music player

Dancepants - keep running or the music stops

By Jude Garvey

22:58 November 23, 2009 PST

When did running get so complicated? Remember the good old days when going for a run was as easy as changing shoes and heading out the front door? Now, there’s a plethora of running gear and gadgets - ranging from heart rate monitors to state-of-the-art running shoes. It seems that not many runners leave home without their MP3 players either, but would they be prepared to work hard for their music? The Dancepants kinetic music player is a new design concept that would see runners harnessing their kinetic energy to power their music player. Yep, you’ve got to keep moving to keep grooving. Read More

Lullabelly prenatal belt plays your favorite tunes to your child

By Jude Garvey

20:43 November 1, 2009 PST

There are various opinions about when a developing fetus can first hear sounds, with ages ranging from as early as 16 weeks to as late as 28 weeks. Just what they can actually hear is also a subject of debate – will it really matter if you play classical music or classic rock to your unborn child? Regardless of the facts, Moms the world over have been playing music to their little ones for eons. The Lullabelly prenatal music belt is designed to make this a comfortable and simple task, providing a soft material belt that encircles the belly and plugs into your music maker. Read More

Creative gets in touch with ZEN X-Fi2 PMP

By Mick Webb

10:32 September 29, 2009 PDT

Creative's latest personal media player - the ZEN X-Fi2 - is the company's first full touch screen offering and features a 3” screen with a simplified navigational menu in landscape format, X-Fi sound enhancement and a TV-out connection for viewing video and photos on the big screen in a package that weighs just 75g. Read More

SanDisk slot in the release of the Sansa Clip+ MP3 player

By Mick Webb

19:48 September 6, 2009 PDT

Hot on the heels of the recently released slotRadio player is the latest addition to SanDisk's ever-expanding family of personal music players, the Sansa Clip+. An update of the popular Sansa Clip, the unit boasts the inclusion of a microSD card slot, offering not only memory-expanding capabilities but compatibility with SanDisk's pre-loaded offerings. Read More

Altec Lansing MIX - digital boombox with multi music input

By Jeff Salton

21:48 September 3, 2009 PDT

Get one of these and become the life of the party, that seems to be the message from Altec Lansing with the launch of its new MIX (iMT800) digital boombox for party-goers and ‘unofficial DJ’s’. The MIX lets users connect three music players at once through its inputs – a 30-pin dock connector for the iPhone and iPod and also two front-facing 3.5mm jacks. No more plugging and unplugging devices during songs or arguments over whose music is on next. The unit has a built-in subwoofer, a seven-band graphic equalizer, FM radio and heavy-duty carry handles to enable you to take the MIX from party to party. There’s also a remote control with clip-on carabiner. Read More

Sony makes some noise - S Series Walkman with built-in speakers

By Mick Webb

22:14 August 27, 2009 PDT

Sony has announced the latest update of its enduring stalwart, the Walkman, with some additions to their range of portable music players. Rather than just providing music for one, the S-Series includes built-in speakers to share the sound, while the new E-Series offers a stylish entry-level option. Read More

SanDisk slotRadio – a thousand songs for 10¢ each, player included

By Michael Mulcahy

19:22 August 18, 2009 PDT

As flash memory card capacity increases exponentially and prices fall equally fast, manufacturers are looking for new ways to innovate. SanDisk, one of the world’s biggest makers of memory products, has partnered with the Billboard charts in order to compete with music players like the iPod. The SanDisk slotRadio is a small, stylish player that comes bundled with a micro SD flash card pre-loaded with 1000 chart-topping songs for just USD$99.99. It’s certainly great value, but the big drawback is the music won’t play on anything else. Read More

In a twirl with the Chukka Kinetic Music Player

By Paul Ridden

06:09 August 11, 2009 PDT

Listening to music became a truly personal experience when Sony first introduced the Walkman all those years ago. Technological advances since then have seen music players store more songs, become more compact and include color screens - and now they're even beginning to liberate themselves from the shackles of the battery. To achieve its battery free charge, the Chukka Kinetic Music Player combines electromagnetic induction with a unique design that positively encourages the user to twirl it around the fingers, throw it about and otherwise toy with it. The result - an eco-friendly personal media player that also gives you the recognized stress relieving benefits of tactile interaction and repetitive physical motion. Read More

Olive Opus No4: time to go digital

By Paul Ridden

20:01 August 9, 2009 PDT

There's no denying that digital music has revolutionized the way we buy and listen to our music. There is a cost to pay for such convenience though as the most widely available download formats suffer from loss of sound quality to varying degrees. This is where digital music players like the Olive Opus 4 come in, offering the superior sound quality of CD and the functionality of a digital music player in one unit. Enjoying lossless sound and practicality of use does seem to come hand in hand with a hefty financial outlay, so is it worth it? Read More

K-box turns anything flat into a giant speaker

By Michael Mulcahy

18:57 July 21, 2009 PDT

As personal music players like the iPod become ubiquitous, there’s another developing trend that’s even more insidious: the desire to share that music with everyone else. Miini speakers are flooding the market at the moment, but a new product called the Kerchoonz K-box promises to make even more noise. A compact, mobile-phone sized device, the K-box turns any flat surface – wall, table, window, ceiling – into a giant speaker. Read More

Archos 2 gives iPod Shuffle a run for its money

By Mick Webb

19:21 May 11, 2009 PDT

When it comes to ultra-compact portable music players, for many the choice

"du jour" has been the ubiquitous iPod Shuffle. Apple’s minute MP3 players have consistently offered an attractive price point and ever diminishing size with each generation of Shuffle, which has allowed the pocket player to claim the lion’s share of the market. Here to give them a run for their money is the Archos 2 portable music player, which packs a punch with size, specs and price. Read More

More than meets the eye: Xonix 5-in-1 video sunglasses

By Paul Best

20:06 April 22, 2009 PDT

OK it’s not on the Inspector Gadget scale of ingenuity, but five cool functions in one pair of sunnies from the Xonix Watch Company still gets the gadget gene in us twitching. When you’re not simply wearing them to shield your eyes from the sun – which is one of its functions – the sports-designed sunglasses also serve as a video recorder, camera, music player and memory storage device. Built-in memory of up to 16GB caters for up to eight hours of AVI format video capture or up to 160,000 images depending on the resolution, which peaks at a less than awe-inspiring 2.0 megapixels. Read More