iRiver Clix

In the history of electronics there have always been products that people fall in love with as soon as people see them.  The iRiver Clix series has always been one of those.  Now, iRiver hasn’t impressed me much with their other models, but the Clix series took the concept of a PMP in a new direction.  Design has always had to balance usability with screen and beauty, and the Clix solved this dilemma in such an amazing and simple way.

iRiver continues to taunt us with these products.  The only problem:  to every product, no matter its greatness, there is a catch.  The catch with the Clix series has always been the storage:price ratio.  Too little storage for too much of a price.  The other drawback?  A PMP simple does not work well with 512mb of storage.  Even low end conversions for movies range around 300mb.

Hopefully iRiver can solve their ratio problems with this player.  4GB is a very good storage size.  I don’t see anyone actually watching full length movies on this, but for short clips and a good sized music library it is a good size.  I’m only hoping that their price point can stay competitive so that this model series can take off.

Clix homepage

SanDisk, how did we miss that you didn’t suck before?

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/sandisk-intros-sansa-c200-player/

Ok, look at this player. It’s freaking pretty. Seriously, I haven’t used this player, and the navi is a potential tweak-producer, but you have to fall in love with this player as soon as you see it.

When did SanDisk become a player? They had a really good thing going while offering some of the cheapest players out there, but amazingly they’re drawing out the standard for cheap players. No longer must we simply accept what they give us, cheapies have a choice now!

TiVo: Best friend, worst enemy.

The bane of academia is television–well, unless you’re studying technology and society (^_^). Any undergrad will tell you that zoning out and forgetting all of that expensive education in front of the tube is the best thing ever. However, along with college comes study groups, cramming at the library, running out to the store at 1am for toilet paper, etc. This chaos doesn’t always compute with living by the television schedule. Seriously. I have no idea when I will be going to bed tomorrow, if I’ll be in the library, or if I have to run home to save a lizard or family member. There is no way I could possibly plan my schedule and 100% of the time to make sure I catch everything (rerun Lost you bastards!). The other problem: crazy time-slots. There’s no way I’m staying up until 2am to watch a 15 minute cartoon show. Some might, but I’d question their academic standing.

All in all, a college’s student life truly requires something that breaks them from the dependence on the TV schedule. TiVo has done this by recording everything for you and saving it until chaos settles a bit. On thursday nights, for example, I am now free to go out with friends or go to the library to write papers instead of sitting around and watching my usual night-o-drama. True, there is the VCR, but why deal with that when you can fully automate your entertainment institutions!

This freedom created by TiVo is wonderful, but it doesn’t solve one very big problem: you’re still watching TV. TV sucks time away, and college students generally need as much time as they can get in a day to get everything done. Yes, chill time is just as important as productive time (don’t believe me? talk to someone who doesn’t get chill time), but it can be hard to place chill time in a slot that does not interfere with productive time when there are so many things to watch just at your fingertip (err, thumb that is)!

This being said, I still wouldn’t give up my TiVo. TiVo does not alleviate the need for responsible viewing, but allows you the freedom to go about your business and forget all about TV for a few nights.

The ‘Keyboard organizer’: lame name, great product

Great product, at least on the web page.  I seriously can’t be the only one who has lost important papers under a keyboard, or pushed crap off my desk on accident via scooting the keyboard around.

This is such a simple, wonderful idea, I’d get it if I could afford to drop $50 on it, and if I were willing to part with my DiNovo set now (which I’m not, grr!!! DiNovo or bust!!).

My only question:  are there mac drivers for the extra buttons/will there be a mac version?

http://www.keyboardorganizer.com/ (it looks like the product page was made by a 12 year old who stole Flash off limewire, but the keyboards look great!)

Sony MDREX71: avoid

The ‘user review’ sections of websites can sometimes be the most useful feature of places such as amazon.com or any other retailer websites.  However, given the incident of technology-challenged users, or those who just don’t bother to do their research easily throw off the stats.

On the other hand, when you see a review that has the same complaint over and over again, or even the same multiple complaints there is definitely something there.

When I first got the 71s I was completely in love.  I’m not that picky when it comes to sound but I wanted something better than stock headphones, so these were about perfect for me.  I know there are better, but I was quite happy with them.  After a few months of use I and my SO (who had a pair as well) noticed a very odd tendency for the chord to seemingly ‘melt’ off when exposed to skin oil or split open with light pressure.

Being as I don’t particularly sweat (if you know me you know what I mean) mine lasted a bit longer than his.  At the end through, both were covered in electrical tape to protect the exposed wires.

One other thing about me: I can put up with a lot of stuff, so the electrical tape wasn’t much of a problem for me.  Now, the reason I’m writing this is because of the other flaw that is consistent within the design.  One of my coworkers had a pair and the left ear bud died.  Guess what died on mine?  Yup, left ear bud.  A customer came in the other day looking for a replacement for his 71s, and just going out on a limb I asked him about how they died:  left ear bud as well.

So far of the 4 people I’ve known to have these headphones, 3 of them have broken in the same area.

Sony sony sony…what have you been doing with yourself that has caused you to drop the ball on every single product you make?

Pros:  great midrange sound, deep bass, comfortable fit, long chord.
Cons:  meltie!

iRiver T10 2GB avail in US now

iRiver, an interesting DAP maker, has released a higher capacity version of their ho-hum T10 player.

This player is interesting, containing that which you would expect of an iRiver: recording, radio, battery, gigantic size, etc.  Anything new?  Na, just that it’s 2GB now.  They’re finally stepping up to the plate to join the other flash players (Creative, where are you boys?  still sucking?  ok, reasonable enough)

I don’t specifically hate this player, but I’ve never quite been impressed by the flash iRiver players.  The battery cases are behind the screens thus making them into triangular beasts that you never seen in the pictures or product boxes, and in this specific case, the color screen sucks and is no where near as clear as in that picture.

The one thing this does have going is the price point.  A MSRP of $150 means you can probobly score it for $130-$150.  Honestly, not too shabby.

However, iRiver, please lower the prices of the U10 series so people can consider buying them!  Every person that sees them falls in love immediately, but the price point is way too high in comparison to the others… Please, iRiver, think of the puppies.

Mac Pro: what, no middle name?

Mac Pro, needing no other nouns, debuted only a few days ago with a cry of “Umm…it’s still silver boys.”  Okay, that might have been my first impression, but I’m sure there are others who would have liked to see some sort of face-lift.  The guts, without question, have been changed for what initial views would say much the better.

The outer case looks quite the same, but the guts have been revamped for expandability as well as the obvious proc and company improvements.

Still gigantic though.

What’s amazing is that for a similar prebuilt PC, this new Mac Pro is by far cheaper than its Dell peer and filling in that price gap fits an Apple LCD monitor.  A recently posted shootout pits the two together.  I’m sure there are people who would still go towards the Dell, something you should not take me for being angered or disappointed over, but reviews like these are essential for people to read to make a proper decision. 

The world is going to hell, truly. 

Best electronics case ever

In packing for a quick trip to chicago, I needed something to protect my nice new headphones, camera, and cheapo mp3 player (if my pack is going to get ganked on the train they sure as hell aren’t getting my 5G 60GB iPod thank you very much).  I glanced around my desk area and found an empty package for the powerblock that I got for my aunt’s ipod.  It seemed the perfect study box for throwing stuff into.  I’ve seen headphones go bad when left to their own devices inside a backpack, and I’ve seen keys reach in to cameras and destroy them.

Pioneer ipod integration

Car:  Saturn ‘03 L200
Stereo:  Pioneer DEHP6800MP ($260)
iPod brain:  Pioneer CDIB100II ($50)
iPod: 5G 60GB Black
Wire/Harness:  $30-$50 (depends on your car, and if you have an after market head unit in there now)
Install:  Free at Circuit City (free install with any head unit $99+ sale, generally runs all summer)

With a 45 min commute between home and school and now the possibility of multiple road trips up to Chicago (3 hour drive one way), when I purchased a new car the first thing I did as soon as I got paid that summer was to get a new cd player with some sort of AUX input.  On my previous car I had just a plan aux port with RCA hookups in the rear, when I purchased it I got a Y cable and had them run it out to the front.  Worked well, but it was annoying on the interstate to poke at the ipod and check what song was playing.

The Pioneer head unit that I purchased has 2 AUX ports (one in the front, and the other you can get the optional kit to install in the back), optional bluetooth connection, optional ipod interface, radio tuner, and cd player that can do mp3 cds (it can read AAC files, although not DRMed ones).

Radio:
The channel preset switching process kind of sucks, but nothing else of note about the radio.

CD player:
Nothing of consequence.

MP3 CD feature:
The random function isn’t as…random…as I’d prefer, but not horrible.  You can have the artist and song title display.  You can navigate easily through the folders.

Front aux port:
Ok, this I admit is a bit odd.  First,  you have to ‘activate’ it in the odd sort of start menu thing, until then you’ll spend hours cursing at it wondering why the hell it doesn’t work.  Second, it’s a 2.5mm port, so you’ll have to get a 2.5->3.5 adapter (about $5 a radio shack if you don’t have one for your phone).  Third, it’s a front port, but on the bottom of the faceplate.  As you can see in the picture you have to make the faceplate angle out so that you can actually get to the port.  Works well, you get used to it, but just be careful to not thwack it too hard and break your faceplate mechanism off.

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iPod integration:
It has some quirks, yes, but overall I’m very happy with it.  You can have the iPod cable run where you want, but the glove compartment seems to be the best choice as you don’t need to touch the iPod after connecting it. 

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After connecting the cable, the iPod will display ‘Pioneer’ on it and charge.  It will start playing whatever has been paused, or nothing if nothing has been playing.  The nice thing is that it will resume whatever you’ve been listening to automatically, so it’s a pretty seamless transition from walking around and listening to it with headphones and then listening to it in your car. 

 

If you press the ‘list’ button next to the gigantic main button the regular ipod main screen shows up listing playlists, artists, songs, options, etc.  Select one of those and it takes you to a list of them.  The other problem that I have is in this area.  If you have playlists ready to go, they’re very easy to find.  However, if you want to pick a song out of your entire list it will take forever to spin the big wheel around to find it if you have a lot of music.  I have about 20GBs of music, so you can imagine my artist list.  Horrible.  It’s easier to just find the artist or song you want to listen to on the ipod and then reconnect it.  This integration works well if you assemble a bunch of playlists beforehand.

When you turn off your car the ipod is automatically paused when you turned it off, so I’ve found this to be wonderful when running errands around town. 

As far as the display, this is my only true pet peeve.  I love the mp3 cd display for showing the song/artist, this makes sense right?  Well, for whatever reason (maybe I’m just doing it wrong) the closest I can get is artist/cd, or song/cd name.  I just keep it on song/cd and suck it up.

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Overall, I’ve extremely happy with this unit.  My SO has a new jetta with the VW ipod kit.  Remember what happened to the fax machine at the end of Office Space?  Ya?  Well, that’s exactly what I want to do to this thing.  Horrible.  But that’s another story. 

There is another Pioneer head unit that runs around $200 that still works with the iPod brain.  This is an expensive solution if you don’t have a head unit that supports a preexisting brain.  You can find head units at $100 (sony makes them) with front AUX ports, all you have to pay for are the needed wires/harness and install if you can’t find a free intall deal.  All I’ve heard about FM transmitters is that they all suck.  So, if you’re about to drop the $80 on a decent one, go ahead and take a look at a real solution such as an AUX port or iPod integration.