Recent Articles
iPod Shuffle Only Works with Apple Earphone?!
Mar 16, 2009 Apple, MP3 Players Leave a comment

Guys at Boing Boing dissects the earphones of the new iPod Shuffle, and found a tiny chip, coded 8A83E3. It could be just a normal chip that read and transmit a button click to a digital signal. As the new iPod shuffle has no button on the device, all the functions are controlled by its earphones. It seems Apple is making advantage from its 70% of the market share. The company can make a decent revenue by just turning the earphone chip into a licensing scheme!
By adding such a chip to headphones, Apple could force third-party manufacturers to pay fees to make headphones for its iPod Shuffle—after all, the device has no controls, so normal headphones are useless.
[ Boing Boing via CrunchGear ]
More reading:
iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen Reviewed by CNet
iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen Dissected by iFixIt
iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen Deals at Amazon
Popularity: 17% [?]
Credit Card Sized MP3 Player
Mar 16, 2009 MP3 Players, Others Players 3 Comments

This is a credit card sized MP3 player made by some Japanese brand. It has a OLED display with dimension of 85 x 54 mm. It’s thinnest part is about 3mm. If not because of the 3.5mm audio jack, I won’t realize it is actually not a credit card. It’s really thin huh?!
Well, no other information disclosed about this little thing.
[ via PCPOP ]
Popularity: 19% [?]
Philips Mix Announced
Mar 11, 2009 MP3 Players, Philips Leave a comment

Earlier we reported that Philips Mix will be available soon. Now we have a closer look at it. Well, it is a very basic digital audio player, which bring you back to old school day. It is small and light-weighted, about 26g. It is said that this little thing plays audio up to 25 hours continuously. For those left-handed, Philips does care about you. There is a setting to flip the OSD 180 degree.
[ via iMP3 ]
Popularity: 7% [?]
Sneak Peek at SmartQ 5
Mar 10, 2009 PMP Leave a comment

Here is how the actual SmartQ 5 look like. There are no more fake photoshoped images. The SmartQ 5 is not just an PMP, probably a MID as the company claims. But you can’t make a phone call from this device.
The SmartQ 5 runs on its own Linux distro. It features a 4.3″ touchscreen display at 800 x 480 resolution. It supports WIFI and Bluetooth connectivity. It has also FBReader installed. After all, it only cost you RMB899 (approx US$132)!
[ More images at iMP3 ]
Popularity: 8% [?]
Thanko Sport MP3 Introduced
Mar 9, 2009 MP3 Players, Others Players 1 Comment

Japanese Thanko recently announced the new headphone-style MP3 player, Sport MP3. It has 2GB of memory, and plays MP3, WMA, WAV audios up to 5 hours continuosly. It is also light-weighted, only 42g. It won’t burden you while you’re excising.
It only costs 4980 Yen (approx US$50). Not a bad choice for the sport lover on the move huh
[ via AV Watch (babelfished) ]
Popularity: 4% [?]
