Music

Zicplay MiniKey 512Mb Mini-Review (48%)
The Zicplay MiniKey is a tiny audio player. It comes in versions from 256MB to 1GB. There’s also a version with a built in FM tuner. The version we tested was the 512Mb model.
It can cope with MP3 files (8 – 320Kb/s fixed or variable bit rate) and Windows Media Audio (32 – 160Kb/s fixed or variable bit rate).
There’s an LCD display which will show lyrics/track listings/etc. It feels quite plastic – but then it’s also very light, only weighing 25g including the AAA battery which allows 15 hours of listening.
Features of the unit are a voice recorder (using ADPCM) and 7 backlight colours for the LCD display, some are more readable than others. It also supports a basic phone book (with some Windows software) allowing basic access to contact info. The system is also firmware upgradable.
Earphones are the average earbud type, but not really unexpected with this type of device, or at this price.
The major drawback is the MiniKey only supports USB 1.1 so it’s relatively slow compared to other MP3 players to get files into the unit (or using it as a USB data device).
The pricing, £39 (Eu56, $69), is not much different from a straight USB memory device.
The instructions that come with the unit aren’t particularly great.
Summary: It’s pretty cheap, and does what you’d expect.
Rating: 48%
ZicPlay MiniKey 512Mb
21 April, 2006
MobiNote Hipper 100 MP3 Egg Player Announced
If there’s one thing we’ve always thought that’s been missing when we’ve been grooving to our MP3 files, it’s an egg-shaped device that changes colour to the music.
And now – would you believe it! – Chinese manufacturers MobiNote Technology have made our dreams come true with the release of their Hipper 100 device offering that much-needed, “egg-shaped illumination.” We’re eggs-tatic!
Described as a “Mood Creator,” there’s an MP3 player, speaker and LED light all bundled into the egg shaped package, with the LED able to cycle between 10 colours in response to different beats and rhythms.
If you’re rocking out at home, the lights go up to 11 for Hip Pop or dance music, while if you’re in the mood to get down with your laydee, the LEDs will glow all soft and romantic as you slip on some sweet-talking tunes from the love lothario himself, Chris ‘look out ladies’ DeBurgh.
The USB port lets you plug in any USB device storing MP3 music files – like USB pen drives, MP3 players or card readers – with a line out feature allowing punters to connect the MobiNote Hipper to external speakers or headphones.
The player supports MP3 and WMA format music files and also comes with a line-in connector for non-USB audio devices, such as CD players and cassette recorders.
The suggested retail price of Hipper 100 is US$69 (E56, £39).
We bet you’re really eggs-cited and oval the moon, eh?
(Gets coat)
MobiNote
18 April, 2006
iRiver N12 Necklace MP3 Player
We have to say that if we strutted down the local boozer with an MP3 player strapped on around our neck, we’d most likely be called a lot of things – some of which might just rhyme with ‘Anchor’ – but, hey! – what do we know about yoof product design?!
Someone who does know a bit about design is Korean MP3 specialists iRiver, and judging by the way they’re bigging up their new N12 player on their Website, MP3 necklaces are, like, way down with the kids.
The form factor may not rock our world, but there’s no denying the diminutive players look very attractive in their shiny red or black finish, even if the headphone attachments look well odd – imagine trying to unravel that lot after five pints of Old Arkensall’s Badgerbait.
Dominating the iRiver is a large, 4 Line, 16 tone greyscale OLED screen, which displays EQ settings, track listings and folder views, and also doubles up as a clock/alarm clock.
The spec list looks pretty reasonable too, with the N12 offering 1GB of flash storage, USB 2.0 connectivity and the player supporting MP3 (MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3), WMA, OGG Vorbis (Q1~10), ASF formats.
There’s also an FM radio onboard – pretty crucial, that – with iRiver quoting a MP3 playback battery life of around 13 hours per charge (128kbps, MP3, volume level 20, EQ Normal, LCD Off).
Weighing just 22 grams and measuring 49.8(D) x 27.2(W) x 13.3(H) mm, the N12 is small and light enough to wear all day.There’s no news of a UK release or pricing yet, but over there in Europeland, it’s to retail for around €170.
iRiver N12 MP3 (in Korean, sadly)
11 April, 2006
Sony Hi-Fi EX90SL In-Ear Headphones
Fans of Star Trek keen to feel like their communicating with the Xyrillians when they’re ~~hoverbooting~~ walking down the street may be interested in Sony’s new EX90SL in-ear headphones.
Looking like a slimmed down version of the shiny chunk of metal that resided in Lieutenant Uhura’s lughole, the ‘bud’ style phones have encapsulated, inner-ear-speakers attached to a space-age shiny metal casing.
To ensure that the sound gets right down yer earhole, the EX90 sports an articulated design that swivels to get in deep and dirty amongst the ear wax.
The high quality ‘phones sport a pair of large, 16 Ohm, 13.5mm (CCAW) speakers serving up 106dB/mW on a wide 5 to 25kHz frequency response (not that any human is likely to hear the extremes of that quoted range. Unless you’re an owl or something). Output is rated at 200mW (IEC).
Aimed at the mobile MP3 listening market, the Sony’s look to offer a real improvement on the standard cheapo headphones that get bundled with players, but we strongly recommend users give this style of headphones a try out first before whipping out their wedge.
When we reviewed the MDR-EX71SL Sony Fontopia in-ear headphones we found that the air-tight seal made us go over a bit funny – although we were wowed by the sound quality. And if you’re listening to music and eating at the same time, the sensation can be distinctly odd!
The EX90SL’s appear to be only available in Japan at the moment, retailing for around 10,000 Yen (£48). We’ve no idea when they’ll be beaming units into the UK.
Sony Japan
5 April, 2006
Gold! Sony Ericsson W700 WALKMAN Phone Launched
Rolling off Sony Ericsson’s well-furrowed product slipway this morning is the W700i Walkman Phone, the company’s eighth addition to their Walkman range.
Looking almost identical to its big brothers in the W800 range, the W700 is designed to tempt the pockets of punters looking to play a bit of music but not needing a “full blown music phone.”
“The W700i builds on the legacy of the first Walkman phone, the W800i. This phone will appeal to anyone who wants a quality music player in their phone for occasional listening,” commented Jan Wäreby, Corporate Executive Vice President, Head of Sale and Marketing, Sony Ericsson.
Sporting a natty Titanium Gold finish, the W700 comes with a Memory Stick in the retail box, although punters will only get a measly 256MB PRO Duo card instead of the 512Mb card bundled with the W800i.
The phone can, however, accept cards up to 2GB, providing storage for up to 47 CDs – long enough to see you through even the longest of tube delays.
To save battery life (and keep flight attendants happy), the music player works when the phone is turned off.
Like the W800, the W700 comes with a full complement of onboard gizmos, including a two megapixel camera, 1.8 inch 262k 176×220 colour TFT display, dedicated music buttons and Bluetooth and Tri-band connectivity.
Battery life is claimed at up to 30-hours of music playback time, 9 hours talk time and 400 hours standby time.
The W700i will ship globally during Q2 2006, with a ‘Smooth White’ colour option available in some markets.
Sony Ericsson W700 specs
Band GSM 900/1800/1900MHz
Data GPRS
Size 100mm x 46mm x 20.5mm (3.9″ x 1.8″ x 0.8″)
Weight 99g (3.5oz)
Battery Life 9 hours talk time, 400 hours standby time
Main Display 1.8″ 262k color TFT LCD, 176×220 pixel resolution
Sub-Display N/A
Camera Yes, 2.0 megapixel
Video Video capture/playback
Messaging MMS/EMS/SMS
Email Yes
Bluetooth Yes
Infrared Yes
Java Yes, MIDP v2.0
Polyphonics Yes
Memory 256MB on board memory, Memory Stick PRO Duo expansion
Sony Ericsson
4 April, 2006
Sony China Announces CE-P MP3/FM Players
Details of a snazzy new range of Sony flash memory MP3 player/FM radios with a colour display have appeared on Sony’s Chinese site.
As our Chinese translation skills are up there with our ability to understand advanced quantum physics explained in Latin, we may not be 100% accurate here, but it appears that Sony China is introducing a new range of flash memory multimedia players, under the name of the CE-P series.
Sporting attractively bijou dimensions of 75.5mm x 45.5mm, the CE-P is smaller than a credit card (but not as thin, natch) and is designed for carrying around your neck, gangsta-stylee.
The first model to be designed by the Sony China Creative Centre in Shanghai, the front of the display is dominated by a 1.5″ 260K color OLED display.
Sony’s designers have turned up the feature set to eleven, with the unit ramming in MP3/WMA playback, a built-in 87.5-108MHz FM tuner and FM radio recording, voice recording, BMP/JPEG picture display and USB 2.0 for file transfer.
The CE-P series will come in three flavours, offering storage capacity from 256MB to a 1GB.
We’ve no idea about availability in Europe and America, but pricing should be somewhere in the region of $150 (E124, £86) for the 1GB model, $125 (E103, £72)for the 512MB and $100 for the bottom-of-the-range 256MB unit.
Sony China
3 April, 2006
Digital Music Sales In 2005 ‘Crazy’
New figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reveal soaring global sales of digital music while overall music sales continue to decline. This in the same week that Gnarls Barkley and their musical ditty Crazy have become the first digital-only Number One in the UK Hit-parade, as we’d previously highlighted.
The IFPI reported record company revenues from digital sales nearly tripling from $400 million in 2004 to a massive $1.1 billion last year, with individual song downloads rising to 470 million units, up from 160 million.
Despite bumper digital sales, the IFPI said that global sales of music CDs and DVDs were down for the sixth consecutive year (down 3 percent), adding that burgeoning digital sales weren’t enough to offset the decline.
According to the IFPI, 618.9 million CDs were sold during 2005, substantially down 19 percent from the 762.8 million sold in 2001.
IFPI Chairman and Chief Executive John Kennedy pointed an accusing finger at online piracy as well as competition from other entertainment outlets and changes on the way punters get their music.
The growing single song download market (which accounted for 86 percent of purchases), has resulted in many listeners choosing to grab individual tracks rather than download entire albums.
The United States, Japan, Britain, Germany and France proved to have the strongest digital sales and were also the best performing markets overall.
“In Japan, digital has already made up for the decline in physical sales, and other markets should go this way,” commented Kennedy.
As we reported last week, the greater popularity of mobiles over PCs in Asia has resulted in far higher mobile music downloads. In fact, just 9 percent of consumers in Japan download music to their PCs compared to 65 percent in the US, Britain and Germany.
The biggest selling album of the year was “X&Y” by Coldplay, which could be heard being played – not too loudly, mind – in 8 million bedrooms, company cars and comfy living rooms.
Elsewhere, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that despite a bumper wholesale revenue of $7 billion, overall shipments of music products – including CD’s and digital albums and singles combined – fell 3.9 percent last year.
Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of RIAA boasted that illegal file-sharing on many popular online channels had been “held in check” as the industry continues its blitz on piracy.
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
3 April, 2006
Crazy, Gnarls Barkley; First Electronic-only Chart Number 1?
It’s thought that the forthcoming UK chart show, released on Sunday, run by the terribly formal sounding Official UK Charts Company, will be the first time a Number 1 will be a non-physical product. Translated – Crazy by Gnarls Barkley has only been released electronically, as a download.
Downloads have been around for ages though haven’t they? Why hasn’t this happened before, I hear you cry? Well, it’s only been a few weeks since they changed the way the charts were calculated. Previously downloads were counted if they also had a physical release, but since the change hey don’t have to have to be rendered on atoms, to be included.
Those Chart cat’s are exactly what you’d call ‘with it’ are they? But I guess we know that given how long it took the music companies to pull their fingers out and start to grab hold of the digital revolution – actually there’s many who’d argue that they still haven’t.
As ever, we tried to dig further into this story, but found it very clear that this isn’t a company familiar with having press inquiries, so dear reader, this story ends here.
30 March, 2006
Mobile Music Download Market Explodes
Global revenue from music downloaded onto mobile phones went through the roof last year, with pundits predicting that the only way is up for the next five years.
ABI Research’s “Mobile Music Services” surveyed world markets for downloads of full music tracks, ringtones and ringback tones and revealed that the market for full track music downloads to mobile devices had ballooned by 2,000% in the twelve months to the end of 2005.
Compared to sales of $12.4 million in 2004, last year saw an explosive growth in the market, with handset owners shelling out a thumping great $251 million on music downloads – and that figure is expected to reach $9.3 billion by 2011.
The report notes that the high penetration of home PCs in North America has limited over-the-air downloads compared to overseas markets like Asia where mobile phones enjoy greater popularity than PCs.
Similarly, the absence of a Japanese iTunes store until Q4 of 2005 also helped telecom operator KDDI shift 30 million mobile tracks in Japan last year.
How to make a mint from mobile music
If you fancy chancing your arm in the music download market, Arthur Daley’s of the world will appreciate the list of ‘prerequisites for future success in the music-download business’ dished out in the report.
These include a 3G network capable of supporting the product, agreements between carriers and record labels and a distribution system that checks that handsets can accept the content and, crucially, ensures that punters fork out for the product.
Moreover, there must be robust copyright-protection software in place which allows mobile phone users to shunt tracks between devices with no bother.
Finally, the handsets themselves must come with enough memory to store an ample selection of banging tunes and be capable of supporting music downloads and transfers.
And with that, we’re off to launch the Digital Lifestyle Music Download service from our lock-up under the arches.
ABI Research
29 March, 2006
Butterfly FMP3 Player MP3/FM/Headphone combo
Most built-in MP3/FM/headphone combos are so bulky it looks like the user has got two halves of a tennis ball stuck on their heads, but a new headset from Japanese manufacturers Thanko looks to change all that.
The slimline silver and black headphone combo looks like a regular set of ‘cans’ (as we musos like to call them) although a selection of buttons on the left hand earpiece reveals their bolted on gizmos.
The controls let users select the FM radio or MP3 options, adjust the volume, change tracks or fiddle about with four EQ settings offering POP, Classic, Jazz, Rock and Normal.
Clearly getting carried away with claims about the unit’s diminutive size, the (ahem) ‘ButterFly’ FMP3 comes in two flavours offering 512MB and 1GB flash memory capacities, with the built in MP3 player supporting MP3 and WMA at 32 – 192Kbps data rates.
Music files can be uploaded onto the ButterFly player by drag and drop over a USB 1.1 connection (Windows only).
Disappointingly, the 76-91Mhz FM radio only offers mono output and, as far as we can see, there’s no means to record anything on to the flash memory.
Powered by a non-removable 3.7V lithium ion battery, charged over the USB connection, the hazy web translation suggests that the makers are claiming up to 700 minutes for radio play and 350 – 400 minutes of continuous MP3 playback.
Priced at 9,000 Yen ($77, £44, €64) for the 512MB version and around 58 quid for the 1GB version, they’re cheap enough to tempt people looking for what a PR company might call a ‘wireless lifestyle experience’, although we’ve no idea when – or even if – they’ll ever be shipped into Blighty.
Butterfly FMP3 Player
28 March, 2006