BigTrace

MyGig Reviewed:

Having purchased a Sahara JK Unlimited last Monday the 1st, I’ve had about 10 days now to play with and use the MyGig which I was VERY excited about. I am however, disappointed with the system. Those that are waiting for Rubi’s or Sahara’s on order due to MyGig availability I think will be disappointed as well.

My background is somewhat techie having been raised on PC’s going back 20+ years now where a 20MB disk was considered HUGE. I tend to like tech gadgets, TV’s etc. like most of you so again I was anxious to get my hands on this unit.

My disappointment exists on many levels. The Nav system, HDD, and Screen functions are very non-intuitive and do not allow for much customization. I’ll start with the HDD feature. Loading in music was pretty easy and somewhat quick. I finally ended up using a USB key which seemed the easiest. I started with an SD card using a card reader but that didn’t work. It might be due to the fact that my card reader looks like 4 different drives when plugged in. Maybe the USB interface can’t recognize more than 1 drive ie the USB key working. Ripping CD’s was simple, however, the sound quality was somewhat lackluster after ripped. For instance, I could listen to a CD, yet when I listened to the same song(s) on the HDD, I noticed some “Popping” and other strange noises not heard on the CD. Not every song, but a few nonetheless. MP3’s that I had on my computer transferred just fine, but several songs (about 10%) popped like crazy, even at low levels. They don’t do that in my IPOD or my computer directly, so it must be something in the transfer process. The disc space is well used and I found I had more than 18 gigs of free space. Playlists were another issue. You had to have your songs organized prior to loading them. For instance, if you want to listen to “Rock” songs versus “Country” songs, you should organize them within folders prior to loading them into the MyGig. You should also change the song tags if you want MyGig to organize them for you into different Genres. If you don’t, there isn’t a way (that I found at least) to organize your songs into different playlists once the song is placed into the MyGig. If you just load in a bunch of songs it will put them all in the root drive and leave them there!, hence my frustration. Another issue is when you rip CD’s, you have to rip the entire disc, then go back and delete songs. This is a waste of time and causes fragmentation in your drive. Why didn’t they create a screen BEFORE the rip where you could pick out the song titles you wanted to rip??

I didn’t use the Nav system too much, but from what I did use, I didn’t find it intuitive either. I come from a Garmin background having used a C330 and now a Nuvi 680. In the MyGig, if you place an address in the system for later use, you can’t immediately save it. My wife and I travel a lot and frequently place addresses into our Garmins and save the address for when we get to where we’re going, then light it off. This thing wants you to save the location AFTER you get there or create a contact person. Again, I haven’t had too much experience with it yet, but from the little I do have, it seems backwards.

The screen is nice especially the touch screen features, but when you can only see 4 radio stations at a time or better yet, 3 song titles via the list feature, it doesn’t help too much. There is too much screen there not to be able to see and do more things from the main screen. For instance, to adjust the audio controls, you need to hit the “Menu” hard key, followed by the “Equalizer” soft-button, followed by increasing 1 of 3 levels for either the Bass, Mid-Range, or High (tweeter) range. By the time you go through all of that, you could be rear ending the guy in front of you. Then you need to hit “Done” about 3 times or so just to get back out to the main menu. Deleting songs from the HDD is even worse. The sequence of “Menu (Hard-Button)”, “My Files”, “Playlists”, then scrolling to find the correct list (3 lists at a time of course), hitting the “Edit” button, then finding the song(s) to delete, hitting the “delete” key, then hitting the “Yes, I’m Sure” key to confirm seems a little overboard. You would think they would have an area where you could just “Add” or “Delete” songs at will. Again, just not very intuitive.

My neighbor is about to get his Rubi without the MyGig (just due to stock on hand and time constraints) and he wants to buy my MyGig from me. I think I’m going to have to take him up on it and get something that makes sense. It was a good attempt, but I’d like to see iteration 2 or 3 before I went down this path again.

Sorry for my rant.. I mean “Review”

GadgetPhreak

Thanks for the write-up BigTrace, very detailed and informative (with examples) and not just a rant (err review).

The good news is that all of the issues you raise are just software and not hardware, so it's stuff that can easily be fixed and rolled out as they get more feedback and experience on the user experience...

The one issue that occurs to me is the popping noise, this has been discussed elsewhere and is very intriguing to me. Typically that type of noise is hardware related and not just formatting or software related. I will definitely spend some time poking around when mine arrives and will update with my findings.

I will also spend some time poking around to see if anyone has developed any alternate user interfaces for the MyGig system. Inevitably as more of these units get out into the market the modding community will get their hands on enough details to look into replacements/updates to the system to drive user created alternates.

I will have to do some research and see what IC and OS the MyGig system is based on, as well as who does the programming for it currently. If anyone knows, post up...

Cheers,
Gadget

BigTrace

Yes I do agree with your post. I am currently downloading the MyGig Update and am axious for someone to try it and report back. I did an update for my Treo 700P Smartphone, which was a mistake as I had to wait another 6 weeks for the programming crew to "Fix the Fix". Don't want to be in that position again.

Nevertheless, MyGig is a great concept and seems to be the "Wave" of things to come, however, it is in its "infancy" and would be better served once they correct the user interface. This is probably the biggest issue with this system and all systems in general just because you have more interaction with your car stereo than even your home stereo. It's got to be easier with certain things before it will be accepted. For instance the time on the screen is EASILY adjustable, just press the time and go from there. If fact, it gets its time from satellite sources so its already correct, a no brainer, as opposed to the slew of buttons most regular stereo's have you go through just to change the time. Why couldn't they have a small icon on the front screen with a little equalizer on it (or something) that allows you to go directly to the audio control screen to adjust the bass, treble and midrange? Not smart.

I am a big fan of the technology and hope they get it right, eventually, but in the meantime, I think there are better alternatives we'll see.