MP3 Gaze

I’m still not getting much value out of Sumvision’s website, so on with the lies. This’ll teach Sumvision for the brevity of their product descriptions. Too right.

Sumvision’s Wiki Pro MP4 player features ‘auto switch off’ (this actually isn’t a lie). What they don’t tell you is that it automatically switches off even while you’re using it. In fact, especially when you’re using it.

But not only that. It also has the facility to switch off other equipment you own and will do so without mercy. Reports are starting to come in of people’s freezers being switched off by Sumvision’s Wiki Pro, causing large quantities of food to defrost. People then have a choice of either throwing it all away or gorging on it so as not to waste anything.

Sumvision’s Wiki Pro: Responsible for worldwide obesity.

I’ve an aversion to platinum. Platinum’s become synonymous with self-granted status symbols.

A platinum credit card is a way of saying that even though you’re spending someone else’s money, you’re spending it on Bentleys and holidays in Mauritius. It also says that you’re the kind of person who pays attention to what your credit card looks like and the effect it will have on the cashiers in ASDA.

Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden once revealed that he and some of his fellow batsmen called themselves ‘the platinum club‘. If this isn’t the most juvenile posturing you’ve ever heard from an adult, I’d like to know what is.

Sumvision’s Platinum Pro MP4 player: Are you the sort of person who wants something ‘platinum’?

A nexus is a connection or the centre of something. This seems like quite a grand claim on behalf of an MP4 player.

Altogether too many MP3 and MP4 players have got names that are trying to be cool. The campaign for intriguing, low-key or even embarrassing names starts here.

Some suggestions:

At least it’s not just a random set of numbers, I suppose. Small mercies.

KPAC? KPAC’s got to be someone’s nickname, hasn’t it? It reads like a J-Lo kind of a nickname - first initial and then the start of your surname. So who’s nickname is it?

My guess is that it’s Kerry Packer’s. Kerry Packer was an Australian media tycoon, most famous in my world for being the guy who brought about World Series Cricket.

Kerry Packer wanted the exclusive rights to Australian cricket, but he couldn’t get them, so he hit upon the ingenious solution of inventing a rival form of international cricket. KPAC threw a load of money at all the top cricketers. Quite a bit of it stuck and those players came and played World Series Cricket on his TV channel.

Now KPAC’s given his name to a portable media player, which seems strangely fitting, although I’m not quite sure why.

Sumvision’s website’s a bit light on facts about their products. I searched for about five minutes, but visiting lots of technological websites is really boring, as you no doubt know. As punishment for their witholding of information, I’m going to be painfully prejudiced against Sumvision from now on.

There is virtually nothing that I can tell you about Sumvision’s Yumi Pro MP4 player that isn’t really included in its name. Instead I’m going to make stuff up.

An MP4 player. That’s *one* better. It won’t be long before you’re getting MP5 players. I’d bring one out now. Cash in while there’s no competition.

I saw an advert for a five-bladed razor the other day. Now that’s impressive. I couldn’t see where the manufacturers were going to go after bringing out the four-bladed razor, but they’ve unarguably progressed.

I remember when they first brought out the triple-bladed razor. That was cutting edge at the time, if you’ll excuse the pun. That, in turn, was a massive leap from the double-bladed razor and the single bladed one before that. Where will it all end?

Battery life: 10 hours in ‘play mode’.
Size: Far, far too loseable.

Verdict: One out of three. The name’s not too bad. Bit grandiose, but at least they’ve spelt it right.

Is 2GB really big enough if you’re watching films and stuff? Granted there’s a mini SD expansion slot, so you can carry additional memory with you, but each of those is only up to 2GB, so you could end up with a bagful.

I spent a while trying to find out what the Sempra Pro’s battery life was as well. I thought that Sumvision were being economical with the truth, but it turns out that it was just taking a while for the page to load. Battery life is 6 to 10 hours. This is fine if you’re watching stuff, because you’ll have gone through your bag of memory cards after 10 hours.

If you’re listening to music, however, 10 hours is pretty pathetic. I’d have thought that battery life would be prolonged if you were only using audio, but it doesn’t say that, so I’ll presume it’s not the case.

At 7cm long, the Sumvision Sempra Pro is eminently loseable. To me, this is an important point. Maybe you could keep it in the plastic bag with all your spare memory.

Is it a square? Is it a circle? No, it’s a squircle.

Or at least it would be, if there were such a shape. What we have here is actually a square with rounded corners. Being a bit of a weird shape, it’s obviously meant to be ‘fun’. What this overlooks is the fact that an MP3 player is just a tool and it’s what you listen to that makes the difference.

As a tool, it’s potentially pretty good. Instead of having conventional memory, the Squircle instead offers SD/MMC memory card slots, so it can have as much or as little memory as you’re prepared to give it. On the other hand, no memory cards are provided, so that could be a bit of a disappointment on day one.

There’s no screen, which is good, because it means that there’s no screen to break. Fewer bits to break is always a positive.