I thought I’d take a peek at the Samsung YP-P2, their latest offering in the touch screen media player arena. This little sucker is already available for pre-order over at Amazon. Here are some specs for you to inwardly digest
* 8 GB flash memory
* Bluetooth connectivity for speakers and headphones
* Widescreen 3 inch 428 x 240 res display
* 30 hours of tunes or 5 hours of vid from a fully charged battery
* FM radio
* Touch screen functionality
* Weight 2.8 oz
Sounds good? Well at US$250 it does sound like a bargain. But lets see how it stacks up against other well known models in the PMP market.
For an extra $50 you can grab an 8 GB iPod Touch which has a larger screen at 3.5 inches with 480 x 320 res but does weigh more at 4.2 oz. The iPod also only boasts a mere 22 hours of audio with a full battery but it does support Wi-fi connectivity.
The 8 GB iRiver X20 is floating around for $330 and of course has a microSD slot to increase its capacity so it may be a bit unfair to line it up against the others but here goes anyway! Its screen is a bit on the small size at 2.2 inches and is only slightly lighter than the Samsung at 2.5 oz so an extra $80 seems a bit much to pay for expandability.
So the Samsung doesn’t look too bad compared to the Apple and iRiver offerings, what do you think, or even better if there are any users of any of these models feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts!
Although there’s no official word from Apple as yet, in Walt Mossberg’s column at the Wall Street Journal he states
Also, some early iPod Touch units have had defective screens, where images appeared too dark. Apple says this problem affected a small number of units and is being remedied. My two test units displayed beautiful images.
during his review of the Apple iPod touch. Elsewhere there are many complaints regarding the iPods screen not displaying dark images and videos very well, the view is that they appear as if you are looking at the screen from an acute angle when in fact you are viewing it face on.
In fact the issue was highlighted over at iLounge in their own review and according to them some customers are being charged up to US$40 when attempting to return defective units along with the usual store staff attempts to blame the problem on customer high expectation or poor video encoding by the customer! Oh how I pine for the days when the customer was always right.
Come on Apple, sort this fiasco out, it was only a couple of weeks ago that you slashed the iPhone price by 33% in the US and had to placate the early-adopters with a $100 credit. Now you are trying to charge customers to get a faulty unit working. What’s the story?
From the man who brought you the wind-up radio back in the 90s, comes the EMP-MX71 an eco-friendly MP3 player. That’s right, no more sucking the planet’s resources dry whilst you listen to your favourite tunes, with a little bit of elbow grease you can be checking out your sounds all night long without a power point in sight.
The EMP-MX71 does more than play tunes too, check out this list of bells and whistles
2 GB memory with SD memory card slot
FM tuner
Voice recorder
1.8 inch screen for photo viewing
Built in mono speaker
Plays MPEG4 videos
For those of us too knackered/lazy to wind this sucker up, it will charge up when connected to the USB port of your PC. Whilst there it shows up as an external drive allowing drag and drop functionality for your media files. For the more eco-friendly of us, one minute of winding action should provide it with enough juice for 40 minutes of playback.
The price tag is 170 sterling which is about US$340 which is not bad given the unit comes with a free self-satisfying smugness that you are saving the planet whilst checking out the latest tunes.
Kudos to Trevor Baylis, inventor of the wind-up radio, electric shoes and now wind-up media player.
You may remember my confusion a few days ago over whether the TEAC MP-600 media player had touch screen functionality or not. French language site BestofMicro had mentioned it in their write-up of the MP-600, yet no mention of it was made on the TEAC website.
Anyway, I decided to get the word from the horses mouth, well at least TEAC’s. The long and short of it is that you may touch the screen but it’ll do bu**er all. So that sort of makes the MP-600 more of a run of the mill media player that’s a bit short on memory rather than a snazzy touchy feely one. How sad.
Apparently TEAC have jumped on the touchscreen functionality bandwagon with their MP-600 media player. Its top capacity is a bit on the small side at 4GB but is it slim or what? Measuring a mere 9mm thick this little sucker will almost comfortably slip into your back pocket.
Check out the specs
* USB 2.0 Interface
* Supports mp3, wma, avi, jpg
* 3.5 inch LCD display
* CD/MMC slots
* FM radio and recorder (wav)
* A super slim 73x43x9 mm
* Weight 43g
Sounds good eh? Well the confusing thing is (well confusing for me at least) is that the specs on the TEAC website make no mention of the touch screen functionality. Yet many tech blogs are raving about it and all have sourced their info from this page on the French language website BestofMicro. BestofMicro mention the player’s ‘ecran tactile’ which means ‘touch screen’. Certainly there are icons on the display that would imply touch screen functionality such as a pause icon, yet it seems strange not to mention it in the marketing spiel. So what’s the story? Can I touch it or not?
If anyone out there has one of these slimline mini entertainment centers let us all know the true story.
I like MP3 players … a lot, so much in fact I’m always on the look out for the bizarre and obscure. I also used to like Rubik’s cubes, yes I was a geek :) So I when I spotted this MP3 player from designer Hee Yong I almost bought it!
Yes, unbelievably you twist the cube to play your sounds, although quite which layers of the cube control which mp3 functions is not obvious so there’s probably a bit of a learning curve involved. Although I’m guessing the central square on top in the image is the pause button!
I do like the neon blue display too - across three squares - although the text looks a wee bit small or are my eyes failing me after all those days in my youth staring a rubik’s cube? Who knows. Anyway I do like Hee Yong’s style, so I checked out his other products and they’re pretty snazzy too. Another couple of my favs that caught my eye were the toaster that changes colour as it toasts and modular radiators in different colours to suit the room’s decor. If you like things a bit more funky and styly check out his site.
These Fun Slides look super cool and a great way to pass a rainy day at home or even a Friday afternoon in the office ;)
They are made by the same firm who manufacture slide pads for your furniture but I bet they sell more of these! The bottom of the fun slide is made of a friction resistant plastic base for great carpet slides and they have an adjustable foot loop so all shapes and sizes of feet can enjoy the thrill of sliding down the hallway. Just in case you’re still thinking they’re pretty lame, check out this video of some guys giving the fun slides a thorough testing, although I suggest you don’t use your mum’s best coffee table for practice.
Good to see the guys testing them out on the stairs too, some of those landings must have hurt! US$20 will get you a pair of these funky items - enjoy!
Know a good story? Send it to tips(at)our-picks.com and we'll read it, turn it inside out, strip it naked, and we might transform it into a shiny front page article. And of course, you'll get your credit :).
I thought I’d take a peek at the Samsung YP-P2, their latest offering in the touch screen media player arena. This little sucker is already available for pre-order over at Amazon. Here are some specs for you to inwardly digest
You may remember my confusion a few days ago over whether the TEAC MP-600 media player had touch screen functionality or not. French language site BestofMicro had mentioned it in their write-up of the MP-600, yet no mention of it was made on the TEAC website.
