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blue-zune-8gb
Frys have revealed the new Blue Zune 8GB flash MP3 player is now available to order. The new Zune is also available in Silver but no pictures of that have been revealed as yet.
The Blue Zune comes with features such as ‘Device to Cloud‘ which allows access to wireless hotspots
allowing you to do all sorts of fun stuff including updating your stash and buy some more tunes form the Zune Marketplace. You can even exchange files with friends over the wifi.
The new 8GB Blue Zune allows you to customize your own ‘Channels’, stations that only play songs form playlists that you have approved.
The MP3 player even comes with a few pre-loaded games - Texas Hold’em and Hexic.
One of the best new features is ‘Buy From FM‘ allowing you to tag the songs you hear on FM stations so that you can purchase them once you sync your Zune to a PC.
The Blue Zune Flash Player looks pretty tasty and if they could just fit a Zune cellphone somewhere amongst all the goodies, it would be one hot gadget….
Creative have introduced their new Zen X-Fi media player to the world and GadgetHeat wonders if this signals the repositioning of the Creative Zune Mp3 player into second place. The feature we are most interested in the wireless lan (wifi) that the Zen X-Fi boast.
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Everything should have WiFi and be USB 2.0 compatible as far as GadgetHeat is concerned and the Creative X-Fi ticks at least one of those boxes. The only draw back is that this wireless feature is only available on the 16GB and 32GB version leaving the 8GB X-Fi looking even more like the ‘entry level’ model….
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The Zen X-Fi comes with an FM radio tuner and supports all the usual media formats you would expect (including WMV, WMA, MPEG-4, AAC and SP/Xvid) and a formats you wouldn’t expect such as motion-Jpeg video. The Creative Zen X-Fi is out now worldwide so give it a few months and we’ll see if the Zune or SONY’s NWZA820 series have anything to worry about. We also like and did a review of the SONY NWDB105BC, a rather powerful contender in the pocket MP3 player stakes.
The SONY NWDB105BC is as diddy as it gets when talking about min MP3 players (well not as diddy as the iPod Shuffle obviously ^^). The best thing about the NWDB105BC is the plug-n-play functionality. There is absolutely no need for any additional software to use the MP3 player.
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Size wise the capacity of the NWDB105BC stands at 2GB allowing you to store up to 1300 tunes. Not as much as the SONY NWZA829 which weighs in at 16GB but still handy for your daily needs, especially for jogging and the like.
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There are quite a few alternatives to the NWDB105BC that you may want to consider before you buy it. Other MP3 Players include the Creative, Zune and of course, the iPod Nano which now comes with video (which the SONY NWDB105BC does not).
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As we mentioned before, the size and style of the NWDB105BC is its charm and it’s pretty nifty and sleek to look so in the Mp3 fashion stakes, it’s a winner.
[nms:SONY MP3 Player -earphone -charger -ear -tuner -cable,10,0,0]
As MP3 Players go, GadgetHeat knows that the standards set by Apple and Zune are the ones to beat. Those MP3 players without the marketing budget of Apple (and Steve Jobs ‘charisma’) such as Creative have to continue releasing less hyped but no less stylish (and is many cases better) MP3 players such as the relaunched MuVo T200.
Creative already launched the MuVo T200 in black a short while ago and have now released a slick white version (thank you Steve Jobs) in both 4Gb and 2Gb versions. The MuVo T200 white has the same specifications as its black twin boasting a built in microphone, bass boost and is WMV as well as being MP3 compatible.
The Creative MuVo T200 also has a built in FM radio which we personally dislike as radios on MP3 players is kind of pointless in our book. The MuVo T200 white will be available at the end of June for around 40€. If you like your MP3 players on the small side you should also check out the nwdb105bc review we did a short while ago.
A long long time ago we wrote an article on the SONY NWZA818 video Mp3 player and hailed it as the most likely to succeed out of those rivals to Apples Nano.
In truth, no other video Mp3 player has made great strides against Apple but the NWZA810 series is still amongst the more popular of the alternatives out there and now it’s got some heavyweight backup in the form of the SONY NWZA829 Walkman.
Withiut saying too much, the NWZA829 is probably the best Mp3 player you will see this year along with its siblings the NWZA828 and the NWZA826 SONY video MP3 Players.
The new SONY NWZA820 series is the bigger brother of the NWZA810 series and it certainly looks like a nice upgrade from it’s predessecor. As usual with the NWZA Walkman it comes in 3 flavours (click the links below for pictures)
(We will use the versions interchangeably in this review as all aspects are generic of the NWZA820 series) Personally, I think that the NWZA810 series was prettier to look at but then again, the Sony NWZA828 is no ugly duckling. If you watched the featured video on the home page (and why didn’t you??) you would have seen SONY’s latest advert for the Sony NWZA826 and we have to admit it looks pretty slick.
The interface of the player has not changed much and the 2.4inch screen should be large enough to veiw movies and videos without discomfort (once you manage to get them on there - more on that later..). The screen is also multi-oriented and can dispaly your images, videos or slideshows no matter which what you turn it.
The Killer feature of the NWZA20 series is it’s ability to stream audio via bluetooth. That’s right, this opens up a whole new realm of Mp3 sharing. You can exchange files easily with others simply by having your bluetooth switched on and sending to or recieving from their player.
The other aspect of this is that you can use wireless headphones when you’re out and about which, if you’re anything like me, is an absolute godsend. I hate having to fiddle with the headphone wires to get it ‘just-so’ and then remain in position to ensure the lead does not come out of the player when I make a swift move. The cherry on top of this feature is that both 4GB and 8GB (Sony NWZA826and Sony NWZA828 respectivley) come with SONY DR-BT21Gbluetooth headphones which is a nice addition.
The Bluetooth love doesn’t stop there, you can stream audio to virtually any device that is bluetooth enabled. this includes, speakers, hifi’s and car stereos. This is one of the best features we’ve seen in a long time.
In the past, SONY has had issues with its proprietary transfer software on its video Mp3 players but carrying on from the leap forward made by the NWZA810 series you can now just drag and drop your files from and to the Mp3 player without hassle. (you can also use the supplied Media Manager software and add the cover art and additional information to each file). The SONY NWZA820 series is also in cahoots with Microsoft in the it carries the ‘PlaysFor Sure’ logo meaning that it can interact seamlessley with many third party online content providers.
However, this leads us nicely into one of the major gripes. Whilst the audio features and support are abundent, the same cannot be said for the video features. The video interface is not intuitive and can take a while to get comfortable with all the necessary requirements and parameters need for video to work properly. Video playback itself is crisp and smooth once it’s on there but you’ll probably be hunting around online for a guide to tell youhow to do it more easily.
The SONY NWZA829 is the kind of video mp3 player for those who want something cutting edge without having to follow the iPhone crowd. Audio wise It’s packed with all the right features, video wise it could do better but at least it does not make you feel like a sheep for falling for Apple’s marketing genius (who would of thought we would be saying that about a SONY?).
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- 8/10
