Technology Reviews

WalleTex, a company known for creating thin products with their credit sized USB Drive, is back in the news again today after announcements and pictures of their new credit card sized MP3 Player started making their way around the Internet. This MP3 Player blows all competitors out of the water in terms of thickness and will be available in June 2007. No word on price, but their will be various versions with various storage capacities. We know that the most expensive WallTex Credit Card MP3 Player will be able to store 2MB of music.

Over the last year we have seen a lot of gadgets old/new and various fancy stuff, one of them is definitely a ‘Mp3 watch’ which i own personally. This is a Stainless Steel Mp3 watch with 1GB of memory. The watch looks pretty good just like any other watch, but the main feature is the storage capacity and its usefulness.

You can play MP3 files (MPEG 1/2 and Layer3) and the memory is U Disk formatted. The battery life of the watch (for MP3 playback) is close to 9 hours when fully charged. This is really good for such a product. There is also a recording feature by which you can record audio in WMA format.

MP3s can be saved on the storage watch through USB 2.0 transmission. The Stainless steel MP3 watch will cost you around $75 which is not a great deal of money. Along with the watch you get the needed Usb cables and a earphone. It is currently available at Brando.com.hk, with free shipping so get over there if you need one of these.

The Korean company Mobiblu has just released their newest MP3 Player, the Cubisto. The Cubisto comes in a 1GB and 2GB model and isn’t actually what we world refer to as the “cream of the crop” in the MP3 player market. The Cubisto only supports MP3 and WMA files and a cube shaped MP3 player is definitely not on my wish list. Sure the MP3 Player is cheap, retailing at just $90 for the 1GB model and $110 for the 2GB model, but other MP3 Players (from SanDisk and off course the iPod Shuffle) are also in the same price range and are more portable that the Cubisto and have more features or support more file types.

Our Final Verdict: The Cubisto is a cheap MP3 player, and even though it is one of the few 1GB MP3 players under $100, there are many other MP3 Players in the same price bracket with more to offer.

Meizu has always been known as an innovative company who has created MP3 Players and other portable gadgets that were “total media centers” and allowed you to store everything you wanted in one place. Well now, Meizu is letting their customers design their newest MP3 Player to generate interest and save millions in research and development.

You can draw up your own design and submit it here. I wonder if other companies will follow in Meizu’s footsteps. After all, many companies have been getting their customers to do all the work for them from creating advertisements to designing products.

Dyne has rolled out new players to add to their Tuny line-up. This time they have decided to skip the number ‘10’ and have gone with the Tuny 9 and Tuny 11.

The Tuny 9 comes with 3 different memory sizes, 512mb – 1GB – 2Gb. The player measures 45 x 82 x 14 mm and comes with a 2inch display which has 260k colors and a 176 x 220 pixel resolution. The Tuny 9 comes with a pretty good battery which lasts for over 18 hours of audio and close to 8 hours video. There is a FM Radio, Bluetooth and surprisingly a TV-Out port. We are not sure the extent we can use the BT in the player, whether you can transfer data using it or its just for the Stereo Bluetooth speaker/ ear phones.

The Tuny 11 is priced lower than the 9, and comes with limited features. It looks like the iPod nano and comes with a 1.7 inch display. The memory sizes in this player are the same as the Tuny 9.

They have been released in Korea and other parts of Asia and South-Eastern countries. No word on a world wide release or pricing of this product.

You may remember a few weeks ago when someone bought a used MacBook from Apple only to find it filled with porn, even though Apple had said that the McBook was “like new” and all files had been deleted. Well, Microsoft has now run into the same problem as one customer, Chanell Martin, is reporting that a new Zune she bought from Wal-Mart was pre-installed with a 1 hour+ long gay porn video clip. Off course Walmart’s first course of action was to shift the blame and they quickly said Microsoft was at fault and gave the Martins a full refund + a $25 gift card.

Well LG may be a few months late with their new UP3Flat “screenless” MP3 Player, but the new iPod Shuffle (1G) clone is one sleek MP3 player. It is doubtful that it will ever come to the United States and even if it does I doubt many people would buy it, despite the fact it can store up to 2GB of music and has an “UV coated Luxury Finish, three-color LED, retractable USB, and support for OGG.” People just aren’t interested in buying clones of outdated products.

A limited number of Pink Zunes were released by Microsoft just a few days ago to help create some interest in their MP3 Player. Zune sales haven’t been up to par with its main competitor, the Apple iPod and though the concept is good, it seems like the MP3 market isn’t ready for another mainstream MP3 Player.

As part of this promotion, only 100 Pink Zunes were randomly dispersed. Hence, the best place to get one (if for some reason anyone wats a Pink Zune) is off course, eBay. Asking Price? $900+. Yes, the first Pink Zune offered on eBay went for $920, but it is doubtful that future auctions will meet that price. Another Pink Zune recently sold on eBay for $760.

The iRiver S7 is going to be the next Mp3 player from iRiver and it looks pretty good. The iRiver S7 Mp3 player measures close to 40 x 32 x 9.6 mm and is very similar to the dimensions of the new iPod shuffle. As a matter of fact it is even thinner than the shuffle. The iRiver S7 weighs close to 15 grams which is really light.

The iRiver S7 is a very different player on appearance. The design is good and complete but it comes with fast forward and rewind buttons in the form of human pictures as you can see in the photo. Yes, this is no skin or cover it is how the player is made. The Chicken on top should be representing volume up and the dog standing for volume down.

This MP3 player can play SF, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA and many other audio formats which is not a worry at all. The only problem seems to be a missing pause button. The player comes with an inbuilt FM Radio which will accompany you on your long journeys when you are bored of your own music collection.

Maxfield has introduced a new MP3 player which is the MAX-IVY. This player is available in various capacities. The player is extremely sleek and the design is simply too good. The MAX-IVY comes with a 1.8 inch TFT-LCD display with a illuminated touch screen buttons.

The MAX-IVY has a photo viewer and along with this it supports all type of audio media. The supported formats include MP3, WMA and OGG. The MP3 player will be available in 1GB which costs around $185 , 2GB which will be $235 and the maximum capacity one is the 4GB player which will set you back close to $335. The player at this point in time does not have support for video files, so you will have to stick to your iPod videos for that. On the whole it is a decent alternative to the iPod since it has a longer battery life too. The battery lasts for over 14 hours on a single charge which is pretty good.

The MAX-IVY player also supports .lrc files, which means you can read the lyrics whilst listening to the songs on the player. The release date for the player is not yet known but we will be waiting for the launch.