Digital Home Thoughts: Olympus m:robe 500i

Once the Luster Fades…
Yes, it is cool. Yes, it is shiny. Yes, it has a camera which automatically gives it 100 cool points. Unfortunately though, Olympus was much like Julius Caesar: too ambitious.

Where it fails as an MP3 player

As a rule, it is unethical to base any sound quality reviews on the included cheapo earphones. Unfortunatly my old Panasonic CD player sounded better then the m:robe when I used my Sony studio monitoring headphones. The EQ worked well to alter the sound frequencies, but all my music still sounded just a bit flat. I am not saying that it's bad, it just didn’t amaze me as much as the design did. If you get past this problem with a nice headphone amp I have more bad news for you. This device is slow. When I say this device is slow I am talking about Concorde vs. sloth kind of slow. The shiny OS takes the better part of seven seconds to turn on from the off position and the time between when you touch the screen until the device completes the function is at times too lengthy to go unnoticed. The playback screen has a huge portion dedicated to the playlist and even has a scrolling progress bar. On a device where to fast forward you need to hold down a touch sensitive screen for a little while, you would think they would implement a finger scrolling feature since there is a scrolling bar already, but nothing of the sort exists. The bar is unaffected by your finger and if you have hour long live recordings, getting to a favorite part is annoying at best. The volume display also has a scrolling type bar, but you can change the volume only by tapping the small icons on the opposite sides of the popup screen. Same story goes for all scrollable screens. The device is also horrible at showing titles which are too long. There is a set cutoff point and no live scrolling of the title. Speaking of dealing with length, I discovered a glitch in the device when I tried to play a live two hour mix. As you may very well know, there are 120 minutes in two hours. The m:robe only displays 99:99 of those minutes and lets the song play the other 20:01 minutes out with the timer stuck at 99:99. Granted, not a lot of people listen to two hour mixes, but that glitch combined with poor song scrolling capability frustrated me. Although buttons don’t look cool, I’ll take then any day over a completely touch screen interface unless some serious usability issues are resolved. Another problem is the lack of features on a $500 MP3 player. Where is FM radio? Where is Line Out on the device? The thing is huge, so you might as well put some I/O on it! The iPod Shuffle clone has voice recording, why can’t this thing? The m:robe is an awesome idea that didn’t run through the common sense department of Olympus.


Figure 11: It seems that all my recorded mixes are the exact same length...right down to the second.

Where it fails as a camera

1.3 mega pixels might not seem like much, but several years ago it was the norm for consumer digital cameras. In March 2001 Olympus released its 1.3 mega pixel C-1. The street price for that camera was $300. It has been 4 years and you would think that Olympus could vastly improve single mega pixel imaging with new optics. The m:robe is by no means tiny and could have easily included a flash. The shutter is unbearably slow and getting a sharp image indoors is difficult at best. Don’t get me started on color accuracy. Most camera phones that I’ve used produce MUCH better images than the m:robe. Blacks look purple! Coming from Olympus this is a shock. If you are making a device that sets itself apart from others by having camera functions at the expense of size, you should make sure that the camera is at least mediocre.


Figure 12: Come on now, my cell phone has more capture options!


Figure 13: That guy was wearing a black shirt and was sitting on a black chair. Yes, I said black. Click on the image for the full size image. (609KB)


Figure 14: I took a picture of myself in a warehouse mirror. All I got was noise, noise, and more noise. Click on the image for the full size image. (775KB)


Figure 15: The image is noisy and colorless. Click on the image for the full size image. (501KB)


Figure 16: Even outside, the shutter has to be very slow in order to capture the image. Notice the blur on the car. Click on the image for the full size image. (600KB)


Figure 17: A cool view of the Sears Tower ruined by noise. Click on the image for the full size image. (620KB)


What about that third function. It was good, right?

Well…yes. The Remix function is great but PictBridge is just not enough I/O. The Archos Gmini 400 is much smaller, has the same capacity, has a lot more I/O, plays videos, AND it has a CF slot to store your pictures on the go. Olympus listen, if you create an awesome portable photo viewer that has a paltry camera and a mediocre MP3 player on board why not give the end user the ability to get nice pictures on the device using other methods? USB On-The-Go would have been a better option, as would at least an SD card slot. CF would have been awesome as one can just get adapters for all other types of flash memory. Yet another opportunity lost.

So Does the Cool Guy Beat the Cool Headed One?
No. This device is a great concept with poor execution. It seems like it was rushed to the market. It's like buying a Ferrari with a Corolla engine; you will look good at the stop light but a kid on rollerblades will beat you at the drag strip. Gary’s top tip: avoid.


Figure 18: Just steer clear of this mess.