The gluttony of digital audio players available to consumers in today’s market is mind-blowing. Audio playing gadgets are being produced in every shape, style and color imaginable, and some that are beyond my imagination. So it can be difficult to find the right one for you.
The Apple iPod nano has received an extreme
makeover. Not that it really needed one though… The
1st generation iPod
nano which was released approximately 1 year before the 2nd gen nano, looked
like a baby version of the full sized player. This new version looks more like
an anorexic version of the discontinued iPod mini. Are the changes all cosmetic,
are are there some other new bits under the hood of this very popular DAP
(digital audio player)? Let’s take a closer look.
You can clip the new
iPod shuffle to your shirt, but would you rather wear your MP3 player on your wrist? Don’t really care? What if it could record audio and play video too? Do I have your interest now? Then you’ll want to read this review on the MP4 Watch from Brando.
People reading this site are no doubt well aware of my love for all things iPod. I’ve been a fan for years now, and have eight of them (various models) strewn around my house in drawers and gear bags. Although I’ve tested many other brands of digital audio players, I always come back to the iPod as my favorite. Today I’m going to tell you about the Insignia NS-DV2G and NS-DA1G players from Best Buy. These are great alternatives… dare I say that they might even be a better choice than the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle!
A couple of years ago, Julie did a review on the Anydrive Car MP3 and FM Modulator from Merconnet. In case you don’t remember, or never read the review, the device allowed you to plug in your USB flash memory storage apparatus and wirelessly broadcast the output to a FM radio.
Step right up folks, it’s the incredible shrinking iPod! The new Apple iPod shuffle makes their first generation shuffle look absolutely huge in comparison. Their slogan of “Put some music on” is fitting as this new shuffle has a built-in clip that you can use to fasten to your shirt, coat, gear bag, jeans, etc. Is this the end all be all mini DAP (digital audio player)? Let me tell you more about it and we can decide.
Apple changed the digital audio player landscape when it replaced its popular Hard Disk Drive (HDD) based iPod Mini with the flash-based iPod Nano. This shift forced competitors to launch their own version, which further propelled the demand for flash-based players and, in my opinion, altered the digital audio player market forever. One such device is the digital audio player by Brando. Let’s see how Brando’s latest audio device stacks up.
The proliferation of MP3 players has led to devices of all shape, size and alternative functions. There are watches, PDA’s, cell phones, key chains, and countless other gadgets that have the ability to play music so that we can set our everyday lives to a soundtrack. One such example is the USB Sunglasses MP3 Player from Brando. That’s right, digital audio eyewear that integrates an MP3 player and earphones into the frames, eliminating wires that dangle and can tangle into a mess. Of course, the primary function of the sunglasses is to protect your eyes from the sun, but let’s focus on how well they serve as a MP3 player.
In the past I’ve reviewed a few Victorinox knives that had the added feature of a small Swiss Memory USB flash storage module, the most recent being the 1GB SwissBit Swiss Memory USB Victorinox Knife. But today I am going to look at a new product which takes that concept of a combination pocket knife [...]
As with other high capacity, hard disk drive based portable audio players, the Toshiba Gigabeat F40 allows you to consolidate a vast catalog of music within its relatively diminutive dimensions. Packing an entire music collection into a small space, itself is a revelation. You will see what genres you tend to favor and those that [...]
One of the necessary evils of migrating from a CD player to a digital music player is the tedious process of extracting music from already owned CDs. Sure, anyone with a computer can use one of the available music extraction software programs, many of which are free. But for those that don’t have access to [...]
A couple years ago I remember seeing a BMW MP3 watch which featured an integrated USB cable. The idea of converging a watch with self-contained digital music player was clever, but at $275 for the 256MB version and $350 for the 512MB version, the price was a bit steep. Even so, the BMW watch proved [...]
There were many years when the only "portable media device" I had was whatever Pocket PC I happened to own. Not only have all generations of Pocket PCs played MP3s, they have also been able to play video in Windows Media format. However, other than a constantly changing selection of MP3s and a small selection [...]
Just as portable digital music players did away with the need to tote a CD player and a stack of disks, portable digital video players aim to do the same with bulky portable DVD players and their accompanying media. Various generations of these portable digital video players have been trickling into the market over the [...]
The other day I was commenting to Julie that as SD memory has become less expensive and available in larger quantities, I seem to have amassed quite the collection of SD cards. I have every denomination from 16MB to 2GB, but the only cards I really ever use are the 2GB in my iPAQ, the [...]
See my review of Apple’s 2ng generation nano here. 09/20/07 Please also read my review of Apple’s 3rd generation iPod nano fatty. It’s no secret that I am a card carrying member of Apple’s cult of iPod. Although it took me awhile to become inducted (my first iPod was a 3rd generation model), once I [...]
Sometimes I’ll catch myself falling into the "Super-Size Me" trap of basing a digital music player’s desirability on how many gigabytes it can hold – because in my mind, the more GB the better. Whether that is reasonable or not, I don’t know – it’s just the way that my mind works. I like the [...]
We sure do like our digital audio players here at The Gadgeteer. While I’m an iPod lover, Judie has yet to experience THE BEST player on the market. Sometimes I wish I’d never purchased an iPod because I’m forever disappointed when reviewing new players. Even Apple’s own spin-off has failed to give me gadget hot [...]
Product Requirements: Device: Microsoft Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, or XP / MAC OS 9.x ~ 10.x You would think that after reviewing almost 20 different digital audio players in the past 5 years, that I’d be totally sick of them. Well guess what, I’m not! Why? Because I’m always looking for a player with some [...]
If you are looking for my review of the Apple’s 2nd generation iPod shuffle, you can find it here. Product Requirements: Device: Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 or later or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later Mac OS X v10.2.8 or Mac OS X 10.3.4 and later (Mac OS [...]