Continuing with our goals of making this site the best it can be, I've added a new member to our staff. He's a veteran member that goes by the name "BBD". He will be our new Forum Moderator, based on his responsiveness to spam in the forum. He also has a passion for DAPs and will surely spread that wealth of knowledge with new members. Let me be the first of many to welcome our new Forum overlord!
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I also want to announce a new theme color. It was created by Saijin_Naib, another long-time member. The theme is called "DAPreview Gray" for obvious reasons. It's dark, and provides a nice change of pace to our current colors.
You can select the theme of your choice by scrolling down to the bottom until you find the user theme menu (below RSS feeds). The site should remember your choice every time you sign in. This option is available to members only, so please signup if you haven't already.
Along with these two members, I want to thank all the active participants of this site. We won't grow unless we get more people involved in our DAP community. If you know anyone who is into MP3 players, make sure to tell them about DAPreview! We're always welcome to suggestions, so make sure to keep those coming as well.
Samsung didn't do me any favors when they recently updated the P3. You see, I'm an indecisive person when it comes to doing just about everything. I go back and forth, until I'm finally content with my choice. Even the first few sentences of this post has been edited a dozen times, and I'm still not satisfied! But back to Samsung. Among other additions, they've increased the P3's battery life, improved its UI, and provided native playback of 800 x 600 Xvid files. Combine that with its haptic touchscreen, colorful interface, flash games, and bluetooth support, and I can safely say the P3 is a serious contender to the Cowon S9, and Sony X1000.
GenerationMP3 has just published their review of the Samsung P3. It's pretty in-depth, providing multiple videos, appealing screenshots, and a feature-by-feature comparison to the Cowon S9. Here's a selection from their conclusion (translated from French):
"Not surprisingly, the P3 is not a revolution but a good change! It incorporates what has been successful in improving P2. Thus, P3 is the best audio (support for more formats, headphone cleaner) and video (more formats supported, non-compulsory reencoding management subtitles). It adds new features like the flash player for example. And the icing on the cake, it is native UMS! It is thus in size to compete with the Iriver Spinn and the Cowon S9, its main competitors."
Pros:
Audio quality
Audio Compatibility (i.e. Format support)
Video re-encoding and non-compulsory management subtitles (w/ Firmware 2.07)
UMS or MTP - Your choice!
RDS FM tuner recording
Size and quality of the haptic display
Bluetooth
Aluminum Finish
Cons:
Ergonomics. No real control buttons (aside from volume, and power/hold)
Browsing a bit slow because of visual effects
"Widget" interface not necessarily practical
Proprietary connector
No video output
Functions are redundant or poorly executed (calculator, Calendar, etc...)
Battery life for audio a little disappointing (using 2.03 beta FW)
No memory slot
Score: 4.0/5
It looks like those widgets are doing more harm than good. Many of them seem pretty useless too. There's a cat widget that "meow's" when you touch it, and a gingerbread man widget that crumbles the more you touch it. Thankfully they can all be removed whenever you want.
A few days ago, Amazon UK put up a pre-order page for the hotly anticipated Sony X1000 series Walkman. The page shows a shipment date of "2 to 5 weeks", which is much earlier than Sony stated at CES 2009. I can't confirm the release schedule for the UK, but the X1000 won't be released in the US till this Summer according to my source at Sony. Here's their statement:
"Unfortunately the X-series Walkman will not be available until closer to Summer when the product ships. We'll definitely have more details for you in March/April but we still cannot communicate anymore information than was stated in the press announcement at CES. So for now, early summer is all I can say regarding availability date. If anything changes I will let you know."
What a pity! But from what I've seen, it looks like it'll be worth the wait. We'll keep you posted if anything changes.
I don't think this one is going to last too long. Amazon is selling the 160GB Archos 705 WiFi for just $269 and free shipping. That's the same price they're selling the 80GB model for, which leads me to believe it's a price mistake.
Features
Capacity: 160GB HDD
Display: 7.0" TFT touchscreen (800 x 480) w/ 16 Million colors
Audio: MP3, WMA, and WAV (AAC and AC3 via optional plug-in upgrade)
Video: MPEG-4, WMV (H.264 and MPEG-2 via optional plug-in upgrade)
Audio and Video recording via the optional DVR station
Built-in WiFi for browsing the internet and streaming files (requires browser plug-in)
PDF viewer
Battery Life: 25 hours for audio, 7 hours for video
Here's another review of the recently released (in China at least) Meizu M8. It's comes to us from our French friends over at Journal du Geek. They seemed to have low expectations going in, but came out pleasantly surprised with the M8's quality. Here's an excerpt from their conclusion (translated from French):
"We expected a badly inspired clone, that was cheap and half-working. We were treated to a particularly well done, robust phone that leaves many competitors behind. Meizu M8 is one of the most successful clones in the market, if you can still call it a clone, because the similarities are ultimately not so many"
Listed below are their Pros and cons. Some of the cons, such as the lack of availability and the small community are pretty negligible to me. You can also see their long (15 mins) walk-through video of the M8:
In related news, it looks like Meizu recently released a new firmware update that allieviates some of the phone's bugs. It also adds theme support, and SRT subtitles for videos. You can download it directly from Meizu Me.
Sony Japan has just announced a new bundle for the S730 Walkman series. The players will come with a speaker dock in matching colors, as seen here:
Sony actually sold a similar dock for the S630 series since last year, but this new model takes advantage of the S730's noise cancellation feature. There doesn't appear to be any new additions to the player itself. The bundle goes on sale next month, and will cost 18,000 Yen (~$186US) for the 4GB model, and 22,000 Yen (~$227US) for the 8GB.
via AV Watch While I browsing Sony Style JP, I also came across a limited edition S739 model made with an etched aluminum design. Click the link below to see a picture of it
After the release of the Cowon S9, and the subsequent announcement of the Sony X1000 series at CES 2009, many of us have already dismissed the P3. Samsung realizes this, and they're doing their best to get us to change our minds. The P3 will be released in March, and will come with a huge firmware update. Among other additions, it allows you to play 800 x 600 AVI videos natively, has a 30% increase in battery life, and has subtitles support. Check out the full list below,
Update: Finally all 500 units have been spoken for
I guess there aren't a lot of die hard Joy Division fans out there. It's been 8 months since Microsoft released a Limited edition Zune 80 featuring the band Joy Division, and it still hasn't sold out yet. That's tragic when you realize there were only 500 units up for sale. To help clear inventory, Amazon has reduced the price to $184 shipped.
The player has a nice laser etched image on the back, and comes loaded with a Joy Division documentary. There's also a specially designed leather case, and packaging included. The Zune 120 still looks to be the better value at $229, but who knows, maybe these will fetch an insane amount on ebay one day. This model also comes with Premium headphones, which Microsoft has removed from the newer models.
Cowon is notorious for keeping secrets and once again, they have kept the details on the D2+ completely secret from us. The D2+ is an upgraded D2 and will be released on the 24th. The big difference is the upgrade to BBE+ that's used in the S9 and a refresh in design/color that's very "iriver". There are 2 versions like before, one with T-DMB and one without. The addition of DMB will cost an extra $40 like the Cowon S9.
SPECS Colors - black/silver/sky blue/pink/white Display - 16M color 2.5" TFT LCD (320x240) Capacity - 2/4/8/16GB with SD/SDHC slot Size - 78.0(W) x 55.4(H) x 16.6(T) mm @91g Audio - MP3/WMA/FLAC/OGG/WAV/APE Video - AVI/WMV Dictionary - YBM
