Leon

edit - I just don't belong here. Someone please wipe this post. takk.

Like the other major brands, the key is whether third-party companies would consider it feasible and come out with replacement batteries. There's also the possibility that batteries of a proprietary form factor would prevent that. (as opposed to an off-the-shelf battery from the battery manufacturer - say some PDAs just use batteries originally destined for cell phones)

And supposedly Gmail never deletes anything even if you cancel your account... is what I've heard somewhere. (excuse my grammar, i'm fiddling with my new phone )

Well I like this better than the Googlezon thing someone did last year

Get well soon Adrian (#1 of my readership) and everyone else! *pet* I've been under the weather but not nearly as bad as you guys. I remember all-nighters in college, trying to get the papers done. The papers were fine (I'm a B student who tended to get A with long papers) but the pressure did me in. I couldn't go to graduate school because -- generally people would say "oh just wax poetic or talk ---- to fill space" but I just couldn't. Since April I've been pissed off with these job search websites here in Taiwan. For publicity, they do a lot of surveys and questionnaire and invite the press over for results (which eventually translates into "you should use our service"). So there are people like my dad who believes everything he sees on TV, and conseqntly I'm nagged over my career prospects. Then over the summer one of them launched a huge ad campaign. They're everywhere: on TV in every channel during every commercial break, radio commericals, subway ads, webmail banner ads (flash animated with sound). I became so irritable over this. I've had to mute every commercial break cause they're grating on my nerves. There was a week or two where I refused to leave home cause I'll be exposed to billboards and such, and I thought I'd crumble out on the streets. Part of advertising has always been to get you to spend by way of subtle threats, but this time they really got me, sort of compounded my own job hunt difficulties. If you're already working this must seem kinda over-reacting on my part, it probably is... and I feel completely disconnected from the social mores around me, i just hope it doesn't work against me at some point (l'etranger anyone?).

Thanks spex! The Walkman Bean looks great, I think the design is the epitome of what we expect from them, less awkward than the Walkman Stick. And if the 5-way button operates the way I think it does, should be pretty nice to use. Anyone remember the cassette Walkman Beans from years back?

In theory the flash players are capable of much faster, but in reality they're usually much slower than HDD players. I'm guessing this is due to the HDD players' very powerful processors, and also, very few players are designed with constant FF/REW in mind; they're designed with the assumption that we listen to songs. Right now, I don't think it gets any faster than the iPod/mini "scrub" (press the center button once then rub the wheel; it's speed-sensitive). My HD5 and the iRiver flash players are both very fast, but not as fast or convenient as the iPods. If anyone's main use is for talk radio/audio books, the balance is heavily tipped in the iPod's direction, no matter how much you hate Apple

Thanks for the kind words

Hello, snoer.net is an experiment, a blog that centers on all things portable audio. The project is very close to my heart, it's something I've wanted to do for years, so if you like what you see, please tell your friends! :q My appearance in the forum here will be minimized, as there's quite an overlap in topic.

Yeah Sony hasn't gone the cheap route for decades. If anything they usually opted to charge a premium just because they can. I saw a brand survey for Japan, which basically says -- Sony is still the #1 brand in the mind of consumers surveyed - IIRC Toyota and Honda are top 3, Apple is outside the top 10 -- but Sony has steadily dropped in the survey of business people, with a notably low score in innovation -- Sony-related brands (eg. Sony Music, the individual product lines) have all declined in image during the last year; the iPod as a brand scored pretty much on par with the Apple brand. The survey and article's final words on Sony is that, like all large companies do at some point, Sony's banking on the goodwill it built in the past. A friend saw this and his first reaction was "well that's what Apple did in the early 90s!"

Yes they do have certain dates. Lemme start with the old, Japanese schedule: usually August/September is big for portable audio products, most MD announcements have been in these months. Products announced for Japan at this time are then announced for Europe and the US at year-end or next January to coincide with the CES. Then products of less importance (eg. niche models, cute models) are reserved for February/March in Japan. Recently though, Sony has been all over the map. If you're used to their old schedule you may think they've gone mad! The HD5/E500 was April, the Vaio Pocket was May and the HD1 was either June or July. The E100 players had mockups shown at CES but wasn't released for another 3-4 months. Looks like Sony's been furiously developing things and releasing as they go along - kinda like all the Korean makes A lot of Japanese bloggers, etc, mention the year-end and mid-year bonuses that salarymen receive, and how companies time their new products to take advantage of these, usually expensive products like TV, DVR, computers, but I think Sony would have something up its sleeve for release in this second half of 2005.

atrain, good to hear people got the joke I was eyeing the joybooks for a while (the 6000 and the newer s52), can't remember what turned me off. In the end I couldn't justify getting a laptop, and got a desktop instead

In astrology, some folks have always insisted that the 10th planet is Vulcan, and the 11th would be Apollo. Once these appear, Virgo and Taurus will finally have their own, dedicated ruling planet - not a bad deal for me with my huge virgo and taurus influences.

That's not my point... there was a car called the Austin Allegro from the 70s, and it was absolutely infamous I'm surprised anyone would consider re-using the name... and I was hoping someone would get the joke http://austin-rover.co.uk/ado67storyf.htm

Oh, and whoever came up with that name can't possibly be from the UK... Allegro *wink* If you're in the UK and don't know, ask someone who's older