For a company that pretty much just makes PMPs, iriver manages to pull off an incredible quantity of surprising product moves and design choices. Its new Dicple D35 and D31, for instance, square off any of the sexiness and sleekitude of previous iterations, like 2007’s D5. The devices seem to be getting inexplicably thicker, the screen bezel has become more prominent, and iriver just doesn’t seem to care. However, the software has certainly come a long way from those electronic dictionary days, with widgets, advanced multimedia features (like DMB and radio recording), handwriting recognition and PIM functions — all of which we have little idea as to the functionality, since the spec list is in Korean, and we don’t imagine iriver plans on shipping this sort of stuff to the States any time soon. Still, we can dream.

[Thanks, Alex]

Read - iriver D31
Read - iriver D35

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

iriver’s Dicple D35 and D31 remind us of just how much we’ll never understand originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For a company that pretty much just makes PMPs, iriver manages to pull off an incredible quantity of surprising product moves and design choices. Its new Dicple D35 and D31, for instance, square off any of the sexiness and sleekitude of previous iterations, like 2007’s D5. The devices seem to be getting inexplicably thicker, the screen bezel has become more prominent, and iriver just doesn’t seem to care. However, the software has certainly come a long way from those electronic dictionary days, with widgets, advanced multimedia features (like DMB and radio recording), handwriting recognition and PIM functions — all of which we have little idea as to the functionality, since the spec list is in Korean, and we don’t imagine iriver plans on shipping this sort of stuff to the States any time soon. Still, we can dream.

[Thanks, Alex]

Read - iriver D31
Read - iriver D35

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

iriver’s Dicple D35 and D31 remind us of just how much we’ll never understand originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh jealousy, you are a vile beast. While the Korean market has had access to the spicy P3 touchscreen PMP for months now, long enough for Samsung to release a complete revision of the firmware, we’re still stuck waiting for the ambiguous “first half of this year.” The impatient can always import, exactly what Pocketables has done, giving its gray-market gadget the full review treatment. Its design is found to be similar yet much more attractive than the earlier P2, size comparable to Cowan’s S9, 480 x 272 touchscreen brilliant, and the UI snappy and intuitive. Negatives? Sound quality was found to be good, but not great out of the box (able to be fixed with a suite of tuning options) and the lack of video output is a slight handicap. Overall, the P3 sounds like the perfect competition for the S9 and just the PMP for our envious hearts — if only it came in green.

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Samsung’s P3 PMP gets imported, reviewed, adored originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Slowly but surely, Cowon has been issuing firmware updates to make its sleek S9 PMP the music player it ought to be. According to a recent leak of the v2.10 beta, it’s about to become even more formidable a rival. Reportedly, the forthcoming update — which can be downloaded now for those kosher with all things beta — adds in support for widgets, WMV7/8, pitch correction, full screen mode in TV-out and color tags for subtitles. As for improved functionality, we’re heard that the entire navigation process has been smoothed over, particularly in the area of browser scrolling. Check the read link for a download URL as well as the full changelog, and if that lucky individual that won our S9 giveaway doesn’t give this a go and report back, you all have to right to throw stones until he / she does.

[Via AnythingButiPod, thanks Joseph]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Version 2.10 beta firmware makes your Cowon S9 a new PMP originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Slowly but surely, Cowon has been issuing firmware updates to make its sleek S9 PMP the music player it ought to be. According to a recent leak of the v2.10 beta, it’s about to become even more formidable a rival. Reportedly, the forthcoming update — which can be downloaded now for those kosher with all things beta — adds in support for widgets, WMV7/8, pitch correction, full screen mode in TV-out and color tags for subtitles. As for improved functionality, we’re heard that the entire navigation process has been smoothed over, particularly in the area of browser scrolling. Check the read link for a download URL as well as the full changelog, and if that lucky individual that won our S9 giveaway doesn’t give this a go and report back, you all have to right to throw stones until he / she does.

[Via AnythingButiPod, thanks Joseph]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Version 2.10 beta firmware makes your Cowon S9 a new PMP originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Slowly but surely, Cowon has been issuing firmware updates to make its sleek S9 PMP the music player it ought to be. According to a recent leak of the v2.10 beta, it’s about to become even more formidable a rival. Reportedly, the forthcoming update — which can be downloaded now for those kosher with all things beta — adds in support for widgets, WMV7/8, pitch correction, full screen mode in TV-out and color tags for subtitles. As for improved functionality, we’re heard that the entire navigation process has been smoothed over, particularly in the area of browser scrolling. Check the read link for a download URL as well as the full changelog, and if that lucky individual that won our S9 giveaway doesn’t give this a go and report back, you all have to right to throw stones until he / she does.

[Via AnythingButiPod, thanks Joseph]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Version 2.10 beta firmware makes your Cowon S9 a new PMP originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looking for a PMP that can hang with you for every last minute of the long weekend, eh? Just in case MSI’s MS-5552 is a bit too aged for your tastes, Samsung has quietly introduced a newcomer (the Q2, but not that Q2) which promises 50 solid hours of audio playback on a single charge. Specs wise, we’re looking at a 2.4-inch QVGA display, built-in microphone, FM radio module, 8GB / 16GB of flash storage and little else. As for file support, this little bugger will play nice with MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WMV and MPEG-4, though the lack of WiFi and Bluetooth keeps us from really, truly falling in love. There’s no word on a price just yet, but we get the feeling we’ll have to snoop around in due time for that as well.

[Via Pocketables]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Samsung sneaks Q2 PMP onto the scene with 50 hours of battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It could come to nothing, but the enterprising crew at DAPReview just dug up a SanDisk trademark filing for a player called the “Sansa Tap.” The mark hasn’t been granted yet, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Sansa — and no, the thoroughly ridiculous SlotMusic Player doesn’t count. We’ll see how it goes — we’d love SanDisk to blow our minds with some crazy MusicGremlin-powered touchscreen player, but something tells us the company might be a little distracted with other problems right now.

[Via DAPReview]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

SanDisk working on “Sansa Tap” trademark originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been quite some time since we’ve heard a good word from the folks at Gemei, but clearly, there was no resolution made upon the Chinese New Year that they’d stick to originality and stop ripping ideas from other PMP mainstays. Oh sure, the HD-660 isn’t exactly like anything else we’ve seen, but we’d wager that the designers at Archos would disagree. At any rate, those in China can now find this 4.3-inch PMP for sale, packing a 480 x 272 resolution display, 32GB of internal memory, support for a smorgasbord of file formats, and a bundled remote and TV output cable. No word on pricing, but it’ll probably sit nicely between “cheap” and “reasonably affordable.”

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Gemei offers up 4.3-inch HD-660 PMP originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though not nearly as buzz-worthy as Sony’s OLED-equipped NWZ-X1000, these two DAPs are still worth a look if you’re both in Japan and really into pastels. The NW-S736FK and NW-S738FK only differ with respect to internal capacity, as the former carries 4GB worth of tunes while the latter hosts 8GB. Both will soon be available in the wonderful nation of Japan in gold, black, pink and red hues, and each will support MP3, WMA, ATRAC, WMV, MPEG-4, JPEG and AAC formats. You’ll also find a 2-inch LCD, USB 2.0 connectivity, a 5 band equalizer, FM tuner and a battery good for 40 hours of audio playback (or 10 hours on the video side). The new duo is set to ship on March 14th, and yes, those perfectly matching speaker docks seem to be included for your convenience.

[Via Impress]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Sony expands Walkman line with NW-S738FK and NW-S736FK originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know, there’s only so much an American can glean from UK prices, but there’s still excitement in the air from seeing Sony’s OLED-packin’ touchscreen Walkman up for pre-order at Amazon UK. The X Series is ready for ordering in 16GB (NWZ-X1050B) and 32GB (NWZ-X1060B) flavors, with both expected to be dispatched between a fortnight and five weeks. As for pricing? Try £214 ($308) for the little guy and £283 ($407) for the big brother. All of a sudden, Cowon’s OLED-equipped S9 isn’t looking like such a bad alternative, eh?

[Via OLED-Display]

Read - 16GB Walkman
Read - 32GB Walkman

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Sony’s OLED Walkman priced and dated… in the UK originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unfortunately, we’re still no closer to finding out when the iriver P7 will be available, but given that it’s now showing up on the company’s worldwide web portal alongside scads of other beautiful pieces of hardware, we’d say it’s certainly closer than before. None of the listed specifications look to have changed, but there sure are a lot of purty images to look at there in the read link. Grab a tissue, place it beneath your chin and head on over.

[Via DAP Review, thanks Jeff]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

iriver’s gorgeous P7 gets itself a web address originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio

Cowon L3 officially announced (for Asia) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, this upcoming iStation T3 PMP from Digital Cube does little that you can’t coax out of your average cereal box toy in Korea, but it sure looks pretty good on camera. iStation is apparently running some promotions to get folks stoked for the thing, and AVING has the sexy photos to prove it. Our Korean is a little non-existent, but Portable Alliance claims that the unit will be offered in standard, academic and DMB flavors — still no word on price.

[Via Portable Alliance]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Digital Cube’s iStation T3 surfaces in the wild, primed for release originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still no closer to understanding if iriver’s P20 is destined for a US release, but at least the thing’s about to ship in one corner of the globe. The company has decided on a February 27th release date in the wonderfully brilliant nation of Japan, where eager PMP shoppers will be able to exchange ¥39,800 ($436) for an 80GB model. For those who’ve forgotten the details, it sports a 4.1-inch OLED touchscreen (480 x 272), a built-in FM tuner, USB 2.0 connectivity, support for a litany of file formats, an optional card reader for extra expansion and a rechargeable battery good for at least nine hours of playback. Look on the bright side — you’ve been itching for an excuse to visit Osaka, right?

[Via Slashgear]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

iriver P20 PMP priced and dated in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We can’t really knock the folks at APSI for trying to make the M480 into a product it’s not, but in all seriousness, this thing is just two curved edges away from KIRFing the Archos 5. That said, there’s no doubt this piece is trying to get all up in Archos’ grille, with an expansive 4.8-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, 30GB / 60GB of internal storage, a TV output, dual-core 400MHz OMAP2530 processor and a battery good for six to seven hours (with audio) / four to five hours (with video). There’s even support for a multitude of file formats, but the lackluster Windows CE 5.0 operating system essentially murders any chance it had at being successful. Sorry, buddy — better luck next time.

[Via PMPToday]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

APSI’s WinCE-based M480 can’t quite reach Archos’ level originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Simply aping one device at a time has just become too easy for the cloning labs in the backwoods of China, as evidenced by the two-for-one produced here by QQ. The K805 does its best Zune and iPod impersonation, and amazingly, it does so at the same time. The all too familiar click wheel is there, yet so is the rectangular design first made famous by the cats in Redmond. For those looking for the worst of both worlds, you’ll be interested in knowing that this here player features a 2.4-inch 320 x 240 resolution display, support for a plethora of files, USB 2.0 connectivity and a microSD card slot for loading up your favorite EMF jams. We aren’t clued in on a price, but do yourself a favor and pretend you never actually wanted to know.

[Via DAP Review]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Keepin’ it real fake, part CLXXX: It’s a Zune! It’s an iPod! It’s a spoof! originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Second anonymous MP7 player surfaces — MP3, MP4 shrug shoulders originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Didn’t take three seconds out of your immensely busy schedule to enter your name to win an 8GB Cowon S9 portable media player? Fret not, as we’re reminding you to do so right this moment. The contest ends tomorrow night (full rules are listed in the read link), so you’ve only yourself to blame if you let this opportunity pass you by as well.

Filed under: Announcements, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Reminder: Cowon S9 giveaway ends tomorrow! originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is it a portable media player, or just a media player? Should it be worn around the neck, or simply left on the living room table? These questions and more become yours to answer should you choose to invest in mobiBLU’s A10 UFO. All we’re told is that it’s available in glossy red or glossy black and that it features Bluetooth, support for a multitude of file formats, a built-in battery, headphone jack and 2/4/8GB of internal storage. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the red version is actually already starting to float upwards upon the strumming of the first chords in “White Rabbit.” Far out, man.

[Via AnythingButiPod]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

mobiBLU’s A10 UFO player may lift off when playing Jefferson Airplane originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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