July 31, 2008
Creative Zen Krystal MP3 Player
This teeny (57 x 37 x 10.8mm, 22g) ZEN 'Krystal' packs 4GB of storage, a neat iPod-esque minimalistic design, Blue OLED display, FM tuner with 32 presets, voice recorder and stop watch. The Krystal is already fitting competition but the addition of a pedometer capable of tracking speed and distance in the same way as the iPod Nike+ add-on certainly breaks the mould. For the diet conscious there's even a calorie counter.
Confirming accelerometers are indeed cheap as chips, the Krystal also comes with games based on motion sensor technology including 'Catch & Dodge', 'Dice Roll' and 'Hurdle Race'. If all this is sounding a little exhausting however just settle down on the sofa and relax safe in the knowledge its proportionately large 10 hour battery life shouldn't be letting you down any time soon.
[link]
Posted by pajaro at 2:02 PM
Speedo Aquabeta Waterproof Mp3 Player
Speedo has announced it will be teaming up with iRiver and releasing the Aquabeat Waterproof MP3 Player. Designed to endure a depth of up to three meters, the Aquabeat is available in three stylish colours: black, lime and pink. It also has 1GB of storage and can hold up to 250 MP3 files or 500 WMA files.
The Aquabeat can be used with an arm band or can be attached to your swimsuit. Other features include:
- Playtime up to 9 hours.
- Waterproof earplugs.
- The ability to float for easy retrieval.
- Ergonomic buttons that allow ease of use while swimming.
- A simple playlist editing software.
- The ability to easily recharge through the USB port on a PC or laptop.
[speedo]
Posted by pajaro at 12:01 PM
Archos 705 WiFi Portable Media Player
With a relatively large size and weight, the 705 is better suited for the road traveler rather than the average user, who might prefer a more compact solution such as the Archos 604 player.
However, users who enjoy watching videos on large screens will be pleased with the Archos 705 WiFi Portable Video Player with its 7-inch widescreen display. This unit came with a 80GB capacity, which allowed us to carry fifty full length movies or more than 15,000 songs.
Eliminating the need for buttons, the 705 has a touch screen interface for menu navigation. Using the touch screen was intuitive and reduced our need for the supplied stylus.
Watching videos on a 7-inch screen on the go certainly made the experience much more engaging. The videos we watched on the 705 were sharp and detailed. In our battery tests, we managed to catch a full movie lasting 2.5 hours which left the battery life indicator with a single bar remaining.
The 705 is capable of MPEG4, AVI, WMV and DIVX playback but for an additional cost, you can opt for a plug-in for H.264. Using Windows Media Player, transferring media files from the PC to the device can easily be done via drag and drop.
While the 705 offers an adequate amount of audio options such as equalization and bass boosting, the volume playback by the 705 was very soft in comparison to an audio player such as an iPod. Even using the speakers did not help much.
Beside music and video playback, the 705 allowed us to surf the Internet with a built-in Opera browser using Wi-Fi. During our testing, the device handled browsing well but the lack of a physical QWERTY keyboard proved to be the 705's weakness. The touch screen keyboard is quite troublesome to use and it can never replicate the ease of a traditional keypad.
[full review]
Posted by pajaro at 10:14 AM
July 30, 2008
iriver Volcano T7
The iriver Volcano T7 is iriver's latest entrant into this field, coming in 1GB, 2GB and 4GB capacities. The 4GB version can be found for just $98
The T7 has an integrated USB plug so you can plug the player directly into a PC without wires.
The player itself is lightweight but feels rugged. A decent, if small, blue dot matrix screen displays loads of info.
Most controls reside on the face of the player beside the screen. Supported formats include MP3, protected and unprotected WMA, OGG and ASF.
There's an FM radio with a recording function though, and podcasts can be automatically downloaded and synced using T7-compatible software from Podcast Ready.
The T7 offers a generally bright sound, although with weaker bass compared to some other players in this category.
In comparison, Creative's Zen Stone Plus offers a deeper, warmer sound quality that was preferred by numerous people in the office. Adding some custom EQ within the T7 to emphasize the low end of the spectrum helped, but overall, we felt it was still sonically the inferior performer.
Still, an integrated microphone enables you to record voice in WMA format, at a range of bit rates. The highest quality--128Kbps--gives decent results, and the microphone seemed pretty sensitive. As long as you're not more than a couple of meters away from the voice you're capturing, taking notes from the recording, for example, shouldn't be a problem.
[full review]
Posted by pajaro at 8:02 PM
iRiver Lplayer 8GB MP3 player
Our first reaction to this tiny Lplayer was, 'where the blazes are the controls?' The unit itself is only 60 x 43 x 13mm while the 2in, 320 x 240 screen is, well, small.
The clever thing with the Lplayer is that the entire screen and its bezel is mounted on a four-way pressure pad, so control of the usual iRiver D*Click user interface is accomplished by pushing down on one of the four edges of the screen. At 41g, the Lplayer is among the lighter players on the market.
The L-Player does have some conventional external controls. Tucked away on the bottom are the on/off switch and the volume control, while around the back is a key-lock slider.
In day-to-day use, the design stands up rather well. To activate the relevant command, a pretty deliberate push is needed to make an adjacent on-screen arrow flash to show the command has been accepted, but this is doubtless a necessary compromise to prevent inadvertent knocks and bumps activating the player.
[more]
Posted by pajaro at 6:01 PM
iriver E100 MP3 Player
iRiver newest offering, the E100, boasts big league features at a budget price for $99.99
That said, I suppose you could say that the E100 is positioned somewhere between an iPod nano and the iPod touch...with a price that is closer to a shuffle. The E100 is also available in white, black, brown and sky blue.
A medium sized PMP with an impressive 2.4" 320x240 TFT LCD screen, microSD expansion slot, external speakers, voice recording, FM radio, text reader and video playback. An 8GB version is available for $149.99. And despite its rather bulky dimensions (92.8 x 47.8 x 11.3 mm) the E100 comes in at just under 60 grams. System power and volume control buttons grace the right side of the player with a sliding lock switch on the left. The headphone jack, video out jack and USB connection are along the bottom edge and the microSD port lives up top. The typical quick start guide, software CD, USB connection cable and requisite ear buds are included. And iriver still has the coolest cable ties of any digital media player company.
As with the Clix2 and other past models, iriver has gone with a D-pad style navigation system. Unlike the cleverly designed Clix2, the plainly-designed E100 sports a nearly flush center button surrounded by a single tilting directional pad printed with nearly invisible directional arrows. The D-pad is situated just below the LCD screen and is so smoothly integrated with the case that at first glace there appears to be only the single button staring up at you. There is just a slight amount of play in the D-pad but the clicking action is unaffected. The USB and microSD connection ports are well disguised by color matched plastic plugs.
[via]
Posted by pajaro at 4:54 PM