Have I Lost the plot?
It seems we all get a little hung up on the wrong things here. Now to me an MP3 player is designed to do one thing... play MP3's?
Now surely if they got rid of this useless notion that everyone wants an MP3 player that can wipe your ass for you and get the morning paper, we would have some truly fantastic players out there? I currently use an Iriver Clix. As far as I am concerned, the interface is second to none, the sound quality is brilliant, and it's not too large. I bought this over 2 years ago. It does everything i want, however i am now tempted by others in the market, the problem is theyre all huge. i want a small light mp3 player to take to the gym, to listen to on my bike etc. When in hell am i going to sit and watch a bloody video on an MP3 player? I see Video as a limited market, not the mass market. Now correct me if im wrong as i may just be strange. But my mp3 player stays in my pocket on shuffle. The screen is useful to navigate and make playlists on the fly, but in no way would i ever want to sit and watch a movie on it. the ipod shuffle is by far the best gadget, however if another manufacturer were to take lead from this, make it a little larger, add a screen, an easy navigation and keep it slim then it would sell in mass.
My phone is a nokia 6500 classic, its slim its nice looking, it doesnt neccesarily do much, it has 3G (WHY!?!?!) it seems this phone could be smaller if not for the pointless gadgets. I see there is a market, but the camera on my phone takes snaps and they generally are rarely shown to people and when i change phone i delete them. wuality is not good enough to print and not good enough to put on screen, so why bother?
Apply this logic to MP3 players, sod video, sod games, sod everything, jus have an MP3 player with brilliant sound quality and a good interface, make it slim make it light. Has anyone noticed these things generally aren't getting much smaller? i used to have a mobiBlue cube mp3 player. fantastic little thing. problem is its shape and sound quality. Flatten it out a bit, bigger screen for easier navigation and a capacity of atleast 4gb and its perfect!
rant over... carry on