Digital Trends
SanDisk’s versatile Clip+ may have outranked Apple’s latest Shuffle in just about every practical sense, but it takes a special kind of player to oust the Cupertino giant in the style department. That said, we may have spotted a device that could do the job: iRiver’s new N20.
For years, consumer and health advocates have warned about the dangers of pumping loud music into our heads using personal music players like iPods and cell phones: health and safety experts have long warned that most music players can put out music volumes that, over time, can lead to long term hearing loss—especially for folks who insist on tapping into their tunes for hours at a time. Now the European Union is doing something about it, revising its safety requirements for personal music players to reduce the risk of hearing damage from prolonged use: by default, music players will be limited to a maximum volume setting of 80 db—about the volume of nearby road noise or someone shouting—and manufacturers will have two years to come up with solutions.
Sansa
Face it – with well over 120 million units sold, no company even comes close to touching the extraordinary success that Apple has enjoyed with its iPod-branded portable media players. Between classic, nano, shuffle and touch models (not to mention nearly 35 million iPhones sold to date), the almighty iPod has become all but synonymous with MP3 players in just a few short years (and perhaps the first “Kleenex” or “Frisbee” of the 21st century). But commercial success doesn’t necessarily mean the iPod is the best player on the market. In fact, many competing portable media players offer equally high sonic performance, as well as a handful of features not found in Apple’s family of products. Here’s a look at five capable alternatives that also hit a high note:
Full disclosure: Any roundup of MP3 or portable media players that claims to be a definitive “best of” collection isn’t a roundup you should be reading. The truth is that there’s simply far too much product variety in this category for any one critic – or legion of critics – to authoritatively rate them all, especially given the subjective way in which different features connect with different types of user. So instead, we offer the following – a showcase of ten key players that, by virtue of simplicity, sophistication, innovation or cost, clearly warrant any audio or video enthusiast’s attention. Some selections are tried and true and available now, while others offer so much promise that we felt you needed to know about them in advance. And yes, amongst all the perfection, you will find one or two contenders that we just felt were kind of cool, if only for their unique but potentially appealing design. In alphabetical order then, let us proceed…
A couple of days ago, Philadelphia City Paper inadvertently ignited the first big (tongue in cheek) Obama presidential controversy when it reported that Obama, who had evidently said he used an iPod, was seen using a Zune when he exercised. The formal position, evidently, had been that Obama was an iPod man, and that Apple was a big contributor to his campaign. Later, a supposed Obama spokesman reported to the Wall Street Journal that the Philadelphia reporter was mistaken, and that Obama is, in fact, an iPod user.
Last week the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Dell was again looking at the MP3 business and that I was involved in the effort. I’ve been fascinated with the success of the iPod for some time now and the fact that even though it is very clear how Apple took the market, there has yet to emerge a truly serious competitor to Apple’s leadership. This is primarily because no one wanted to match Apple on all aspects of their program initially, and now that Apple is dominant, matching alone won’t do it anyway.
If you’ve been considering buying one of the 80GB Zune media players for Christmas, you might as well start sweating now. They’re sold out all across the Web, and the chances of finding one at a bricks-and-mortar retailer stand somewhere between slim and none.
Microsoft has promised more stocks will be available in around two weeks, and an Amazon spokesperson has told the Associated Press that they’re receiving a few units each week and that many Zunes have “definitely shipped and sold.”
You can easily obtain the 4 and 8GB Zunes, but the bigger units have been in remarkable demand.
MR-500i Redefines What A Music Player Can Be
The flagship model of the new Olympus m:robe series is the MR-500i that combines a 20-gigabyte digital music player with a 1.22-megapixel digital camera to create a compact and stylish multimedia device unlike any other that’s come before it. With a one-of-a-kind “No Button” flat touch-screen interface incorporated into a vibrant 3.7-inch color VGA LCD display, music and digital images spring into action at your fingertips in several dynamic and captivating slideshows. Now, both your music and your digital images – the core elements of your self-expression – can conveniently travel anywhere with you.
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