MP3 Gaze

Here we see the Bono its natural habitat of the press conference.

In order to evade predators, this Bono has cleverly concealed itself behind two iPods.

Sadly, man’s influence is leading to smaller and smaller iPods, making it harder and harder for wild Bonos to escape detection.

If nothing is done to reverse this trend, the Bono may become a thing of the past before this decade is out.

Oh come on. Why do you have to trepan the poor little guy just so you’ve got somewhere to plug your headphones?

Look at his blank expression. He’s not enjoying the experience.

Tomy’s teddy bear MP3 player appeared on TechEBlog over a year ago. You probably can’t even get it any more.

Never let it be said that we don’t have our finger on the pulse when it comes to MP3 players.

It was only 18 months ago when this came out, so this is pretty good going for me.

Sony made a limited edition Franz Ferdinand MP3 player.

In my head, this was going to be a good update. Maybe not ‘funny’ or ‘informative’ but at the very least ‘colourful’.

[Drums fingers on table. Puts fingers on keyboard. Returns to drumming fingers. Clicks 'publish'.]

“TrekStor has received an order from Russian-Canadian billionaire and owner of the Midland Formula 1 team, Alex Shnaider, to develop the world’s most expensive MP3 player.”

Note that he didn’t request, say, ‘the world’s best MP3 player’. He requested the most expensive. Foolishly, Trekstor went down the ‘making it gold and gluing on some diamonds’ route.

What I’d have done would have been to pick the cheapest MP3 player in their range, drawn a dollar sign on it and charged him a million of the currency of his choice - preferably British pounds because they’re so much bigger than any other currency.

Why is this Egge a ‘twoway’ and other Brainic Egges aren’t? No idea. Let’s guess - like usual.

It can play music which you can listen to, or you can sing at the Egge and it’ll have to put up with you.

That’s the only suggestion I’ve got. Not sure why the Egge or the Egge Simple won’t let you do that.

Samsung say: “Just clip this super-slim flash player onto your belt and you’re ready to go!”

Go where? Where the hell would you dare go with anything strapped to your belt? Has no-one told Samsung that if you have something affixed to your belt, you’re instantly uncool.

It’s because it’s ‘practical’. Being practical is very, very, deeply uncool.

I should know.

I’m drowning in corporate smugness.

Oh dear Lord. Will you look at this thing.

Imagine owning it. Even worse: Imagine being seen with it. It’s too horrifying to contemplate.

Is it supposed to hang from your belt or what? That would be monumentally stupid. Surely you’re asking for that knife-and-a-moped, cutting-the-strap trick that thieves perfected for hand bags.

Actually, maybe its in-built protection from that method of theft is its hideous, hideous appearance.

Samsung’s Nexus 25 can receive live XM Radio reception when connected to a home docking station or car dock. Surely the home and the car are two places where you can quite easily get radio reception. At least you could last time I checked, which was in 1996.

This may be a slightly unfair criticism, but I think it looks boring as well. Ordinarily I consider the appearance of MP3 players to be entirely irrelevant. It’s a sign that I’ve been looking at too many of late.

One of the advertised features on ATMT’s N-Lite MP3 player is ‘fast forward’. Fast forward hasn’t been a feature worth commenting on since the gramophone.

The battery life is a subtly ambiguous ‘longer than eight hours’. I really don’t know what that means, but I’m assuming that if it had managed to creep over nine hours, ATMT would have advertised it as such. Assume the battery life’s between eight and nine hours. I suppose that’s long enough to get you through a working day, but it might not cover your commute.

‘The N-Lite: Lasts as long as milk in direct sunlight (now with fast forward).’

But Garfield needs his eyes. Why have they done this to Garfield’s eyes.

Also, he doesn’t seem to have a body any more and you can play music through him.

Spotted at Newlaunches.com

I feel like a proper technology journalist today. I’m looking at a website I can’t even read. You know you’re in the land of technology when your PC can’t produce the right characters. Mark my words, no decent technology is made in the West.

So I don’t know who Brainic are and I don’t know about the Egge. It’s 512MB or 1GB. I think it’s 27.4g. It can produce 65,000 colours on a 0.95″ screen.

There’s some educated guessery going on there, as you no doubt understand.

Is this, or is this not, you’re nan’s purse from 1984?

I could be wrong, but that pattern looks distinctly familiar. Either way, it’s certainly a bit dated-looking for something like the iPod Video - a contraption so painfully cool that owning one’s like repeatedly stabbing yourself through the eyes with an icicle.

Maybe this look’s so old it’s cool again. I’m never good with stuff like that. Everything I own is bought as uncool and subsequently abandoned before it becomes cool again.

It’s not especially clever to mock text that is clearly translated from another language, but I’m not clever. Conico’s website features the following text about the ZS35 iPod wallet:

“Elegant attribute. Tailor makes ipod video case for the high bow serious with shiny Spanish Nappa genuine leather.”

The K5 has ‘a heavy portfolio’ according to Samsung. That’s what I look for in an MP3 player. How about you?

The K5 features a slide-out speaker system, which is pretty clever. You too could be really, really hated by everyone on the train.

Or you could sell your stereo and use the K5 at home and be just a little bit disappointed that the tiny speaker doesn’t quite live up to your expectations.

Just the two of us, we can make it if we try.

MobiBLU’s website boasts of a “laser etched metal keyoad”. Now I don’t know what a ‘keyoad’ is, but I want one and surely so must you.

Just imagine the scenario. Your friend gets out his or her MP3 player and starts going on about its memory size and how unbelievably small it is. Another friend does the same. And another. How do you decide who’s got the best MP3 player. You can’t. They’re all much the same.

At this point, you whip out your MobiBLU US2 and say: ‘Ah, but have any of you got an MP3 player with a laser etched metal keyoad?’