Anything But iPod

Sony X-1000 I-Nique Case Reviews

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:20:31 -0500

The Sony X Series is recently the most expensive MP3 player reaching $400 for the 32GB version. After dropping that much money for a player you may be interested in a bit of protection. I-nique makes a few different versions of leather cases and a nice silicon case kit with a screen protector and lanyard. All of these are reasonably prices between $19 and $28.

The important thing to pay attention to in these various cases is the accessibility of the hold switch. I love that Sony made this very accessible large hold switch on the back of the player since I found it to be a much used feature while using this player on the go.

Beta Brainwavz Pro Review

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:04:12 -0500

New personal record! After many fancy and/or pricey IEMs it’s time to review the most inexpensive phones I got my hands on so far – phones that are still worth writing about, that is.

Like Nationite, Brainwavz is a brand created by MP4Nation - purveyors of what I assume to be higher class Chinese-made/designed DAPs, PMPs, and other paraphernalia.

The cheesy “Brainwavz” brand name might suggest these in-ear phones being targeted at the average teenage Skullcandy demographic: muddy, bloated midbass and no clarity or “musicality” whatsoever are some of the images that come to mind with a name like this. While this is more or less true for the cheaper and older Alpha Brainwavz (which come bundled with Nationite players and are indeed a clone of a Skullcandy IEM housing), the new Beta Brainwavz "Pro" however are in another league. They do quite a few things right. Not only in their price segment, but also in the grand scheme of IEMs.

The Beta Brainwavz Pro go for about $30 to $50 - depending on if you preordered them or if you want them bundled with a FiiO E5 amp, among other options. I don’t really dig that confusing business model, but that’s how it is. You snooze, you lose.

Read on if you’re interested in why I think these cheap IEMs are worth a review.

Creative Zii EGG Surfaces on the FCC's Site

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:51:55 -0500

Creative has been quiet since the release of the less than well received Zen X-Fi. At CES 2009 Creative only showed signs of a new player in the form of a bunch of reference demos of their upcoming Zii chip. Here is a good overview of the Zii at CES 2009 if you missed it. This chip promises HD video playback at minimum power usage.

The Zii EGG (model NSC-FL02) looks like it will be the first player to use the Zii chip. Pulling the info from the FCC’s site and digging though the documents what we do know about this player so far is that it will have an “HD camera” (Thought we don’t know if this is 720 or 1080- likely the former), Bluetooth, touch screen, and Wi-Fi (802.11 B/g). Only speculating based on the FCC diagram, it looks like it could also have an SD card slot.

A few years ago Creative tried to pull something like this off after the launch of the Zen Vision:M but could not technically pull it off- technologies were just not mature enough. With the Zii coming to fruition it looks like they will be able to do some pretty cool things with the Zii EGG. Based on product cycles and a few surveys I have received from Creative recently I would guess that this device is right around the corner shipping before the holiday shopping season around the same time as the Zune HD.

[FCC via Engadget]

Featured Audiobook: "I'm a stranger here myself" by Bill Bryson

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:24:30 -0500

The logical next step after doing an audio book guide is of course to suggest some actual books. My taste might be somewhat overly Science Fiction based, so to start things off I'm going to suggest a book that has nothing to do with Science Fiction whatsoever.

"I'm a stranger here myself" is about Bill Bryson's return to America after 20 years living in Britain. The country has changed a lot in that time, and the book goes through the changes that has occurred- from the author's point of view. The book is a curious mix of a diary, anecdotes and witty humor all mixed up in a book that will definitely make you laugh. From the deserted main streets caused by Americans' lack of will to walk to the annoyances you have to go through to get through an airport (even 10 years ago), anyone is sure to recognize aspects of American life described in the book.

If you want to check out the book, Audible is a good choice and where I get all my books. If you're not a member, I can recommend their "new user" promotion which gives you 3 months of the gold membership for $7.49 per month. I started out with that promotion and eventually moved on to the platinum plan. It's a nice cheap way to try the service.

Sony DR-BT22 Bluetooth Headphone Review

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:35:49 -0500

Bluetooth is technically a rather old technology and wireless headphones have really never taken off, yet they're becoming an increasingly popular topic on our forum. A lot of the reason for that is that it's becoming integrated into players, with the Samsung P3 and the Cowon S9 among the newest, most popular models to have this capability.

Most Bluetooth headphones are behind-the-neck style for some reason and there aren't many normal type Bluetooth headphones. The Sony DR-BT22 is an exception, with a form factor and size that really doesn't look like it's Bluetooth at first glance. The DR-BT22 are on their way out, which has dropped the price from a MSRP of $99 to a sales price of under $30 on Amazon, which means these are perfect for people who want to go wireless. But are they any good?

Samsung P3 I-Nique Case Review

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:24:27 -0500

Here is a look at two differ cases from I-Nique: the Tuff-Luv leather case and a standard silicon case. The first leather case is made of genuine leather that is nice and soft to the touch. All of the necessary ports and buttons are exposed and are easily accessible so you don’t ever have to remove the case in order to charge it or operate any of buttons. The top buttons are covered when the flap is down, but I found it pretty easy to individually press each of the top three buttons while the flap was closed.

Sony X Series X-1000 Review

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:04:06 -0500

In a battle for touch screen MP3 players Sony swung for the fences with a premium product with a price to match well above the competition. To those who have the extra cash to spend the premium price may well be justified. These unique to the competition features include YouTube browsing, Slacker Radio (US Only), direct podcast downloads, premium noise canceling headphones, and a semi-useful web browser.

Some of the highlights of this player include an amazing looking OLED screen with a capacitive touch screen with a lightning fast response. You can also expect great sound quality like most of Sony’s other players. Read on for the full in depth look at the Sony X-1000 player.

Reader Rigs: garyk's Samsung P3 + FiiO E5

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:43:48 -0500

A good sound setup doesn't have to cost $1500. There are plenty of equipment out there that will give you excellent sound quality without killing your food budget. Forum member garyk was bitten by the audio bug after upgrading from stock earbuds with his Zen Stone Plus and has been gradually improving his rig ever since.

SanDisk Sansa SlotRadio Review

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:20:13 -0500

I have had a slotRadio well before it was released to the public and over these last 6 months tried to wrap my head around where this product fits into the way people consume music. I’ve used it myself at the gym and in the car, let friends and relatives borrow it, discussed with other tech bloggers, and prodded lots of sales floor reps for customer reactions.

With all this anecdotal evidence I’m going to bet against it. However, it may be a risky bet on my part since it may be applicable to a market or demographic I don’t at all understand. For the last three or four years I have been reading and writing about digital media players as a full time job. This may have created a myopic point of view now allowing me to see that fringe demographic of music consumers that is still a substantial enough of a market to sustain a profitable product line.

Archos Announces Touch Screen Player

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:17:43 -0500

Seems like everyone's jumping on the touch screen wagon lately. Samsung just updated their P2 with the P3 and Cowon's S9 is making friends all over. Archos wants in on the fun and just announced the Archos 3, a medium sized players with a 3" touch screen.

Specs wise they don't disclose much, but a 8GB storage capacity and 14 hours of battery life isn't exactly something to celebrate. Among random features they mention photo viewing, voice recording, a stopwatch and a calendar. Not a single mention of video anywhere, which isn't a good sign. Price and release date is unknown, and frankly completely uninteresting if this is all they can come up with.

[Archos via Engadget]

Unicode Support Coming to the Zune

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:54:46 -0500

One of the top complains about the Zune has been the lack of Unicode support. For those that don’t know Unicode support will allow you to properly view foreign music with showing characters instead of those random boxes. So does this confirm that the Zune is coming to markets outside of the US? No, not necessarily, because there are legitimate reasons for the US- I mean we do listen to foreign music here. Its such a simple thing yet one of those make or break features for a lot of people. Kind of like the EQ.

This news broke on the Zune Insider Podcast #22. If you are at all interested in the Zune this is a must check out podcast. Jessica interviews Progressive DJ, DJ Dan and Matt has a chance to sit down with Hip-Hop star Wale.

[Listen from your browser] [Subscribe with the Zune Software]

Cowon S9 Disassembled

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:42:11 -0500

You know we're big fans of taking a look at the chips, circuit boards, and inner workings of our cherished mp3 players- so we love to see that interest has spread to our forum members as well. Trikon000 did us the honor of posting a guide to the Cowon S9 tear down with lots of pics.

I’ve taken my S9 apart as well so I will mention that it's not for the faint hearted. It’s not an easy disassembly and it will void you warranty. So unless your S9 is broken / out of warranty or you have done this before, I recommend just checking out these cool pics in the S9 forum.

Yuin G1A and G2A Review

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:52:04 -0500

Many people might have heard of the unofficial kings of clip-on/ear-clip headphones. Their name is Koss KSC75, and their price is a whopping $10 (give or take a few) if you look around a bit. They don’t need to be ashamed of being compared to phones that cost a lot more.

With clip-on phones being quite the niche product there aren’t many fancy, higher priced – or even good sounding ones – available. Until recently only some Audio Technica products like the ATH-EM7 or EW9 fell into that category (to the best of my knowledge).

Then Yuin – a company already famed for other niche products, such as high quality ear buds – came along and introduced their G1 and G2 clip-on phones. Both of these currently got upgraded to the G1A and G2A versions, which obviously have improved bass and treble response over the former iterations.

The G1A are the “high end” variant, with a higher price and higher impedance, the G2A are the more affordable variant that are easier to drive with portable players.

Let’s take a look/listen at how they perform – not only in the sparsely populated field of quality clip-on phones, but also in the grand scheme of headphones in general.

How To Make a Tiny Interconnect

Thu, 28 May 2009 03:18:34 -0500

Interconnects, IC for short, are the cables that go between your player and another device with an input jack - a car stereo, home stereo, or a portable headphone amp. The problem with the latter of those setups is that the amp is often directly under the player and so you really only need 2cm of cable to make the connection, but they don't make cables that short. As a result, a lot of people drag around long cables that are just inthe way. There's no need to. Read on for a guide on how to make your own tiny bridge-interconnect.

The Zune HD is Official

Tue, 26 May 2009 22:57:56 -0500

Not too long ago we saw leaked images of the next generation Zune- today Microsoft has spoken on the details. The Zune HD will sport a 480x272 OLED multi-touch screen with a web browser over wi-fi. We do know that the browser it up and running since Skipdeez lays claim to the first Tweet from the Zune HD.

It will embrace the HD badge with HD radio and 720p HDMI out with an optional dock. As far as features that is about all that has been said in the press release. We are still missing quite a few details such as capacities, pricing, games, additional features, ect. The official release is still fuzzy and is said to be “this fall”.

In addition to the new hardware there are a few details on how the Zune will play into Xbox. Next week at E3 we will have a chance to see how the Zune brand integrates into the Xbox Live.

[Zune HD | ABI Zune HD Forum Discussion]