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GIGATUNES Be careful: if you buy a Compaq iPAQ Music Center, your five-disc CD changer and your AM-FM tuner may get a teeny bit jealous. The networked device, due out in late spring, blends in with the other audio components on the shelf but contains a 20-GB hard drive, a CD deck and a Net radio tuner. You will be able to store and sort 5,000 songs and listen to your favorite radio programs, even if they're airing on the other side of the globe...
...collection is hopelessly Balkanized. To listen to a Moby track, I can stick a CD on the stereo. But to hear the remix, I have to run downstairs, fire up the PC and select the right MP3. I tried ripping all my CDs onto my computer, but its 2-GB hard drive gave out before...
...anyway. In practice, it's not quite so easy. There are now three MP3 jukeboxes on the market. Each has a hefty price tag (between $400 and $600) and lousy battery life (about four hours), and each is a first-generation device--which means imperfections are rife. The 6-GB Nomad Jukebox from Creative Labs takes ages to boot up. The 6-GB Personal Jukebox 100 from Remote Solutions only takes CD rips (which means you can't transfer any Napster files you might have stored on your PC). And the 9-GB Neo 25 from SSI is a pain...
...there's little reason to upgrade an older PC. The browser and media player have been available as free downloads since July. And if your computer has anything less than a Pentium-150 with 32 MB of memory, the bloated Windows Me (which can gobble as much as 2 GB of disk space) won't work...
...squeeze a rock epic like Kiss's Double Platinum into the 32 MB (an hour of music, at best) that is standard on such popular MP3 players as the Rio 600. But the new Nomad Jukebox ($499), due out next week from Creative, has a hotter-than-hell 6 GB of memory. That's enough to keep you rockin' all night...