Portable Media Players Archive

  • Gift Guide 2009: Portable Media Players

    Gift Guide 2009: Portable Media Players

    Posted on November 16, 2009 | No Comments
    Intro The common portable media player has a tough existence. It's expected to handle many tasks well, while being rugged enough to withstand daily (ab)use. It's expected to look nice, it's expected to provide more-than-decent battery life, and it's expected to provide a simple enough interface that it can be operated almost exclusively while on the [...]

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  • Public Service Announcement: The Zune HD is nigh unreadable in direct sunlight. Just sayin’.

    Public Service Announcement: The Zune HD is nigh unreadable in direct sunlight. Just sayin’.

    Posted on September 26, 2009 | No Comments
    Sometime in the past two weeks I decided, with some thought being put into is, to buy a Zune HD. Why, I don't know; I thought it looked neat, and I was thoroughly unimpressed with the new iPods Apple showed off at that Rock and Roll event. For the most part the Zune HD is, indeed, neat. Its user interface is miles ahead of the iPod's, and, with a little forethought, can be used rather effectively with a dual-booting Mac. There's just one small thing: you absolutely cannot read the display in direct sunlight. Don't try to because you can't.

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  • Portable media players will have a mandatory volume limiter in Europe soon

    Portable media players will have a mandatory volume limiter in Europe soon

    Posted on September 25, 2009 | No Comments
    It's expected that the European Commission will pass legislation that will require manufacturers to include a noise limiter on portable media players. This is being done, of course, because listening to said devices at extraordinarily loud volume levels is quite dangerous; up to 10 percent of users are in danger totally destroying their hearing by keeping the players on too loud.

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  • The Samsung R1 is a PMP, all right

    The Samsung R1 is a PMP, all right

    Posted on August 31, 2009 | No Comments
    The “anybody but iPod” crowd has another portable media player to choose from, and it's from Samsung. It's called the R1, and it's your standard issue touchscreen PMP. It does play Divx-encoded video, which should be a benefit to those of you who haven't moved into Blu-ray rips, or who enjoy watching standard-def rips of TV shows on the subway.

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