MediaMentalism » Social Gadgets for social media: MediaMentalism.com

Chord Gem Bluetooth HiFi takes on the Squeezebox

Mike Evans — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:46:05 +0000

The Chord Bluetooth Chordette Gem is a brand new music streamer that’ll let you stream music across a Bluetooth connection (yes, even your mobile phone) direct to your HiFi. In many ways, it’s pitched squarely against the Logitech Squeezebox, as both boxes plug into your HiFi and act almost as super-fancy adaptors, enabling a device with music on (e.g. you PC, walkman, mobile phone, etc.) to play music through a device that’s designed to play it well (i.e. your HiFi!)

The Squeezebox does this using WiFi, and so was designed primarily to wirelessly stream the tunes from your PC through to your HiFi. In contrast, the Chord Gem takes a different approach, using Bluetooth as its preferred technology for streaming. The advantage this gives is that you can stream your tunes from many more devices than your PC. For example, you can stream your tunes from your mobile phone, a Bluetooth MP3 player, and yes, even your PC (USB Bluetooth adaptors cost

Want a Bluetooth MP3 player? Here are dozens…

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:28:06 +0000

A Bluetooth MP3 player transforms the way you listen to your tunes, but finding a good one from the thousands of ordinary MP3 players on the market can take days of tedious research.

So we’ve done the hard work for you and compiled a list of the top Bluetooth MP3 players on the market today, together with links to the all the Bluetooth MP3 players from the major online stores.

Yes, we’re very very good to you people!

Why buy a Bluetooth MP3 player?

A Bluetooth MP3 player is a must-have couch potato gadget who prefers listening to their tunes without moving, rather than having to fiddle about with wires to hear their tunes. A Bluetooth MP3 player will let you do some or more of the following:

listen to your tunes wirelessly, either through a Bluetooth headset or an external Bluetooth speaker. No wires, no fuss, just stream your music from the MP3 player to the speaker, no matter where it is in your lounge.
stream your tunes to your car stereo wirelessly – a number of car radios now also come with Bluetooth, meaning you can listen to your tunes from your MP3 player in your car without having to use headphones (dangerous and, er, illegal!) or one of those annoying FM transmitters.
take calls from your mobile phone via your MP3 player – never get up to answer the phone again!
wirelessly copy your tunes to and from your PC – no more fiddling about with USB cables.

Wired MP3 players are so lost year, while Wi-Fi ones are still a bit pricey. If it’s a decent MP3 player you’re after, you might as well throw Bluetooth into the mix as well – you won’t regret it.

We’ve come up with the following list showing five of the best Bluetooth MP3 players on the market today. If these don’t tempt you, check out our links to the Bluetooth MP3 players from the major online stores.

1). The Samsung YP-T10 Bluetooth MP3 player

Looking not unlike a mobile phone, the Samsung YP-T10 lets you stream your music from the device to a Bluetooth earpiece or a Bluetooth wireless speaker using Bluetooth A2DP technology.

Nothing flash or fancy, the Samsung simply lets you play MP3 tunes with or without wires. It comes in several variants, from 2GB up to 16GB, and also features an intriguing “character animation” user interface, to stop you getting bored from looking at a dull list of tunes! Good value too, with prices starting from just

Brando has their sites set small… but does size matter?

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:15:54 +0000

The world is in two minds at the moment they want their devices smaller but the screens bigger. As you have probable spotted there is a slight problem, the device needs to be at least as large as the screen. That is unless you have a device with a rollable screen. So that’s the problem with devices which need screens but what about those without screens? How small can they get? Brando seems on a mission to find out. Read on to get more information.

Brando has recently been releasing small device after small device and each time claiming they are the smallest in the world. Here is an overview of some of their devices.

World’s smallest microSD reader

The first offering for the smallest in the world is the T-Flash USB Micro Drive Reader that can read and write MicroSD/T-Flash memory cards. Stick a card into this thing and hey presto you now have a mini pen drive. You can put your favourite movie on a MicroSD card and have it with you where ever you go. This little treasure retails for just $14.

Smallest flash drive

This supper thin flash drive which measures a mere 3.5 inches long has a quite remarkable capacity of 4 GB. If you don’t need 4GB you could always get a smaller version which is only 512 MB and would only set you back $19 where as the 4GB will cost you $55. With a USB 2.0 flash drive this small I would be afraid of losing it, shame it can’t be attached to my keys.

Tiny USB Bluetooth adapter

At just 14 x 19 x 6mm and only weighing 2 grams this has got to be the smallest way to get you computer Bluetooth compliant! I really can’t see how you can make it any smaller without making it impossible to use. To get one of these it will only set you back $24. Down side is this only compatible with Bluetooth 1.1 but it does have a range of about 10 meters.

World’s smallest wireless mouse

This petite mouse is the smallest in the world “probably”, yes that is right they claim it is the smallest but they don’t really know. That aside, this has switchable resolutions and promises 70 hours of continuous use with a range of about 23 feet. That’s all very nice but how usable is it? It looks like it will be quite uncomfortable to use and will just be good for giving you RSI. If you are interested in this mouse it will set you back around $29.

World

World's smallest iPod transmitter launched

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:59:10 +0000

Brando latest offering for the smallest in the world is a Bluetooth A2DP transmitter which is compatible with the iPhone and all dockable iPods. So it supports: iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch, iPod nano(1st, 2nd, 3rd gen), iPod Classic, iPod Video, iPod (Color) and iPod Mini.

This little gizmo removes the need for wires to trail from your headphones into you iPod or iPhone and so you can be free to strut your way down the high street without the worry of becoming tangled.

The INFINXX AP23 doesn’t need additional power or batteries, it receives all its power from the player without, according to Brando, affecting the battery life of your iPod. Brando’s unit is able to connect to all Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP headphones and speakers and supports AVRCP functions which enable you to remotely control your iPod or iPhone. You will have remote control of play, stop, volume, forward, back and you can wirelessly receive calls.

The INFINXX AP23 Bluetooth unit is available for

Philips to launch its new player 'GoGear'

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:19:37 +0000

Philips has launched its digital audio & video player ‘GoGear (model:SA5245)’. Apart from looking very nice, its most noticeable feature is FullSound, a digital audio algorithm patented by Philips that refines audio output. FullSound apparently brings out the best of their audio system and delivers more life to the music by performing millions of operations before the sound hits your ears. It would seem that as hardware becomes faster companies are using it to full advatage to manipulate the sound into ritcher tones or make the sound appear to come from different directions as with Creative’s ZEN X-Fi.

If like me you have too many wires in your life and you are looking to reducing them before you have a nasty accident you could splash out on the Bluetooth-enabled model (SA5245BT). Both the GoGear models have a 2.8inch QVGA LCD screen and up to five hours video playtime.

All in all a very nice number and not a bad price either. You can find one of these at Amazon for $122.39 or