphabetical order, because the unit is basically a 20gig hard rive formatted as FAT32 type (DOS style). That's fine with me, because I make sure and edit all my ID3 tags myself, and I name them with the track title first. So not only does my filename read like, "01. Led Zeppelin - Black Dog" but my ID3 track title reads, "01. Black Dog"... So therefore, you would think that albums would play in alphabetical order....right??.... WRONG !!!


3) Windows Media automatically looks track file information on the internet and renames the ID3 tags based on what it finds. Therefore, the tracks it couldn't find stayed the same, but if it finds tracks that it matches, it switches to those tags. So instead of Led Zeppelin all being listed as "Classic Rock" genre, it changed some of the songs to "Pop/Rock" and some to "Rock"... Also, when it found a match, it renamed the ID3 title so there was no number in the beginning, "01. Black Dog" changed to "Black Dog" - hence, no longer album track order...

4) I called Gateway about it, they told me it was a Windows Media default and there was no way to get around it besides disconnecting from the internet. I'm not about to do that every time I want to transfer a song...

Therefore, as stated in others reviews, if you don't care about keeping albums in order, and you don't care about browsing by Genre or Album, then get it.. Otherwise, get the IPOD - I'm going to.

I'm not sure what may have happened with the product described in the previous review, but it in now way approximates my experience. This device is slick, small, sturdy, remarkably intuitive and has fantastic sound quality.

I can't comment on the radio part because , although I have had no problems with the radio, that is not my primary purpose in owning this state of the art machine.

I have several hundred CDs ripped to the DMP-X20 and have only used less than 2 gig of space. The device says it holds 20 gig of info, but in actuality it is about 19. It will hold 8,000 CDs, so I can't figure out how the prior reviewer used so much space with so few CDs.

Last, the sound quality is unbelievably good and the entire unit can be operated with one hand, changing songs, artists, albums or volume. I did upgrade to Koss rubber, in-ear plugs which give a better sound.

I assume there are going to be faulty units produced and have to guess that is what happened with the once reviewed above. I have never written an online review, but my experience was so superior and so different from this other one that I felt compelled to share. I have looked at a number of other players, but this is head and shoulders above them. Whether via Napster 2.0 or CDs from my computer, the transfer is quick and seamless. I fully recommend this device.