The Hello Kitty Music Player Crystal, made in cooperation with luxury brand Swarovski, I blogged about in October drew the attention of quite a few (mostly female) CrunchGear readers. One of the problems was the price: $150 for a fairly basic music player isn’t cheap. But now Japan-based Mouse Computer, in cooperation with iriver Japan, is offering a similar device. And their so-called Hello Kitty Music Player Premium [JP] is less expensive.
Want to listen to your iPod? Don’t care about your iPod getting wet or sweaty? Then stuff your iPod into this headband and run around like the magical iPod unicorn you are.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an audiophile. I enjoy music and I enjoy good sound but I have yet to be bitten by the high end audio bug. I understand that good audio gear is expensive but have also yet to feel that headphones are worth $1,700.
And yet, why am I so fascinated with the Ultrasone Edition9 headphones, a pair of closed-back cans with natural surround sound and an 8-35,000 Hz frequency range? What makes these headphones better or worse than anything else? What have I been missing?
Short Version: Are you an iFamily? Got lots of iDevices between you, your iDo, and maybe some iKids? Is your house sooooo big that it’s just too much trouble to walk to where your computer is to charge said iGadgets? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the Griffin PowerDock 4 is 4U. If you are Brady-sized, you will need two of these.
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Short Version: I love wirelessness. I was using Bluetooth to connect handhelds, phones, and headsets since ~2004. While smart phones have mostly killed the PDA, their media capabilities scream for a good set of wireless headphones. Sadly the Samsung SBH-700’s are not those headphones. While the specs sound impressive, talk time up to 9 hours, play time up to 7 hours, standby time up to 140 hours and weight of only 38.3 grams, the reality was disappointing.
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Short Version: The first time you put on noise canceling headphones, you can’t believe your ears. When you flip the noise canceling circuitry on, it’s like hitting a mute button on the world (note: does not work on significant others, only constant noise. And no, your SO’s blathering does not count as a constant din.) I never realized how loud my office was until I put on these JVCs. Now it’s hard to sit at my desk without them.
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Quick Version: Starting at under $40, the Sansa Clip from SanDisk makes an excellent wearable MP3 player if you’re looking for something small that still has plenty of features.
Short and sweet: Kidz Gear Headphones for Kids are just that: headphones for kids. The cans fit little ears, and the swivel mounts allow for comfortable positioning. Volume control on the cord, reasonable sound quality, and an affordable price make these a pretty good buy for Junior.
As a dilettante musician I enjoy the concept – if not the process – of recording my reedy, whiny voice to digital files. Until recently, that process was fraught with trouble and high quality recording equipment was difficult to obtain and expensive. Now anyone with a six-string and a dream can record fairly acceptable audio with something like the Belkin GoStudio.
I’ve really been looking forward to trying out the Myvu Shades made for iPod edition. I’ve always had some techno-lust for wearable computing, and I love the idea of being able to enjoy watching the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoons without people making fun of me. Keep on reading for my thoughts.
I like Sansa media players. I always have. They’re not quite as sexy as Apple iPods, and they’re not that much cheaper, really. The reason I like the Sansa players is because they don’t require any special software on my computer — heck, the review model I received contained only the player itself and the USB cable: no software CD at all! As a GNU/Linux user, I really enjoy being able to connect a Sansa player to my computer and have it immediately recognized as any other USB media. I can simply drag-and-drop media files into the proper directory, and they’re ready to play. And I can easily use a Sansa device in lieu of a USB memory stick, if necessary. But enough about my personal preferences: let’s take a look at the Sansa View 16GB.
Today, Slacker announced the G2 personal radio player, which is 10x better than the first gen device. The 4GB model handles 25 stations while the 8GB model stores up to 40 are available for $200 and $250, respectively. The Wi-Fi has also been beefed up and battery life is up around 15 hours. The G2 is 40 percent smaller than the first gen model and you can side load your own music to the device, but it’s limited to the PC. There is still no support for Mac users. It supports MP3, WMA and AAC.
That’s all the updated info and if you’re interested then keep reading for a full-on review.
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If you don’t own a Nano, get one of these. If you do, you can probably do to wait. The improvements to this model are manifold but not amazingly compelling, especially considering we haven’t had much time to play with the genius features yet.
I was never a Touch man. I loved the iPhone but the Touch never drove me to drink in quite the same way. I am pleased, however, to report that I’m getting me a 32GB Touch as soon as the Apple Store opens tomorrow. Why? A few reasons.
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The ATH-ANC3 noise-canceling headphones from Audio Technica feature make for great travel companions thanks to active noise cancellation, which basically entails using built-in microphones to take an audio sample of surrounding ambient noise and then creating the exact opposite noise to cancel the ambient noise out. Sound amazing? It is! So how well does it work on such a tiny pair of headphones?
Let’s find out.
Writing anything about Monster is fraught with peril. Everyone knows the traditional lime: Monster preys on morons. They sell expensive cables to people who don’t need them and they made a mint doing this over and over again. But this is a new era. Wireless is soon going to eat Monster Cable’s lunch and unless they can diversify – and convince the jaded public that they’re not out to screw them – they are stuck.
So where does that leave the Beats by Dr. Dre? This is a relative first for the company and I believe the headphones, taken at face value and considered in a vacuum, perform quite admirably.
First off, I’m coming at these headphones from a non-audiophiles perspective. I don’t know the lingo and I don’t want to get into a penis-length war with audiophiles because some of what they say is batshit crazy.
POIfriend (pronounced like boyfriend), which has nothing to do with the traditional Hawaiian dish of fermented taro, aims to be “the point of interest community that connects people and the places important to them.” Sounds easy enough, right? That’s because it is. POIfriend.com is based out of Toronto and was started by Dave Krawczyk and Bill McLean. It’s essentially a social network that allows users to create and share their own POIs within their group of friends or with the entire community. Sounds pretty dumb, huh? Well, if it were just a social network to collect and share POIs then, yes, it is dumb and not worth the time to sign up, but POIfriend.com is much more than that.
You know what? If I were to buy a television for the sole purpose of playing video games and I didn’t expect any friends to ever drop by (no two-player action), I might just consider picking up a pair of video glasses like these instead.
Navigon 2100 Max
Navigon made waves not long ago by introducing GPS units with free map upgrades for a one-time fee, unique among entry-level GPS units. The 2100 Max is an inexpensive in-car GPS add-on with many high-end features, including text to speech, comprehensive POI database, and upgradable maps.
The VentMount
DLO is a company that makes its fortune manufacturing cool and useful accessories almost exclusively for Apple’s iPod. It makes every imaginable case, dock, cable, you name it. The VentMount is new. It’s a type of case for the iPhone and iPod Touch that clips into your car’s dashboard, allowing easy access to your device when you’re driving.
