By Relly Carpio
INQUIRER.net

SONY ERICSSON recently launched three new Walkman phones which incorporate the Walkman On Top concept: the Sony Ericsson W350i, W380i, and W890i

“It’s having the Walkman interface easily accessible to the user with it being on top of the phone,” explained Vincent De la Cruz, product group marketing manager of Sony Ericsson Philippines.

“We believe there is a market that wants to put music first and foremost over the phone. Particularly a phone with the basic features, but allows people who want to enjoy their music access it easily. Always putting their music experience first,” he added.

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MOTOROLA regional marketing director Mari Litonjua gives a demo of two handsets which are also excellent music players, the RAZR 2 V9 and ROKR E8. Litonjua said the ROKR E8 will be launched in the market in the middle of May.

Video taken by INQUIRER.net online videographer Janie Christine Octia.

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MICROSOFT might have forced itself too much when it attempted to subdue Apple in the handheld media player business when it launched the 30 Figabyte Zune about a year ago. Sad to say, it didn’t fare as hoped. A year later, Microsoft again makes an attempt but has added to its repertoire two new models aimed at the Apple iPod’s smaller iteration, the Nano. It recently launched the Zune 4, Zune 8 and Zune 80, all of which now feature the Zune Pad, a look-alike of iPod’s tried-and-tested Click Wheel.

Zune 4

For this review, the Zune 4 will be the featured model and it’s the one Microsoft is pitting against the iPod nano 4 gigabyte, and as such, uses flash memory instead of the small hard disk drives of its big brothers. Physically, the smaller Zune is nearly identical in shape and size to the first and second generation iPod nano. Its dimensions are 1.6 inches by 3.6 inches by 0.33 inches, and it weighs 47 grams. It also comes in four colors (red, pink, green and black) of which the front is in matte finish, which gives it a rugged look. The screen is twice as large as that of the first generation iPod nano and is about the same size as that of the current generation iPod nano. Nevertheless, the Zune’s screen is equally bright.

The Zune has a total of three buttons (except for the lock slider at the top of the unit). Two smaller buttons on the left and right side below the glass screen serve as the play/pause and back buttons. The large oval button below the screen is Microsoft’s pride and joy with the smaller Zunes: the Zune Pad. Much like the iPod Click Wheel, the Zune Pad is largely the unit’s full control interface. It can be used as a four-way directional button but its best feature is its slider option where the user can just flick his or her thumb left-to-right or up and down to navigate through the unit’s options. Whereas the user has to rotate the Click Wheel on the iPod to navigate through voluminous content, the Zune user can just flick, then hold in one direction until the desired song, photo, or video is found. It’s also easy to deduce that the Zune Pad will be nearly as sensitive as the Click Wheel especially when the lock slider is not activated. Luckily, even without it, the user can put the Zune in a side pocket and not worry about the songs being changed while walking about.

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By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

UPDATE: Editor’s note: Added URL of X-mini site.

OKAY, so we journalists usually get nifty giveaways, but this one — the X-mini Capsule Speaker — stands out from the coffee mugs and USB thumb drives so it’s worth mentioning here.

It’s a portable “capsule” speaker (it actually looks a lot like a mosquito repellent device), which sets it apart from the generic, mostly two-speaker types. It connects via a two-prong cable, one for your USB port and another for your standard 3.5mm stereo jack.

Best of all, no need to plug it because the battery’s rechargeable via USB. So if it doesn’t have its own power, what about sound quality then? Not bad at all, I’d say it’s definitely better than those portable speakers you’ll find in P88 stores. The package did say “Hearing is believing.” I tried supporting that point with this video.