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Note: Gateway is currently offering an instant
$50 rebate. Use coupon code: 6GBJUKEBOX at
checkout. This offer is not valid when purchased
with a PC (as of 6/25/2005).


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Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox Review
Review by Ron Risman - June 2005





Transferring Photos

Photos can be transferred to the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox in one of three ways. You can drag and drop photos from within Microsoft file explorer on your Windows PC (Macintosh isn't supported), directly connect a compatible flash card reader or directly connect a compatible digital camera.

I tested the direct transfer feature using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. To transfer images from your camera to the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox you connect the camera's USB cable to the USB connecting cable supplied with the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox. As soon as you turn on the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox the player will ask if you want to transfer all of the files. It's that simple! You can also connect the Gateway unit to USB card readers, freeing up your camera for shooting, assuming you have a second memory card.

A Viking brand 512MB Compactflash memory card, full of photographs, transferred in 12 minutes and 43 second. The transfer speed breaks down to .67-megabytes per second or 40MB per minute. This is not a fast process, but still a lot more convenient that lugging a laptop on vacation just for the purpose of transferring images. Not only that, you can transfer images to the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox while out shooting or when taking a lunch break, something you wouldn't do with your laptop.




Rechargeable and Removable Li-Ion Battery
The Gateway has enough juice to allow you to transfer six 512MB memory cards full of images to it's hard drive on one charge. Its possible that I could have squeezed one more transfer out of it since I mistakenly left the Gateway unit on for about 5 minutes in between one of the transfer cycles. At the end of six transfers there was still battery life left on the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox, however the battery indicator was the red, which indicates very low battery life. I tried to do another transfer at that point, but it kept kicking me out of the transfer mode. Unlike many competitive MP3/Photo players, Gateway has designed this unit with a removable Li-Ion battery, so if you're frequently away from power, it's nice to know that you can purchase a spare battery. Battery life on the Gateway MP3 Jukebox for normal operation (playing music, reviewing photo's) is rated at 8-10 hours. I typically got between 8 and 8 1/2 hours during the couple of weeks that I used it.

Connecting the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox to your digital camera is a simple 3-step process:

  1. Connect a compatible* digital camera to the Gateway Photo Jukebox, using the USB cable that came with your digital camera.

  2. Turn on the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox, press the navigation down ARROW button once to select the PICTURES option, then use the right ARROW to view the pictures MENU. Using the down arrow, highlight the option titled "UPLOAD", then select it by pressing the right arrow once. This will start the transfer process. upload.

  3. Once the transfer of images is complete you should confirm that the transfer went as planned by checking the folders on the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox and looking for your newly uploaded photos. Once this has been verified you can safely delete the images from your camera's memory card.
* Supports digital camera's that read as USB mass-storage devices (most newer ones do). Most of my testing was done using the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, however I did try testing the transfer using my Canon EOS-10D and found that it was not compatible for direct transfers. Gateway has a list of tested models on their website, however there are many newer models that are compatible, that are not listed.

When viewing photo's on the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox, the images will most likely be displayed with a black border across the top and bottom of the screen. This is because the screen on the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox is square, while the images taken with your camera are more rectangle in shape. Using your PC, you can resize and crop your images to fit the 128x128 resolution and/or aspect ratio to get "full-screen" images.

















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