All MP3 players Feeds

HTC's Touch Diamond docks in

Gareth Beavis — 1210671720

The iPod syndrome will likely be with us for many years to come. Words will have small letters before the capitals (the iGrape being my favourite so far) and everything will be made in ‘official iPod colours’ (ie white).

Well, perhaps not in the case of the HTC Touch Diamond. The phone itself is a lovely looking piece of kit, winning in the aesthetic stakes if not the technological ones. It’s the business phone for the businessman who isn’t afraid of wearing a linen suit every so often.

Therefore, it needs a decent array of accessories (obviously in the same colour and style to make sure everyone knows you like your gadgets ‘just-so’) and the HTC Touch Diamond dock (you see what they did there?) is a similarly lovely-looking piece of kit.

You know you’ve looked at the Touch Diamond and felt the need to sync the phone via USB, while listening to your favourite tunes via a headphone socket.

The question is: are you willing to cough up £25 for the trouble? If not, you could always spend your weekends varnishing a piece of slate, cut a hole in it and stick a wire in the back. Nobody would know the difference.

Myvu tries to give video glasses style

Marc Chacksfield — 1210601640

The idea of wearing video glasses is definitely an intriguing one. In theory, they’re great: don them and you turn wherever you are into a cinema. In practice, though, while you wonder at your new portable cinema, everyone is staring at you, wondering who the berk is with the space-age face furniture.

Enter a new piece of video eyewear, the Myvu Crystal. According to the bods who created the glasses, you can “Watch what you love, when you want and look great doing it.” And while we’re not that convinced that you will look great, the glasses do boast some nifty features that may well keep the hecklers at bay.

Points of view

The Myvu Crystal is the lightest and thinnest videowear available, and boasts 33 per cent wider field of view than the company’s Shades 301 range.

Video output is Full VGA quality (640 x 480) and is designed to be worn with the latest iPods. You also get four hours’ battery life, connected earbuds and a remote control unit.

The glasses are available in two colours, amber or black, and are out in the US now for $299 (around £150).

If you check out the website, there’s a 30-day trial, which you may want to use. If after 30 days, the sartorial bullies haven’t mocked you for wearing them, then the Myvu Crytal glasses may be well worth a purchase.

Creative successfully sued over gigabyte claims

Patrick Goss — 1209734880

Creative has been successfully sued for telling punters that its mp3 players were bigger than they actually were.

Creative worked on the incorrect assumption that 1GB was exactly one billion bytes 1,000,000,000B rather than the 1,073,741,824B it should be.

Un-classy action

After 2004 Creative made this point clear in its documentation, but anyone in the US who bought a Creative MP3 player before that proviso appeared can file a claim.

So if you are American and feel hard done by, you can now get half off a $35 Creative Zen Stone or get a 20% discount on your next Creative purchase

Microsoft leaves MSN Music users high and dry

Audley Jarvis — 1208969162

Microsoft has announced that it will be switching off the MSN Music license servers at the end of this summer, leaving millions of users with a potential headache and potentially unplayable MP3s.

Because the servers are used to authorise playback of MP3s purchased from Microsoft's now defunct MP3 store, users who have downloaded songs from the site will not be forced to commit to which computers they can play their DRM-protected tracks on in advance or lose them forever.

Forewarning from MSN

According to Ars Technica, an email from MSN general manager Rob Bennett has been sent to customers forewarning them of the planned switch off:

"As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers," Bennett explains in the mail.

“If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play," he adds in a matter of fact way, clearly not in the least bit aware of the mass gnashing of teeth his message has just caused.

PlaysForSure license

Under the PlaysForSure license granted with MSN Music downloads, users are able to license and play the MP3 file on up to five computers. But of course, even with four credits left, it’s impossible for users to supply the details of a computer they don’t intend to purchase until after the switch off.

So, unless owners of the affected MP3s are prepared to keep their existing computers forever, the DRM-encoded music they’ve already paid good money for will eventually become unplayable.

Like we said, it’s just one more reason to be thankful that DRM is on the way out.

Sony BMG joins Nokia's 'Comes With Music'

Patrick Goss — 1208870178

For those waiting eagerly for Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ service, the good news is that the mighty Sony BMG has thrown its lot in with the Finnish phone manufacturer.

Although the service is yet to launch, there is plenty of anticipation over the all-you-can-eat subscription service that gives you a year of free music and then allows you to keep the tracks (still DRM’ed) at the end of the period – when you buy a handset of course.

Any music service lives or dies by the quality and breadth of its content – and the decision of Sony BMG to get involved brings one of the biggest production companies into the mix.

Tied in

"As one of the leading major music companies in the world, our collaboration with Sony BMG means we can offer a huge range of fantastic music from both international and local artists via Comes With Music," said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice president and head of the Nokia Entertainment and Communities business.

"It's great to have them on board as we move forward with bringing our unlimited music bundle to the market."

Currently to transfer the files once your year is up you’ll need a new handset or subscription – tying you neatly to the Nokia network. But we all surely understand by now that there’s no such thing as a free launch?

Mobiblu's Cube3 launches

1207734254

Mobiblu has announced that a new version of its Cube portable media player will be launched on 1 May.

The new 2GB Cube3 will support MP3, WMA and DRM-protected WMA files. It's also compatible with PlaysForSure files from subscription-based download sites, and Podcast Ready enabled.

Even though each face of the cube-shaped player only measures an inch, the Cube3 sports a 65k colour OLED screen on which video (WMV, MPG, and ASF) and image (JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, MNG, and ICO) files can be viewed.

In addition to MP3 and video, the Cube3 also features an in-built FM radio, clock and alarm, plus a range of equalizer settings and play modes. The Lithium polymer battery life is estimated at 10 hours, and the player comes with USB charging dock/cable.

The all new Cube3 will be available from May. There’s no word on UK pricing or availability, but in the US it’s expected to retail for just $99.

Dell wants back into handhelds

Don Reisingher — 1206009256

Despite having trouble competing with its rivals in the PC market, Dell is reportedly ready to give the handheld market another chance after unceremoniously dropping out of it last year.

The company is rumoured to have placed several orders with Asian manufacturers to produce mobile phones, PDAs and GPS devices. The sources suggest that the decisions by Acre and HP to invest huge sums of cash into the handheld business have given Dell no choice but to try again.

Return to handhelds makes sense

Dell has yet to confirm the reports, but a decision to return to the handheld business would make sense. Almost twelve months after discontinuing its Axim PDA business, Dell hired Motorola's Ron Garriques to head up its consumer electronics division. But it has struggled to compete in an industry where manufacturing and selling PCs simply isn't enough anymore.

Dell has declined comment and given no indication that it has designs on the handheld business. However, considering Acer and HP have already made inroads, it seems likely that Dell will soon follow suit.

The MP3 player is a decade old

Dan Grabham — 1205252568

The humble MP3 player is a decade old. Next time you’re listening to your iPod or SanDisk Sansa or Creative Zen Stone, remember where it all started. And that was with a player called the MPMan F10 that boasted 32MB of flash memory (barely enough for a single album) and connected to your PC by the means of a parallel port! Ah, those were the days.

You see, USB hadn’t yet properly established itself in 1998, despite already being included on PCs. The next couple of years led to some heady days for MP3 players, culminating in the launch of the mighty iPod in 2001.

The F10 was made by Korean firm Saehan Information Systems and was launched after making its debut at CeBIT. It was in production that summer. The Register, which features a lengthy retrospective on the F10, says that it sold for $250 (£125) in the US, which dropped to $200 (£100) when the Rio PMP3 launched in 1999 and was subsequently sued by the RIAA. Remember Rio?

And then, of course, there were others such as the original Creative models. We had one of the first portable Discman-sized 6GB DAP Jukeboxes on our desk back in 2000/2001. At the time we thought that was pretty mind-blowing. 6GB! And now you get nearly three times that on a phone…

[Via Register Hardware]

Hands on: SanDisk's Sansa Fuze MP3 player

James Rivington — 1205248871

The Sansa Fuze was not supposed to be announced by SanDisk until later in the month. But after numerous leaks by some seemingly incompetent online retailers, SanDisk has moved forward the schedule. The Fuze was made official earlier today.

The Sansa Fuze is a new mid-range MP3 player that will compete directly with MP3 players like the Creative Zen and the iPod nano. And SanDisk was kind enough to give us an exclusive first-look at the Fuze when we visited the company at CeBIT last week. Essentially, it’s a Sansa model which sits firmly between the upper-end Sansa View and the lower-end Sansa Clip.

Clearly designed to compete with Apple’s iPod nano, it’s a pretty good looking little player. It closely resembles to its two sister models actually, and so Sansa's distinctive new look is now completed across the range.

iPod nano has some competition

But is it any good? Well it looks good, that’s for sure. It’s a very nice size, and sits in your hand perfectly. The interface and scroll-wheel are identical to those of the Sansa View and so essentially the only differences between the two are physical size and capacity.

While the Sansa View will soon be available in 32GB, the Fuze will only initially come in 2,4 and 8GB flavours.

We were told a few weeks ago that SanDisk had made a special effort to improve sound quality on the Fuze compared to its other players. But it seems as though that isn’t the case after all – that’s not to say it sounds bad, of course. The 192Kbps MP3 we listened to sounded pretty good, although perhaps not quite as crisp as on other players we’ve used.

The interface, as with all Sansa players, is pretty intuitive. Just like the View and the e-series before it, the filing system is very similar to that of the iPod and Creative’s Zen players. So in that respect, it’s very easy to use, and it looks good too.

In addition to playing music, video, photos, FM radio and audiobooks, the Sansa Fuze has a generous list of features, including the now-expected microSD card slot to upgrade storage capacity; a voice recorder to capture thoughts on the fly, and pretty attractive 1.9-inch screen.

The Fuze will be available from around £50, so if your budget sits around that price-point, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

Stay tuned for a full-review of the Sansa Fuze very soon.

The German iPod killer that no one's ever heard of

James Rivington — 1204899903

Worldwide, Apple is so much more successful than any other MP3 player manufacturer, it’s unreal. The iPod enjoys an unprecedented market share in almost every country in the world. But not Germany.

In Germany, a small company called TrekStor from South Hessia in south-west Germany, sells more MP3 players than Apple does. And now the company is bracing itself to take the UK by storm.

Not only does it believe it can be a booming success in the UK, it’s aiming to become the Number Three manufacturer (behind Apple and Creative) before the end of 2008.

Award-winning

TechRadar stopped by the TrekStor stand at CeBIT to have a chat with Gil Szmigiel, TrekStor’s chief technology officer.

“In Germany we’ve been going since 2001. In most markets we’re in, in Germany, we’re in the top three brands, and in a lot of cases we’re number one. For example in the MP3 player market, Apple is the biggest brand in every country in the world. But not so here in Germany. We sell more MP3 players than Apple does here,” he said.

Szmigiel said that the German press regularly rates TrekStor MP3 players higher than those made by Apple, Creative and SanDisk. And he made no bones about the fact that he firmly believes that TrekStor players are better than the rest.

“We have over 120 awards for our MP3 players already and that’s because we’re not trying to force the customer into acting in a specific way – like only buying music from iTunes where you can’t put other music on your device. You can use DRM 9 and DRM 10 with our products as well as normal MP3 and WMA files.

“We’re not trying to copy Apple in any way, design-wise or anything. If you look at our products you will not find anything that’s similar to an Apple product, they’re all very distinctive and different. It doesn’t make sense to copy somebody because customers will always want to just go and buy the original.”

European success

TrekStor’s enormous success in Germany has been used as a springboard to launch in other European countries such as Spain, Italy and Turkey.

“So now we’re trying to bring our success in Germany to the UK,” Szmigiel said. “And the UK is the biggest market for MP3 players in Europe. We’re actually got an engineering team in Cambridge. We’ve got a wide range of products too from very low end ones to very high end ones. The TrekStor Vibez player for example is a high-end product.

“We are just focussed on producing products which do things that other players can’t. We can cross-fade MP3s. Some of our players can play more than one song at a time, so you can DJ with them. Some have two headphone jacks and one has a built-in FM transmitter.”

Aiming for bronze

We couldn’t help but be a bit sceptical about TrekStor’s prospects in the UK. But Szmigiel indicated that it might not be as hard as some might think to overtake some of the other players in the market.

“Can we overtake Creative and SanDisk in the UK? Sure yes, it’s perfectly possible to overtake them but with Apple it’s a little more complicated. The iPod is so well established in the market, and there are so many people who just love Apple and everything they’re doing. Apple are a company not only producing products but also an ever-growing fanbase. It’s very difficult to top that.

“It’s not really our goal to beat Apple in the UK. It might be our goal in two years time or something like that, but not yet. However, despite the ever-growing fanbase that Apple has. The hate-base is also growing. There are many people who hate Apple products or things that they do. Like with the iPhone they blocked out third-party software; that didn’t go down well.

“We thought about being number 5 in the UK before the end of 2008. But internally we’re trying to be the UK’s Number Three MP3 player manufacturer before the end of the year behind Apple and Creative,” he said.

TrekStor is sending TechRadar a collection of its MP3 players so next week we’ll be able to give you the low-down on whether the likes of SanDisk and Creative should be worried.