Creative's big announcement at CES was for their
Zii computer chip. Of course it didn't live up to the hype they built-up for it. but I'm hopeful about its potential, Aside from the Zii, it seemed like Creative phoned the rest of the show in. They only announced two new products, including an X-Fi Fatal1ty headset, and a USB device called "Soundblaster for iTunes" which wirelessly sends music from an iTunes library to a supported Creative speaker. Surprisingly they had other new products on display that weren't announced. Here's a quick little summary of what most people missed:
Aurvana iceYou might not be able to see it right away but there's a sexy pair of headphones amidst those fake blocks of ice. The Aurvana Ice look to be a follow-up to the Zen Aurvana's and are thus in-ear style earphones. Creative claims it's the "world's smallest 6mm driver". Headphones aren't my area of expertise so I can't confirm that statement. They're a bit pricey however, with a rumored price of 150 Euros (which usually means $150US).
Aurvana AirThe Aurvana Air is a mid-range pair of headphones that has a two-tone metal design that wraps around your ears. It looks cool to me, but it looks like it could be uncomfortable to wear.
Travelsound for iPod Nano 4GCreative also showed off the Travelsound for iPod Nano (which you can barely see in the photo). This is a follow-up to a
model they released last year for the 3G Nano. I can't tell from the picture, but I think the 4th gen version should have the same design as the 3g one. This product allows you to dock your player and listen to music through its built-in speakers. The coolest part of this device is that it enables radio playback on the nano. I just learned that the 4g nano actually has the components inside to playback FM radio, and all it needs is a receiver module.
I still don't understand why Creative wouldn't officially announce these new products. CES has to be one of the greatest opportunities to market your products and receive large press coverage. It's moves like these that often have me scratching my head about their marketing division. We'll make sure to keep you updated on any more new products that happened to be at CES.
Sources:
Le Journal du GeekThinkComputersvia
epiZENterThanks basskaryaar!
The iriver SPINN is admittedly a pretty good device with incredible looks and features. The big reason it failed for many people was the lack of capacity. Still, the SPINN has had a respectable amount of sales, and iriver seems to be wanting to keep those customers loyal. The new 2.0 firmware for the SPINN has the following additions:
- Memo: The SPINN has a restive touch display, which is optimal for memo taking. The SPINN has a memo feature, that seems heavily influenced by the Mintpass Mintpad.
- Big Album Art: The SPINN has UCI so this wasn't a big issue, but it has a larger album art now.
- Picture: The new FW has auto rotate and added file support for pictures.
- Reservation: You can now auto record DMB/DAB/FM Radio by using this new feature.
- Video: The video playback options have been extended with some new features that were previously available in the DMB player.
- Game: For a limited time, users can now download new games from the iAMOLED website. Possibly Korea only.
Firmware Download
LG recently released a new USB-stick DAP called the "UP3 Touch". It has a stylish red and black casing, and red LED touch-sensitive controls that have a nice retro vibe to them. Aesthetics aside, the UP3 Touch doesn't bring anything new to the table. It has support for MP3, WMA, and Ogg, has a built-in FM tuner and recorder and will provide 15 hours of audio playback. Pretty much the same as the
Samsung U3 actually.
The 2GB model will sell in Korea for 55,000 Won (~$40US) and the 4GB for 69,000 Won (~$51US)
via
moveplayer
Most of the time you'll find players that happen to double as a USB drive. In this case I'd say the "Kana micro" from Japanese company "Green-House" is a USB drive that happens to also play music. It has a microSD slot and comes with a 2GB card, supports MP3, and WMA and comes in a variety of translucent colors. It's tiny in size (55.4x20x10.5mm), which is great, but it's also tiny in battery life, which is not so great. The player will only get 2 hours of playback before crapping out on you. Which makes me wonder why I'm even typing about it here.
It is cheap though. It'll sell in Japan for just 1,480 Yen, or about $16US.
Press Release(via
Akihabara News)
Initially only the 16GB model of the Cowon S9 was available at release, but I just checked and both Amazon and JetMall have the 8GB in stock. I'm not sure how long it's been there, but I thought I'd give everyone the heads-up nonetheless.
They're selling it for $199, which seems kinda pricey when you consider you can get double the memory for just $40 more. Not that it matters anyway; I hear most potential S9 owners are waiting for the 32GB model to be released. Still no sign of when that'll happen.
8GB Cowon S9 at Amazon
Check out our Cowon S9 Review | |  |
More times than not you'll find favorable reviews of Cowon players. I mean, Where else can you find the combination of top notch sound quality, great codec support, a solid build, and excellent battery life? Pretty much nowhere else. If there's one thing that needs improvement, it'd be with their software. Cowon's interfaces can be a bit hit or miss, and in the case of the Cowon O2, it's a big fat miss.
Our contributing editor Dominic became so apathetic about the O2 primarily due to his disgust of its interface. Those same sentiments are shared by ABi, who just put out their review of this flash PMP. Here's a tidbit of what they said about the interface:"This is the root of all evil. The user interface is a catastrophe, plain and simple. It’s like a textbook case of “How Not to Do It”, regarding usability and functionality. Almost everything is needlessly complicated or simply annoying". Ouch.
Pros- Plays lots of video formats without converting, good subtitle support
- Plays almost every audio format known to man
- Good sound quality and BBE enhancements (for audio only)
- Ingenious “recent files” list
- File/folder browsing
- UMS/MSC mass storage class, works on any operating system
- Flash memory (no fragile hard disk), SDHC expansion slot
- Solid build quality
Cons- Not enough hardware buttons
- Needlessly complicated, unintuitive, flawed, ugly interface
- Sometimes laggy and sluggish operation, unresponsive touch screen
- No EQ or BBE/M3B enhancements in video mode
- Clicks and huge gaps between audio tracks
- 720p HD and MKV/h.264 support has lots of issues
- Lowly 480x272 screen instead of today’s 800x480 standard
- No ID3 browsing, no playlists
- No SD card integration
- USB charging and USB connection with SD card are seriously flawed
Cowon O2 review by ABiIf you can get past those drawbacks you can pick up the
Cowon O2 at Amazon
Fresh out of China comes this new player from Newman. Of course I use the terms "Fresh" and "new" loosely there considering the looks of the player. The folks over at MP4 Nation (MP4N) are calling the Newman A1 the "Best looking 4th Gen iPod Nano Clone", but it looks more like a 3rd gen clone to us and therefore a year late. Setting aside the available colors of pink, and baby blue, the A1 doesn't look all that bad. It's pretty thin, and the click wheel doesn't stand out like most other clones.
No official specs, but it likely has a 2.0" screen, and support for formats like FLAC and Ogg. A touchscreen seemed likea possibility considering Newman is calling the interface the "Smart touch 3.0" and there's even a shot of someone navigating the screen with their finger. But according to MP4N it's using a "heat sensitive strip located above the round button and below the screen". Knock-offs are an inevitable part of this industry, but it's nice to see companies making a little bit of effort to differentiate themselves from the original.
via
MP4 Nation Blog
Flexible screens are an inevitable part of our future. At least according to the many futuristic movies I've seen depicting that technology. Sony has been a leader in turning that Sci-Fi tech into a reality for many years now. Two years ago they showed off an OLED screen that was made of plastic and fully flexible (see video
here). At this year's CES, Sony made a presentation featuring a Walkman bracelet concept (codenamed "Contrast") utilizing a flexible OLED screen. Check out the video of it below:
Pretty cool stuff. While merely a concept player, it's all in the realm of possibility. And yes, despite being a self-professed
hater of wearable DAP's, I'd gladly slide this Walkman concept on my wrist any day. Here's to hoping that day is sooner than we think.
via
Sony Insider
I got an email from the fine folks at Slacker this morning informing me that their iPhone (and iPod touch) app is now live on iTunes. Like the
Blackberry version, this app is completely free, and oh so awesome I might add.
Slacker Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch:
-Free music library featuring millions of songs
-High-quality stereo playback from any wireless connection
-Over 100 professionally programmed genre stations
-Create custom artist stations
-Fine tune stations to play more of the music you like
-View artist biographies and photos
-View album art and reviews
-"Peek Ahead" artist and album preview
-Pause and skip songs
-Rate songs as favorites
-Ban the songs and artists you don't like
Slacker radio app at iTunes Slacker is really going the extra mile. They've worked really hard on this app, so I'm surprised they're not charging for it. I'd gladly pay something for it if I owned an iPhone or Blackberry. Hopefully this strategy pays off for them and the service becomes a success.
Continue reading to see screens of the Slacker radio app on the Apple iPhone...
Samsung had a few more players on display at CES 2009. They're not as exciting as the P3, but not many players are. Here's a quick little summary of each:
Samsung YP-U5Samsung is calling this player "
DoReMi" for some strange reason. Ironically the only thing that stands out about the name are the capital letters, which happen to be DRM. Go figure. The U5 is the newest in the popular U-series. They're known for their built-in USB plug and of course their small size. It'll come in sizes ranging from 2 to 8GB, support the typical formats and features (FM tuner, recorder, etc..), and get approximately 18 hours of playback.
Samsung YP-VP1Samsung also had a new voice recorder on display. It's pretty much the flashiest looking voice recorder I've seen. It also doubles as a DAP, supporting MP3 and WMA files. It'll record for an impressive 30 hours, and will provide 50 hours of playback. The controls appear to be touch-sensitive which I don't think is all that practical on a micro-sized voice recorder.
Yepp Korea (via
moveplayer)
