MP3 Player
I've never been a one for an MP3 player. I never owned a personal cassette player, personal CD player or minidisk player, either.
I've had the ability to play MP3s since the format was devised, and I've gradually built-up my collection of songs over the years - firstly in MIDI format, then wav, MP3, Ogg, etc., and currently, I usually rip my CDs to MP3 format using CDex, and store them on my media centre, in case I want to listen to a specific track on my laptop.
When I was being driven to Philadephia airport, 18 months ago, the friend who drove me had an MP3 player, with a series of Naked Scientists podcasts, which he played for the whole three hours. It was really interesting content, and I thought it would be nice to have the ability to play downloaded podcasts for myself.
Recently, my tastes in the visual impact of technology have veered toward the look of piano black. For example, I love the design of Samsung LCD TVs. I am not an Apple fan, so you'll never see me with an iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iTouch, etc.. Although I can admire the form and function, there's something about being tied-in to Apple that leaves a bad taste in my mouth - they have managed to fix premium prices for consumer goods, and spent heavily on the marketing and advertising to protect this position, rather than provide a good deal for their customers.
So, I had a need to play music and podcasts, on a cool black device, that isn't made by Apple. I mentioned this need to
discodoris, and we had a look around, finding that Samsung do a range of piano black MP3 players. She bought me one for my Birthday <3
The Samsung S5. Not only is it piano black, it has bluetooth, FM radio, MP4, and it also slides open, revealing stereo speakers. Stereo speakers, built-in to an MP3 player! How cool is that?!
Because it has Bluetooth, I bought a similarly-cool bluetooth stereo headset to go with it, also in gloss black. The headset pairs with my phone at the same time, pausing MP3 playback when a call is received. I'm delighted with my recent gadgets - Invisible integration, the blurring of discrete device functionality, so that everything just works, and makes my life easier!
I haven't got around to downloading podcasts to it, yet. It was very handy for our recent Majorca vacation, though, having music on-tap in the hotel room.
I've had the ability to play MP3s since the format was devised, and I've gradually built-up my collection of songs over the years - firstly in MIDI format, then wav, MP3, Ogg, etc., and currently, I usually rip my CDs to MP3 format using CDex, and store them on my media centre, in case I want to listen to a specific track on my laptop.
When I was being driven to Philadephia airport, 18 months ago, the friend who drove me had an MP3 player, with a series of Naked Scientists podcasts, which he played for the whole three hours. It was really interesting content, and I thought it would be nice to have the ability to play downloaded podcasts for myself.
Recently, my tastes in the visual impact of technology have veered toward the look of piano black. For example, I love the design of Samsung LCD TVs. I am not an Apple fan, so you'll never see me with an iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iTouch, etc.. Although I can admire the form and function, there's something about being tied-in to Apple that leaves a bad taste in my mouth - they have managed to fix premium prices for consumer goods, and spent heavily on the marketing and advertising to protect this position, rather than provide a good deal for their customers.
So, I had a need to play music and podcasts, on a cool black device, that isn't made by Apple. I mentioned this need to
discodoris, and we had a look around, finding that Samsung do a range of piano black MP3 players. She bought me one for my Birthday <3
The Samsung S5. Not only is it piano black, it has bluetooth, FM radio, MP4, and it also slides open, revealing stereo speakers. Stereo speakers, built-in to an MP3 player! How cool is that?!
Because it has Bluetooth, I bought a similarly-cool bluetooth stereo headset to go with it, also in gloss black. The headset pairs with my phone at the same time, pausing MP3 playback when a call is received. I'm delighted with my recent gadgets - Invisible integration, the blurring of discrete device functionality, so that everything just works, and makes my life easier!
I haven't got around to downloading podcasts to it, yet. It was very handy for our recent Majorca vacation, though, having music on-tap in the hotel room.