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D-Link DMP-CD100 MP3/CD Player
By Kelly Lu - February 28, 2001
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A few weeks ago, we introduced you to the Genica Tavarua, the first hybrid MP3/CD player released about a year ago that takes advantage of CD-R technology to allow the user to take about 150 songs with them on the road. We had liked the Tavarua quite a lot, and had recommended it as a must-have for savvy audiophiles, but at the same time, we had also complained about annoyances such as it's large size and major problems such as its extremely short battery life.
Today, we travel through time to the recent days, past a vast range of other MP3/CD players that have been released by a handful of companies throughout the past year or so, to the newly released MP3/CD player from D-Link: their DMP-CD100. D-Link is not a new company in the technology sector; they've been around since the early days of computing and have mainly specialized in networking for most of their existence. They're the number 1 maker of networking hubs and the number 2 maker of network interface cards in the world. It was not until the past few years that we've witnessed D-Link aggressively expanding into new markets, such as the rapidly growing digital audio/video market. Products such as the DSC-350 3-in-1 digital camera and the DMP-CD100 MP3/CD player that we're looking at here today are clear examples of this.
Utilizing regular CD-R's, all MP3/CD players on the market now utilize the same method of delivering music to your ears: they play so-called "MP3 CDs." These CD's contain MP3 files that are commonly burned onto CD-R discs and enable the player to play about 150 songs, each at about 4MB in size or 3-4 mins in length. This type of medium has a huge advantage over the conventional MP3 player that uses, for example, 64MB of built-in memory, which can only hold about 15 or so songs. Unfortunately, the fact that you must burn your MP3 files onto a CD-R or CD-RW disc first also poses a downside to these types of players as it means that you must own or have access to a CD burner for you to take advantage of the player's MP3 capability. Most, if not all, MP3/CD players on the market now can play regular Audio CDs along with MP3 CDs.
So, how does the new D-Link DMP-CD100 stand up against our previous encounter with the Genica Tavarua? Read on to find out...
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