Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
Grado Labs has started shipping the GS1000: The new flagship of their headphone line, introduced at the International Head-Fi Convention in New York, where it gathered some rave reviews. Bass, mids, highs; it seems it does all equally well and the new cushion design is supposed to be very comfortable. Is this ideal pair of [...]
BusinessWeek runs a piece on Tim Schaaff, Sony’s Senior VP of Software Development: the man who left Apple to undertake a huge task—make Sony’s software work. That means bringing the various departments closer, giving more power to software developers and keeping a low profile so as not to collide with the rather autonomous hardware engineers.
Review: [...]
Review: SanDisk Sansa e270: I had high hopes for this player (first presented at CES 2006) and I’m not really disappointed. CNET’s giving it an “excellent” nod along with a 8/10 rating.
Drawbacks: buttons surrounding the scrollwheel are a bit difficult to use, low system noice be heard through headphones at low volume levels (?!), photos [...]
The WSJ reports [via] that Amazon.com could be entering the music subscription services arena as soon as this summer—according to the paper, they’re in advanced talks with the major labels (EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, Warner). I was stunned to read that the company has already hired a staggering 3000 (that’s: three thousand) employees to work [...]
SanDisk: No. 2 seller of MP3 players in the US: they’ve sold 1M during the recent holiday quarter; that’s 13M less than Apple but apparently good enough to get them to the second place. They’re on the right track to keeping that place (no way to dethrone Apple I’m afraid) with their decent, feature-rich/low-cost lineup; [...]
CES 2006: SanDisk announces the 1GB microSD card: it’s the world’s smallest 1GB flash memory card. First ones to enjoy this card, which goes by a suggested retail price of $120, will be Verizon’s V Cast customers.
Two flash-based models (1GB/2GB), with MP3/WMA support and support for music subscription services, equipped with a 1.21-inch color 64K color screen for viewing pictures, powered by a single AAA battery. Also: FM tuner/recorder, voice recorder. Sweet. The c140 (1GB) model is supposed to go for $120, while the c150 (2GB) for $170.
As is the case [...]
SanDisk presented the e200 series which is clearly aiming the Nano market. SanDisk’s vice president and general manager, Nelson Chan, said: “Ultimately, we would like to make this a two horse race, and reach 35-40 percent market share.”
Spec-wise, they seem to outperform Apple’s offering. There’s MP3/WMA support as well as support for music subscription [...]
Review: SanDisk Sansa m240 (1GB): CNET gives it a 7.3/10 [UPDATE: same for the m250 (2GB) model/version]. It supports subscription services and audiobooks from Audible, on-the-fly playlisting, has an FM tuner. They don’t like its bulkiness and poor backlit display. eCost has this for $96. Read our post on the introduction of the Sansa m200 [...]
We’ve got a new line of flash-based players from SanDisk; like their predecessors (e100 series) we expect these will get the job done nicely and decently (that’s why we’re covering it), but won’t turn any heads. These will come in 512MB/1GB/2GB/4GB capacities with the first one (m230 – 512MB) going for $80 and the last [...]