Olympus is totally pushing their two new m:robe devices this year—if you thought it was going to be hard to get one in the US, worry no longer. The m:robe 500 is always awesome, with its 20GB hard drive and touchscreen interface. The problem is, the camera sort of sucks, and I don’t really care if I can “remix” my images into music slideshows or not. And as a music player, it’s a little big and a little convoluted to really appeal to me.
Now the m:robe 100 [pictured] on the other hand—that’s a mighty fine device. The interface is just a tad bit confusing at first, but it’s extremely good looking and feels great in your hand. The scroll bit is a little bit slower than using an iPod, but it’s still pretty usable, and the red-on-black look is wicked in every sense of the word. The only glaring problem I noticed in the 5GB player is the fact that the glossy front surface gets really janky with finger oils very quickly. You’ll be doing a lot of wiping it on your shirt or something before showing it off to your friends.
Also, I missed Cheap Trick yesterday! There is no god (of rock).
