X-bit labs

X-bit labs CeBIT 2006 Coverage: Day 6

Category: Editorial

by Anton Shilov

[ 03/16/2006 | 08:20 AM ]

On the sixth day of our CeBIT 2006 coverage we visit booth of Cooler Master to check out the world’s biggest CPU cooler as well as suitcase-like computer case for travelers, we take a look at stylish notebooks from Asustek, we observe MSI’s conceptual plans to use solar energy for electronic gadgets, listen to music using Sapphire’s MP3 player with up 35 hours battery life and take a look at Foxconn’s systems for the living room.

Table of contents:

• Sapphire Unveils Hot MP3 Player with Up to 35 Hours of Battery Life
  
• Cooler Master Shows Off World’s Biggest Cooler
  
• Leather Collection from Asustek
  
• Suitcase-Like Computer Case from Cooler Master Exposed
  
• Foxconn Goes to Living Room
  
• MSI Feeds Notebooks, MP3 Players with Solar Power
  

Sapphire Unveils Hot MP3 Player with Up to 35 Hours of Battery Life

Sapphire Technologies has been well-known for its graphics cards and mainboards, but recently the company decided to also enter flash-based products business, e.g., flash drives and MP3 players. Unfortunately, the company has not gained much traction in those markets, as digital music players are associated mostly with brands like Apple, iRiver or Creative and retailers do not tend to shelf space to other brands. But the company does not give up and its latest Ivory player does have some interesting features to offer.

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The main advantage of the Ivory is extremely long playback time: it is up to 35 hours (iPod shuffle has 14-hour playback time), which should be enough for a small journey. There are some other things that make Sapphire’s MP3 player pretty special: karaoke and electronic books support, built-in microphone, 12 equalizer settings, tetris game, fast 2.5 hours charge time through USB (iPod shuffle should be charged for 4 hours) and pretty sleek design.

In order to cut down power consumption as much as possible, Sapphire had to use one-colour LCD screen with blue lighting instead of a colour display found on some other players.

There are also some disadvantages that the Ivory has: it has only 512MB of memory, not a lot for a frequent music listener and a person who would like to use the player for a long time. Its menu is not the most easy to use compared to some other players, even though this does not seem to be a significant drawback: at the end of the day, Apple’s shuffle does not have any menu at all.

  

The price of the Sapphire Ivory 512MB with bundled ear-bud headphones should be something like €69 ($83), which is even more affordable compared to the price of the iPod shuffle 512MB in some countries (€79), or a bit more expensive compared to the iPod shuffle in the U.S. ($69), but at this price you’ll get advantages like screen, long playback time, built-in microphone, etc.

Whether or not the Ivory turns into successful product fully depends on the popularity of the iPod shuffle, as people are so excited about the iPod in general that they buy shuffle without considering the obvious shortcomings that it has.