Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
Everybody loves lists, right? Thanks to The Age’s article [via], we’ve got a bunch of data on the Australian MP3 player market. Here we go:
more than 400k Australians may be buying an MP3 player during the holiday season
more than 6 out of 10 MP3 players sold are iPods → more than 8 out of 10 [...]
CNET Asia reviews Creative’s Zen Micro Photo, gives it an 8/10 rating (“excellent”) noting its excellent $/GB ratio and great audio quality.
They can’t forgive the fact that it’s unable to play music while viewing photos and the display is a bit hard to view under sunlight.
Oddly enough, the previous Zen Micro Photo review we had [...]
CNET Asia reports that Creative released several flash-based versions of its Zen Neeon MP3 player: 512MB/1GB/2GB of solid state goodness. Add to that a duo-tone OLED screen and 32 hours of battery life, and you’ve got a sweet package. The 2GB model (specs) goes for $205. Available immediately; only in Singapore though.
The 5GB Zen Neeon [...]
Flash-based, in 512MB/1GB versions. Spec-wise it’s nothing special: MP3/WMA support and an FM tuner, measures 34.5×67×15.3mm and weighs 39g. The 512MB model (M512B5) comes in 7 colors, the 1GB (M1GB5) in 4. Pricing unknown, available by the end of the month for our Japanese friends.
And if it looks like a Zen Nano, that’s because it’s [...]
Deal: Buy.com has 25$ off on Creative’s MP3 players: sad thing is the Zen Micros have sold out. Still you can get a 40GB Zen Touch for $225, a 1GB Zen Nano Plus for $105, or a 512MB Zen Nano for $70. Offer ends on Saturday, November 19th.
Creative announces the I-Trigue L3800 speakers: 2.1, going for $150, and the most interesting thing about them is that the IR remote control can be used to manage your Zen Vision/Sleek(+Photo)/Micro(+Photo) once they’re plugged in to the speakers’ port. If you like that enough to buy them, fine. But with a 80dB SNR, they’re far [...]
For the quarter beginning July and ending September, they’ve posted net sales of $280.2M (up one third from year ago quarter), net income $691K (down from $4.8M). Had a one-off gain from investments not happened, they would have recorded a $9.3M net loss.
MP3 players sales were up 123% and revenue sales more than doubled compared [...]
Let’s start from the good, and easy, stuff that one can deduce for Austin’s review. The build quality ensures it’s not as prone to scratches as—say—the Nano. DRM10 support means you tracks from subscription services will play fine. And it’s good to know that the battery is (easily) removable. Oh, and you can drag and [...]
Craig McHugh, president of the U.S. unit of Creative Labs, says they’re looking at all of their alternatives, and “we’d be very open to discussing with other companies who would like to use our user interface in their products or future products.” (emphasis mine). In other words, if you pay, they’ll play.
In Forbes [via], he’s [...]
The United States Patent and Trademark Office never ceases to amaze. Yesterday it granted Creative the so-called “Zen Patent” (U.S. Patent 6,928,433):
Creative’s invention for the user interface for portable media players enables selection of at least one track in a portable media player as a user sequentially navigates through a hierarchy using three or more [...]