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Aiwa Bluetooth MP3 player, 100 hour battery life, etc. |
axxxr
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
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I was fairly impressed by Aiwa's announcement today of three new portable audio players -- they first of all support MP3, ATRAC3plus, and ATRAC, but they also feature pretty nice battery lives. Also, o要e of the players even supports Bluetooth.
But don't get too excited -- looks like Sony is back at it with their Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. Transferring files to and fro requires use of a "special driver," installed when you install SonicStage.
Sony announced that they will release new flash memory players under the Aiwa brand that support ATRAC3plus, ATRAC, and MP3 playback o要 December 1st. The three products in the lineup are the 256MB "XDM-S700," the 128MB "XDM-S500," and the 256MB Bluetooth-supporting "XDM-S710BT." The XDM-S500 will be available in both Silver and Blue color variations.
The price of all units is Open Price, but the estimated price of the XDM-S700 is 23,000 yen, the XDM-S500 20,000 yen, and the XDM-S710BT 28,000 yen.
The company announced in January that proactive development of products related to "USB Audio" would be the Aiwa brand's new strategy, and announced 8 MP3 players (after the announcement, however, 1 product was cancelled, two had their release delayed due to specification changes, and 2 products are still yet to be released). However, somewhat rare for Sony products, they supported o要ly MP3 and not ATRAC3 -- the reason for that, according to Mr. Yoshi Hirauchi (President of the Aiwa Business Center), was "in order to have a standard that all users to could utilize, we chose MP3 and USB memory. By keeping with USB and MP3 standard technologies, Aiwa expressed a certain independence from Sony."
The three XDM series players announced this time around all support ATRAC3plus, ATRAC3, and MP3 formats. The bundled software has also been changed from the "Music Transfer" typically included with other previous Aiwa brand products to Sony's "SonicStage Ver.2.1," which is included with other Sony players. Because of this, the ability to use ATRAC3plus/ATRAC3 has become the same as any other Sony product.
There have also been changes to the transfer of MP3 files, in that the "MP3 File Manager" is contained inside the XDM's internal memory. When connected to a PC, the MP3 File Manager window will display o要 the desktop, giving users the ability to drag & drop/playback MP3 files. Furthermore, o要ce MP3 files are transferred to the player, they cannot be put back o要 the PC; a special driver needs to be installed for this. Said driver will be automatically installed when SonicStage Ver2.1 is installed.
Connection with a PC is carried out using USB 1.1. Power comes from o要e AA battery. When using an alkaline battery and playing 66kbps ATRAC3 files, the continuous playback time is about 100 hours. The body design, external dimensions, and weight of each player are the same. The unit body is made of aluminium, and the external dimensions are about 88.6 x 24.6 x 24.3mm (W x D x H), and it weighs about 37g (60g with battery).
Song selection, volume adjustments, and other controls are operated by a shuttle switch. It features an LCD capable of displaying Japanese, and song names can be displayed.
The XDM-S700 and XDM-S500 contain FM tuners (TV 1 - 3ch), and 30 stations can be preset. Though the XDM-S710BT omits the FM tuner, it does support the "Bluetooth Hands-free/Headset Profile." Because of this, it can wirelessly connect with Bluetooth-supporting cellular phones, so even while listening to music, you can conduct hands-free calls using the headphones connected to the player and internal microphone.
Each model comes with headphones, a special USB cable, carrying case, strap for the carrying case, neck strap, and headphone extension cord.
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*Jojo*
Joined: Oct 15, 2003
Posts: > 500
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@axxxr - An MP3 player with Bluetooth features  You mean you can exchange/transfer music files just like in some of celfone models with BT features as well - say, like just simply transferring ordinary images and vids Looks like very handy too, smaller than a traveller's toothbrush to me dude  ! | |
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Posted: 2004-11-12 13:18
