I4U News - Review of the World's Smallest MP3 Player: MobiBlu DAH ...

I4U News - Review of the World's Smallest MP3 Player: MobiBlu DAH ...
Review of the World's Smallest MP3 Player: MobiBlu DAH-1500 aka JNC SSF-8000 aka Cube I4U is a Technology Life Style Magazine and Shopping Guide.

I4U News - New Mobiblu DAH-1500i Cube MP3 Player with 2GB!
New Mobiblu DAH-1500i Cube MP3 Player with 2GB!, I4U News is a Premium Technology News Magazine and Gadget Shopping Guide.

Best, worst, weirdest of 2005?
More than half of our visitors are from the US, and statistics say that 78% of all Americans like numbers, figures and lists (also, 100% of these stats were made up, but only 1.3% of you is likely to actually care about that). So let's do this one before all getting high on bubbly fluids and greasy chunks of appetizer. Don't expect a great deal of factual resources to back up my choices, these lists are mainly based on "gut feelings" right now.

Mind you, all products listed are devices I've actually used during the past year... no cheating by looking at awesome specifications of upcoming cool gear (well except for the last few top-3s, of course)!

Best DAP of 2005, overall (PMPs/PVRs et cetera included)

1. MobiBlu DAH-1500i
2. iRiver U10
3. Cowon iAudio X5

Runner-ups: iPod nano (aaargh! get the garlic!), Samsung's YP-T8/D1 and - despite some complaints - the Archos AV5x0 series.

Why? Well, MobiBlu was a no-name-company until they released that cube-like little marvel - they managed to establish themselves in the US too (not too many Korean companies succeeded in that, besides iRiver & Cowon), thanks to the DAH-1500. Some slight improvements turned the "i"-version into one of the most talked-about DAPs over here, which we tend to like.

iRiver's U10 might seem an unlikely choice but maybe that's just me. I fell in love with the clean design, and yes - it's a very impressive device altogether in terms of output quality and number of (semi)useful features. All it needs is a hefty price cut and a reasonable capacity upgrade. Arguably not the easiest requests, but come on iRiver... you need to keep racing the other dogs!

Cowon's X5 managed to create a stir in DAP-land for several months, and although it's pretty outdated by now (boy, technology ages like crazy nowadays), we won't forget how it did set some standards - slimness (apart from that screen-hump thing), color screen (kind of ugly), video support (hardly useful), USB-Host, the usual Cowon sound quality, blah blah blah... They'll need to upgrade the X5 to something new soon enough, but for the first half of 2005, the X5 managed to impress us for quite some time.

Here's a few other categories on which I spent, say, 0.40 seconds per item. It's all a matter of personal taste, mostly.

Design award

1. iRiver U10
2. Philips hdd63x0
3. MPEye HTS-200

Runner-ups: MobiBlu DAH-1500i, Mpio FL-400, Olympus M:R 100, EZAV EMP-700 (Pebble)

Best flash DAP

1. MobiBlu DAH-1500i
2. iRiver U10
3. iPod nano

Runner-ups: Samsung YP-T8/D1, Samsung YP-U1, Sony NW-E4/5/60x

Best micro-HDD DAP

1. Samsung YH-J50
2. iRiver H10
3. Philips hdd16x0

Runner-ups: Sony NW-A1000, Archos XS100, Creative Zen Micro Photo

Best HDD DAP

1. Cowon iAudio X5
2. Archos Gmini-402(cc)
3. Apple iPod v5

Runner-ups: Samsung YH-J70, Sony NW-HD5, Toshiba Gigabeat F-series

Best PMP/PVR

1. Archos AV5x0
2. Cowon A2
3. Creative Zen Vision

Runner-ups: Digital Cube i-Station 2, ... eh... most other "worthwhile" stuff never made it to where I live.

Most surprising stuff:

1. Apple dropping the iPod Mini in favor of the nano
2. Creative's Zen Vision & upcoming Zen Vision:M
3. iRiver U10 (initially)

Runner-ups: LuxPro's Super Shuffle, Samsung's buckets full of new DAPs @ CES/CeBIT, Rio Audio = dead (not really a surprise, just a shocking fact).

Most potential (DAPs (PMPs/PVRs/...) I haven't used, but consider very interesting)

1. Rio Audio CarbonC 30GB
2. Creative's Zen Vision & upcoming Zen Vision:M
3. Mobiblu DAH-1900 (150 hour battery life)

Runner-ups: Digital Cube i-Station V43, BestaPro DMP-1, Maxian T600, 30000 other units I can't remember right away.

Most disappointing DAP of 2005, overall

1. Olympus M:R500
2. Apple iPod shuffle & Sony Bean
3. iRiver H10, 20GB

Runner-ups: Creative Zen Sleek, Creative Zen Neeon, Archos Gmini-500, Cowon iAudio M5

Old stuff that still ruled in 2005

1. Rio Audio Karma
2. iRiver H1x0 series (+RockBox)
3. Cowon iAudio U2

Runner-ups: iPod v4, Archos AV4x0, Creative Zen Xtra (60GB).

Feel free to fill in your own "personal bests", "worst stuff ever" et cetera. Lists are fun, remember? If you want to go through this year's major events when filling in your own favorites, please check out our "year in review" article. Try to keep it friendly, and respect each other's choices like sane people tend to do.

Ok, let's celebrate New Year's Eve now. Y'all keep safe and have a nice few upcoming hours! I'll be on my way to Vegas the next day - another thing to really look forward to, for me anyway .

Wal-Mart actively adding more and more tech gadets on its shelves
The company said it is using its site to test trendy products and those that appeal to a younger, wealthier demographic. Among them this holiday season: the MobiBlu, a tiny cubic $99 MP3 player, a six-megapixel camera and dock by Kodak for $199