Jasmine France from Cnet had to break a sweat for her latest review. She did a little walking, jogging, and jumping jacks to make sure the Sony W-series stayed in her ears (see her in action in the video below). The W-series looks like an ideal player for runners and others with an active lifestyle. Though the player is small, the jog dial controls should make it easy to skip tracks. The earbuds are also magnetic, and the player powers off when they’re connected. Pretty cool stuff. Here’s a summary of Cnet’s review:
| The Good: The Sony W-Series Walkman offers an innovative, ultracompact design that incorporates an MP3 player into a pair of earbuds. It’s easy to use and Sony includes a unique feature for browsing songs.
The Bad: The Sony W-Series Walkman does not have a screen and will not be comfortable for all users.
The Bottom line: The Sony W-Series Walkman is a great option for active users who want an all-in-one music device to use while working out.
Score: 7.0/10
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Sony W-series review at Cnet
Sony W-Series Walkman at Sony Style
The Archos 2 doesn’t have much going for it, but for $59.99 for an 8GB player, I can’t complain. Actually, I can and will complain! Archos, I thought you turned a page when you released your line of Internet Media Tablets. Those devices were sexier than all of their blocky predecessors. Instead of designing a flash version of those IMT’s, you go and rebrand some generic DAP instead. At least rebrand something with good specs. There’s plenty of Chinese players that could have been chosen over this. I guess it’s one step forwards, and two steps back.
Specs:
- Capacity: 8GB with microSD expansion
- Display: 1.8″ TFT (128 x 160 resolution)
- Audio: MP3, WMA, WAV
- Video: AVI
- FM tuner and recorder
- Voice recorder
- Battery life: 10 hours for audio, 4 hours for Video
- Colors: Black or White
Sadly, the battery life appears to be 10 hours, rather than the 12 we reported last time. If you’re some raving Archos fanboy (or girl) you can head over to Amazon and pre-order one.
Archos 2 at Amazon
As Michael has posted before, the Q2 is the successor of the very popular Q1. The Q1 has been one of the most popular devices in Korea thanks to it’s very good looks and affordable price. The Q2 looks like a more premium device than before with the addition of chrome accents. I am however a bit disappointed in the absence of the diamond shaped touch pad. The device is also nicely priced at $104(4GB), $134(8GB) and $179(16GB)
SPECS
display: 2.4″ TFT LCD (320X240)
memory: 4/8/16GB
size: 29 X 101 X 9.9mm @ 6.8g
battery life: 50hr music / 4hr video
audio: MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC
video: MPEG4, WMV, SVI
Product Page via Moveplayer
As Michael has posted before, the Q2 is the successor of the very popular Q1. The Q1 has been one of the most popular devices in Korea thanks to it’s very good looks and affordable price. The Q2 looks like a more premium device than before with the addition of chrome accents. I am however a bit disappointed in the absence of the diamond shaped touch pad. The device is also nicely priced at $104(4GB), $134(8GB) and $179(16GB)
SPECS
display: 2.4″ TFT LCD (320X240)
memory: 4/8/16GB
size: 29 X 101 X 9.9mm @ 6.8g
battery life: 50hr music / 4hr video
audio: MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC
video: MPEG4, WMV, SVI
Product Page via Moveplayer
mintpass has just released the mintpad with a dmb receiver built in. It also features an all black body design with matching headphones. It is priced at $179USD and comes with a free leather case for a limited time. For more information, please refer to my original post on mintpass.
SPECS
CPU: ARM9 400Mhz
display: 2.9″ TFT LCD @ 262000 colors
memory: 4GB (w/ MicroSD (up to 16GB))
wireless LAN: 802.11b/g
camera: 1.3MP
speaker: mono
size: 78.2 X 63.8 X 15.2mm @ 90g
battery life: 30hr music / 5hr video
audio: MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, APE, FLAC
video: MPEG4, WMV7/8/9, MPEG1/2
Product Page via mintpass
| The Cowon O2 is a trailblazer. A pioneer of a player that has influenced the likes of the iriver P7 and iStation T3. Alright alright, I know what you’re thinking- flash PMP’s were inevitable, and Cowon just happened to release theirs earlier than others. From what I’ve read, the O2 has received mixed reactions. Cnet gave it 3.5 stars citing the player’s wide support of formats, but ABi railed against it, noting its poor interface.
Cowon has improved the player with a few firmware updates since those reviews have been posted. If you’re willing to give it a try, Newegg has the 16GB model for just $129.99 shipped. They also have the 32GB model for $50 more.
16GB Cowon O2 for $129.99 Shipped
32GB Cowon O2 for $179.99 Shipped |
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As of today, the 32GB Cowon S9 is on sale for 379,000KOR (286USD). Cowon is also throwing in a shield case and TV out cable for free (valid for one month). Sadly, Cowon has announced that they won’t be releasing a DMB version due to the extra room taken up with the additional SSD.
Cowon has also released the 1.20 firmware (3.20 for DMB). Here is the list of improvements:
- a new notepad utility (screenshots above)
- multiple page support for the widgets screen
- redesigned clock widget
- bug fixes for music(APE, etc) playback
- enhanced playback capabilities for high resolution videos
- improved playback for video files with corrupted frames
- fix for unstable volume when watching DMB with jeteffect
The folks at Cnet Asia are currently putting the Sony X1000 through its paces. They provided their first impressions last week, and now they have a new video preview up:
Navigating by album art looks pretty cool, despite being more stylish than practical. Web pages appeared to be truncated on the screen, but that’s likely because the player was in portrait mode. I can’t say I’m as excited about the X1000 as I initially was, but I still can’t wait to get my hands on one.
Thanks Bigmike34
A few pictures were just sent in to various tech blogs showing what looks to be a next generation Zune. The pictures are of a touchscreen player dubbed the “Zune HD”. The leaked images are decorated with an array of colors and funky designs that just scream of Microsoft’s M.O.
A touchscreen Zune seems like an obvious move for Microsoft, so I’m leaning towards these these images being legit. Plus, just about every Zune leak has turned out to be real in the end. What do you guys think about it?
via Engadget
Hey everyone, I’ve been busy in the past month with a project called Espresso. I’ve always wondered why the TV experience is so complicated and frustrating. The Espresso is a TV that tries to solve some of these issues. Hopefully you guys won’t mind the off-topic character of this post - well, news has been slower than ever anyways. Actually, the remote of the TV is quite DAP-like you may enjoy that.
Hope you guys will enjoy looking at it. Follow the link for the whole design and additional info.
The Design
