Click a picture to enter the Design Review slideshow.
It's not easy for Sony. For decades, Sony's Walkman devices dominated the personal audio market with great and popular products. Then along came the iPod. Sony has been playing catch-up since.
Sony's latest attempt to regain traction is the X Series Walkman (NWZ-X1051). It's a touch-screen music player with 16GB of storage, a 3-inch OLED display, digital noise canceling, integrated Wi-Fi, and a built-in Web browser. The NWZ-X1051 is an impressive media player, but does it have what it takes to unseat the Apple iPod--a modern triumph of technology, marketing, and design?
Design Review dissects the Sony Walkman.
(Credit: Moto Development Group)In this, the first edition of Design Review, I'll look at the X Series from my perspective. I'm a product developer at Moto Development Group. For 18 years I've tried to help companies combine the dreams of their designers with the potential of engineering, the realities and limitations of manufacturing, and the requirements of sales and marketing teams. In this column I'm going to do that after the fact, examining products that are on the market and interpreting their designs. I find it fascinating to "read" a product this way.
To me, it's the little things that make even a flat-front product like this Sony interesting. These details are all evidence of priorities and choices along the development path. For example, the X Series is physically solid and visually clean, which shows the hand of the designer at work (photo 1). But the physical reset button on the side (photo 3) shows a lack of confidence in the product's engineering.
For my review of the design and engineering choices Sony made while developing this product, click on the slideshow at the top of this post.
For this week's installment of the weekly Crave giveaway, we're offering up the Philips NP2900 Streamium Network Music Player, one of our favorite Wi-Fi music systems.
Editor Matthew Moskovciak gave the NP2900 four stars, and in his review he called it "an excellent Wi-Fi radio, with a particularly attractive design and solid sound quality." His only reservation was its high price--but that's actually come down recently, making this unit even more compelling. (Read the full review.)
Normally, the Philips NP2900 would cost around $300, but you have the chance to get it gratis.
So, how do you try to win the Philips NP2900? Let me enumerate the basic rules. Please read them carefully; there will be a test.
- Register as a CNET user. Go to the top of this page and hit the "Join CNET" link to start the registration process. If you're already registered, no need to register again.
- Leave a comment below. You can leave whatever comment you want. If it's funny or insightful it won't help you win, but we're trying to have fun here, so anything entertaining is appreciated.
- Leave only one comment. You may enter this specific giveaway only once. If you enter more than one comment, you will be automatically disqualified.
- The winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive (1) Philips NP2900 Streamium Network Music Player. Approximate retail value is $300.
- If you are chosen, you will be notified via e-mail. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
- Entries can be submitted until Monday, September 28, at noon ET.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE 50 UNITED STATES OR D.C., 18 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT DATE OF ENTRY INTO SWEEPSTAKES. VOID IN PUERTO RICO, ALL U.S. TERRITORIES AND POSSESSIONS AND WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. Sweepstakes ends at 12 PM EDT on September 28, 2009. See official rules for details.
Good luck.
On Sale Now: $274.84 - $299.99
View the latest prices for Philips Streamium NP2900
(Credit:
Bose)
The digital music revolution has made is easy to amass hundreds of hours of tunes on your computer, but it's not always as painless to listen to your collection away from your PC. Bose's newly announced SoundLink Wireless Music System (coming August 27) is focused on solving that problem as simply as possible; just plug a USB dongle into your computer, and it promises to stream your digital music collection and streaming audio services (like Pandora or Internet radio stations) to the included speaker. Even better, the speaker has a built-in, lithium ion rechargeable battery, making it easy to carry it to another room or out to the deck.
The press release doesn't get much more detailed than that. The SoundLink system doesn't use your home Wi-Fi network, but we imagine it most likely creates its own 2.4GHz network to transmit the audio from your PC to the speaker--no word on the expected range. Bose also claims to need no additional software; that's not surprising, as the USB dongle probably acts like a "USB speaker," meaning that whatever audio can be played over your PC speakers can be transmitted over the network. However, we'll be interested to see how well playback controls from the remote work in a variety of playback scenarios, included Web-based music services like Pandora. The SoundLink system does include an auxiliary input, which is a nice plus if, for example, a friend brings over an iPod or you want to use the speaker out of range of the wireless network.
As much as we like the SoundLink's style and thoughtful feature package (it reminds us of the Sony VGF-WA1), the $550 price seems way too high, especially with products like Mint 220 offering much of the same functionality for a little over $100. Not to mention that there are plenty of inexpensive Wi-Fi radios that offer wireless music streaming, although in Bose's defense, there currently isn't an easily recommendable battery-powered unit available. If the SoundLink Wireless music system hits all the right usability notes, it might be the right product for deep-pocketed digital music fans that don't want to deal with networking issues, but we'll have to do a hands-on test to see how it works in the real world.
Dell's purported music player will apparently not be here in time for the holidays.
A report in Monday's Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources saying that a music player with software designed by Zing, a company Dell bought last year, will not be released as planned before the crucial holiday shopping period.
The report got around and Dell publicly addressed it later Monday on the company blog.
"As we said a few months ago, our strategy focuses on content offerings and delivery platforms that mix Zing software, remote access and pre-configured media bundles across all of our devices, including licensing agreements with entertainment distributors. It has never been about a music player," the blog posting reads.
Dell has indeed been raising its profile in the music industry. Though it's been largely silent on its specific plans for Zing's software, the company has began striking deals with music labels and film studios as part of its developing entertainment strategy.
Watch movies underwater with the fishes.
(Credit: H20 Audio)Now that the iDive 300 is here to save the day, you won't have to suffer separation anxiety when you next go scuba diving without your iPod. As its name indicates, this goes down to 300 feet, with waterproof housing for the over-the-ear speakers designed to be tucked under a dive hood or mask strap.
The case is see-through, so you can even catch 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea while ascending slowly from a deep dive. An integrated microprocessor adds convenient push button control of the click wheel and touch screen, powered by three AA batteries. But you'll likely have to raid Davy Jones' Locker to pay for the wallet-crunching $349.99 price tag.
(Via Crave Asia)
Our favorite Brits over at Crave UK have an exclusive hands-on with the new Cowon 02.
They're pretty impressed with the new interface, screen quality, battery life during video playback, and the extensive list of supported file formats. Click the photo above to see the entire gallery of photos.
(Via Crave UK)
The New York Times has a cool visualization chart on its site Wednesday showing how the world population spends its discretionary income.
It highlights per capita spending on clothing and footwear, electronics, alcohol and tobacco, household goods, and recreation. At Crave, we obviously zeroed in on electronics spending, and the results seemed predictable at first: the U.S. spends an ungodly amount of money on electronics: $162 billion a year. "Electronics, " by the way, are defined here as PCs, TVs, stereos, and camera equipment. Cell phones, notably, are not included.
The U.K., France, Germany, and Russia also spend a lot on gadgets, between $24 billion and $44 billion each. But the data gets interesting when you compare what countries spend relative to another category. Australia, for instance, spends $12.2 billion a year on electronics, which is a drop in the bucket compared with what the U.S. spends. But it also spends $16.6 billion on the more mainstream category of clothing/footwear, only 1.4 times more than it puts down for electronics.
The U.S., for comparison's sake, spends $429 billion on clothing, or 2.6 times more on clothing than gadgets.
Even more fascinating is Japan, where they spend 4.2 times more on new jeans or shoes than new TVs or computers: the country spends $75 billion per year on clothing, and $17.7 billion on electronics.
Check out the electronics section of the chart below, or head over to the NYT to see the whole thing.
(Via Gizmodo)
Listen now: Download today's podcast
| EPISODE 105 |
iDrum--making beats on the iPhone and iPod Touch
Eton P’9120 Porsche Design Clock Radio looks fast while standing still
Rubik’s cube/subwoofer mashup from Elac
BLOCK ROCKER: portable PA system for iPod
Zune Bug MP3 nightlight lulls or excites, depending on your music library
Sony IP Music Player takes retro approach to touch-control interface
Orator Briefcase PA System lets politicians make speeches anytime, anywhere. Oh, great...
What the hell!?
The Ghetto Blaster Tote with working speakers
Kill me.
Contact lens jewelry for your eyeballs: Ouch!
Hello Kitty Watch (DJ edition!)
Hello Kitty won’t stop breeding
Thanks, Azizul AND Shalin
Just make sure you grab the toy gun and shoot the designated target.
... Read moreUpdated at 2:30 p.m. PDT with Microsoft comment, and additional photos.
A reader found the 120GB Zune for sale at Fry's for $250 Thursday.
(Credit: Joe)A reader was casually perusing the aisles of his local Fry's Electronics today hoping to buy an 80GB Zune. To Joe's surprise, he found the only-recently-confirmed 120GB Zune there, right below the Product Red 80GB version.
There were "about six" of the 120GB versions that he could see, but no new signage advertising it, he tells CNET.
He paid $250 for the device.
A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that this is "just the beginning" of the rollout of the newest Zune, and more retailers in other regions will start offering the device over the next few weeks.
(Credit:
Joe)
(More pics after the break.)
... Read more
Microsoft's 120GB Zune gets by the FCC.
(Credit: FCC)The FCC's Web site let us all in on a little Microsoft secret Monday: the company is working on a 120GB Zune.
A report detailing a test performed by the government agency in mid-June shows a picture of the portable media player, which looks identical to the 80GB version of the device. It doesn't appear that there are any other spec changes besides the larger hard drive capacity.
At 120GB, that puts Microsoft neatly between Apple's largest-capacity iPod offerings. Apple has an 80GB and a 160GB iPod Classic, and doesn't participate in the 120GB category.
And although the report has plenty to say about radiation test results, it offers nothing about any prospective release date or price.
