LG VX8560 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (CDMA 800MHz / 1.9 GHz)
• Form Factor: Flip phone with external display
• Display: 2.2 inch, 320×240 pixels, & 260k colors
• Media: MP3, WMA, & Unprotected AAC(+)
• Imaging: 2.0 mega pixel camera & camcorder
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, GPS, & microUSB
• Others: microSD, FM Transmitter, & 3.5mm headphone
• Size / Weight: 3.87″ H x 1.94″ W x 0.64″ D (inches) / 3.4 oz
• Battery Life: 4.5 hours talk time & 350 hours standby
• Price: $100 with a new 2 year agreement

The Body – 4/5 stars
The Chocolate 3 is fairly compact and can fit into most pockets. It is a bit too long when flipped open and will reach past most people’s ears and mouth in both directions. This is the first officially branded Chocolate phone which isn’t a slider, but rather a flip phone. It retains some elements from its ancestors such as the click wheel on the front, unfortunately it isn’t touch sensitive. The front side of the phone also features an unusually large 1.76 inch display which has a beautiful rotating interface. The camera is also on the front and allows taking self portraits using the external screen. The microSD card reader, the Music key, and lock button can be found on the right side of the phone. The left side contains the 3.5mm headphone jack, the volume toggle, voice command key, and the microUSB port. The inside of the phone is quiet basic; it has a standard numeric keypad, four way navigation, two soft keys, and the Send/END buttons. The only real downside I encountered was finger print magnet nature of the shinny metallic finish on the front side. Other than that body of the phone is well built and should last.

The Display – 3/5 stars
The 1.76 inch external display with a 176 x 220 pixel resolution looks excellent, but unfortunately only in doors. Due to the glossy finish, it is quite difficult to view outdoors or when covered with fingerprints. The 2.2 inch internal display is fortunately much better and looks quite sharp with its 320 x 240 pixel resolution. There’s nothing too impressive here, but is just fine for most simple tasks.

The Interface – 4/5 stars
Verizon once again has used their standard interface on this phone, but it’s got a couple of special themes as most phones do today. Browsing through the menu system was smooth and clean. Navigation was consistent and easy to follow. The external display has a couple of functions: music player, photo gallery, the camera, calendar, and messages. This secondary interface was actually quite polished for once. It easy to use and performed as expected. It was quite easy to take self portraits and listen to music. But regarding the internal interface, there’s not much that has changed in the past couple of years, so hopefully we’ll see something more revolutionary in the near future. All you get with this phone is the standard icon menu which opens up into the classic tabbed interface.

Messaging & Contacts – 4/5 stars
The Chocolate 3 is a fairly decent phone for messaging. Although it has just a numeric keypad, the software allows text, picture, and video messaging. The standard Verizon Wireless Mobile IM client for AOL, MSN, and Yahoo is also available. Email can be accessed through either the WAP browser or the Mobile Email client. The phone supports 1000 contacts with plenty of extra fields for extra numbers. The Chocolate also has the standard call history views for displaying missed, incoming, and outgoing calls.

Music Playback – 4/5 stars
Since the VX-8560 is a music phone, you would expect it to do quite an excellent job at playing music. Although this might be the best Chocolate 3, there has not much improvement that has been made in this area over the past couple of years. To start listening to music, you can just hit the Music key on the side, which will quickly launch the player. As always you can browse your library in different by Albums, Artists, Genres, Songs, or Playlists. There were also some preset equalizers which may help some music sound better. The Chocolate 3 supports pushing the music app into the background allowing performing other tasks. The music is also automatically paused and resumed when a call is received. The player flows between the external and internal display smoothly. So if you start playing a song with the phone open, the interface will move over to the external display when closed. Overall it is a fairly decent player for a phone, but once again there was room for a lot of improvement.

FM Transmitter – 5/5 stars
Lots of people still don’t have an auxiliary port or an iPod connectors built into their vehicles. Most of those people use a FM transmitters to listen to music from their portable device on their stereo. The Chocolate 3 doesn’t need any extra accessories to broadcast music on a station since it’s got that component built right in. All you’ll have to do is find an open frequency, set it on the phone, tune into that channel. The quality was pretty good during most test runs. It is obviously not comparable to Satellite Radio, CDs, or a wired media player; however this is probably the next best thing for many. The only downside might be that battery life takes a steep hit when using this feature. LG claims 24 hours of transmitting FM if the phone is placed into the “music only” mode.

Syncing Music & microSD – 4/5 stars
The LG Chocolate 3 supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which is great for those planning to use it as their music playback device. 8GB cards have also come down in price and can be purchased for as low as $30 through some major online retailers. When you connect your phone to your machine using the included microUSB to USB cable, you can enter the data or sync music mode. The data mode will turn the microSD card into a mass storage device so you can add or remove content directly onto it. The sync music mode will allow syncing media with Windows Media Player 11. Unfortunately Vista users will have no choice but to install the horrid V Cast Music Manager to get the phone working with WMP11. If files are placed directly into the music folder, the phone will manually re-index them the next time the music player is started. So to put all of that together, the phone can be synced as a media player device, a mass storage device, or by using a microSD card reader.

Speakers + Headphones – 4/5 stars
The 3.5mm standard headphone jack is the main feature that gives the Chocolate 3 the ability to call itself a music phone. Users of this phone can now plug-in their own headphones without the need of any additional adapters or a special headset. The playback quality is decent. Audiophiles won’t even consider it; however the majority of people probably won’t be able to tell the difference between the Chocolate and an iPod for instance. The speaker is quite loud and is fairly clear; however I probably would never use them for listening to music. As for the speakerphone functionality, it works just great.

The Camera – 2.5/5 stars
This phone wasn’t really made for taking pictures, but nonetheless it has a simple camera for snapping photos occasionally. It’s got some basic features such as changing brightness, resolution, digital zoom, and some color effects. Nothing is too interesting. The LCD screen which is the view finder will only display a small portion of a picture that is being taken, which is often annoying. The image quality was mediocre; my two year old LG enV was on par if not better than this phone’s camera. The only neat feature might be the ability to take self portraits using the large external display since the camera is already facing you. The phone can also record videos, but those are also not too pretty. One improvement was the gallery which offers many more options on ways to handle the images you have taken. Overall imaging is an extra feature; the music playback is the main focus of this phone.

Extras – 4.5/5 stars
A small feature which I loved was the power supply that was included with the phone. Instead of providing an addition data cable, the power supply is actually a USB cable in disguise. The cable can be unplugged from the head and can be plugged into a USB port to charge or sync data. As for software extras, the phone’s got the standard extra goodies such as Get It Now, WAP Browser, Bluetooth tools, Clocks, Calendar, Calculator, Tip Calculator, Alarm Clock, Notepad, Voice Commands and more.

Conclusion
This phone is a major improvement over the previous two Chocolate phones; however it now has a new form factor which may not be appealing to the owners of the previous models. This is an excellent mid-range phone and will not disappoint. Those who are looking for a high tech phone probably won’t find this too satisfactory. As mentioned before this is a perfect fit for those who are also looking for a phone that can playback music while on the go. The phone is available in stores and online for around $100 with a new two year contract. If you are eligible for upgrade you should be able to knock off $50!

Buy Now: LG Chocolate 3 for $69 (special via Amazon)
Links: Verizon Wireless

Ever since Apple released the “revolutionary” iPhone, competitors have been trying to imitate and create a better phone. LG has been fairly successful so far. They released the LG Voyager through Verizon Wireless last year, which we reviewed but weren’t too happy with. Fortunately their latest phone, the LG Dare, has surpassed our expectations and can truly be considered an iPhone competitor especially at its price point. It also has plenty of unique features that impressed us.

LG VX9700 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (CDMA 850MHz / 1.9 GHz)
• Form Factor: Full Touch Screen Candy-Bar
• Display: 3 inch, 240×400 pixels, & 262k colors
• Media: MP3, WMA, & AAC(+)
• Imaging: 3.2 mega pixel camera with flash & auto focus
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, GPS, & microUSB
• Others: microSD, ambient light, & accelerometer
• Size / Weight: 4.1″ H x 2.2″ W x 0.5″ D (inches) / 3.8 oz
• Battery Life: 4.7 hours talk time & 360 hours standby
• Price: $200 with a new 2 year agreement

The Body – 5/5 stars
The LG Dare is quite compact and can fit into even a tight pocket. It is actually about 16% smaller in volume than the iPhone 3G. The phone looks quite sleek with a silver trim on the front and a black colored back. Unfortunately since it is a touch screen, it is also prone to attracting finger prints. The front of the phone contains the send, clear, and end buttons in addition to the display. Although not too visible, when looking carefully at certain angles the ambient light sensor can be seen at the top blank portion above the screen. The left side of the phone contains the screen lock button, the microSD card slot, speaker phone key, and the microUSB charger/data port. The volume increase and decrease toggle and the camera/camcorder capture button can be found on the right side. The backside of the phone merely contains the digital camera with flash, the speaker, and a battery cover lid. Finally the 3.5mm standard headphone jack can be found at the top of the phone. Overall the entire design is a success.

Display – 5/5 Stars
In reference to the brightness, contrast, and color representation, the display was top notch. Probably one of the better displays I’ve seen in a while. The Dare’s three inch screen can display images at a max of 240×400 resolution which seemed to fit the needs of the phone just fine. The ambient light sensor is a great addition as it automatically dims the screen when in darker situations and brightens it up in broad daylight. The phone also has a neat sensor which automatically turns of the display during a call when the phone is held up to your face. It immediately turns back on when it gets further away. These two features assist heavily in conserving more battery life whenever possible.

http://skattertech.com/media/2008/07/lg-dare-interface.mp4

User Interface – 5/5 Stars
The LG Dare’s user interface is quite intuitive. The interface seems to have LG Voyager ancestry, however much has improved since then. The sensitivity is just right, however it can be adjusted. The phone’s screen is quite responsive without delay and all transitions are smooth and everything flows smoothly. The home screen features a clock, the date, and two notifications bar. Five items will always available on the bottom of the home screen: messaging, dial pad, menu, address book, and favorites. Although, this quick access bar cannot be modified, shortcuts can be added to the home screen from the shortcut menu. This shortcut menu can be accessed by clicking on the arrow on the main screen. The eleven default items can be customized to show any of the over fifty items in the phone including downloaded applications. The Main Menu displays the standard nine items found on any Verizon Wireless phone: Contacts, Messaging, Recent Calls, My Music, Media Center, Browser, VZ Navigator, V Cast Video, and Settings & Tools. Navigating through just about any part of the phone was simple and self-explanatory. The LG Dare also addresses the issue plaguing many touch screen devices which is the lack of tactile feedback. This phone solves that issue by releasing small vibrations below the screen each time something is clicked. Sound effects can also be enabled to indicate that a command has been accepted. The Dare also automatically locks itself after a certain period of inactivity. The screen can be activated by pressing the unlock key on the side or pressing the unlock button on the screen.

Messaging (Email, IM, & Text) – 5/5 Stars
Text messaging addicts will not be disappointed by this phone as it supports text, picture, and video messaging. Since the phone has tactile feedback it is much easier to type on this phone than I had expected. The keyboard also turns into a QWERTY layout when the phone is turned sideways thanks to the accelerometer. The keyboard was also quite accurate and the predictive text also helps speed things up. Although nothing beats a real keyboard, this wasn’t as bad as other phones I’ve used. The LG Dare also features Verizon’s Mobile Email client which has built in support for Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, and Verizon.net. If you use other services the phone also allows configuring your own POP3/IMAP servers for incoming mail and SMTP for outgoing. (SSL Security Supported!) The phone can automatically check and notify you when immediately when a message reaches your inbox. The client isn’t too great for reading messages with graphics; however is plenty for reading text in emails. Finally the LG Dare also has a built-in instant messaging client that supports the AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger clients. You can log into all three at once and view your full contact lists. Overall the phone has not forgotten about the messaging side of things even while the emphasis of the phone might be the touch screen.

Web Browser – 5/5 stars
The built in HTML web browser excels just as most other components of this phone has. It begins on the Verizon Wireless Portal offering quick links to news, weather, movies, and more. The homepage can be customized to a site of your choosing. To visit a webpage, just press the WWW button and enter a URL to navigate to any webpage. Just as the keyboard did previously, the entire browser switches over into landscape mode when the phone is rotated. The volume toggle can then be used to zoom into or out of a page. A Full Screen option is available in the menu to allow the webpage to take up the entirety of the screen leaving no wasted space. The back/forward, refresh, home, and other keys will only appear as overlay when in the full screen mode. The major drawback would be the lack of flash, however most simple JavaScript works. And since most people will probably have this question, YouTube does work perfectly. The bookmarks are also a thankful to have feature saving having to retype URL. The only other issue I faced was that links were sometimes hard to click and I would have to zoom in to get to them. Large web pages sometimes are slow to move around, however I would still have to say this is the best browser found on a Verizon Wireless phone.

MicroSD + Syncing – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which is great for those planning to use it as their music playback device. 8GB cards have also come down in price and can be purchased for as low as $30 through some major online retailers. When you connect your phone to your machine using the included microUSB to USB cable, you can enter the data or sync music mode. The data mode will turn the microSD card into a mass storage device so you can add or remove content directly onto it. The sync music mode will allow syncing media with Windows Media Player 11. Unfortunately Vista users will have no choice but to install the horrid VCast Music Manager to get the phone working with WMP11. If files are placed directly into the music folder, the phone will manually re-index them the next time the music player is started. So to put all of that together, the phone can be synced as a media player device, a mass storage device, or by using a microSD card reader.

Speakers + Headphones – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare’s speaker is fairly decent. It isn’t as loud as I hoped when being used as a speakerphone. It does sound decent for music, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It might have been better if they had been able to stuff a set of stereo speakers into the phone. Fortunately one of the big pros of this phone is the fact that it has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Those who plan to use this as their music device will have the opportunity to use their standard headphones without having to deal with using messy adapters. The headphones quality is plentiful for most consumers, audiophiles not so much.

Media Playback – 4.5/5 Stars
The LG Dare supports playback of MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+. Verizon recently made a deal with Rhapsody, so music purchased there is completely compatible as well. Controls are fairly intuitive to use. The touch screen makes navigating through songs quite simple. The library can be browsed by a full song list, custom playlists, artists, genres, or albums. The phone also contains preset equalizers. Album art is displayed while playing back music. LG has hilariously included a cover flow type of view when the phone is turned sideways. It doesn’t look too good or function too well, so I would just stick with the standard view. The best part of the Music Playback component is probably the fact that player can be turned into a background process. This way you can begin to browse the web, email, chat, or even send messages while listening to music. Overall this is probably the best music player I have seen on a Verizon Wireless phone to date. As for video playback, although I didn’t have a chance to test it, according to the specifications it supports playback of WMV, MP4, 3GP, and 3G2.

Digital Camera & Camcorder – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare has a Kreuznach 3.2 mega pixel camera which also doubles as a camcorder. Photos can be captured at a maximum resolution of 2048×1536 pixels, while videos can be recorded at a maximum resolution of 640×480. The camera allows for many different options such as a self timer, white balance, face detection, multi-shot, panorama, slit, and frame shot types, and a variety of scene modes. LG has also implemented face detection to focus on people in a shot. The camera allows manually setting the ISO, for those who are interested. The camera also launches within a second unlike most other phones that take a while to startup the application. The Dare’s camera is quite a strong point of the phone as it even includes built-in flash and auto focus. The camcorder offers plenty of neat features including a high frame rate option which will record video in slow motion.

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR – 5/5 stars
Bluetooth pairing is unbelievably easy; the phone gives instructions as to how you need to go about pairing the phone. The instructions are simple and easy enough for any person to understand how to do it. It automatically pairs itself with the Bluetooth headset once you have completed the steps, no need to enter a password or anything, very convenient. The Dare fully supports use of stereo Bluetooth headsets, which is welcome addition that the iPhone lacks. The phone also supports sharing calendar events, contacts, or printing photos to a printer, although most probably won’t ever use them.

GPS VZ Navigator – 5/5 Stars
The VZ Navigator has become the strongest point of Verizon Wireless phones in recent times and is also a strong point of this phone. The software allows getting voice turn-by-turn directions and even is aware of traffic congestion. It now also has an improved local search that can find movie timings, gas stations, local events and much more. Just like the browser, the app runs in landscape mode when the phone is turned sideways. The GPS was accurately able to find my location just about anytime I tested it.

Extras – 5/5 stars
One small feature which I loved was the power supply that was included with the phone. Instead of providing an addition data cable, the power supply is actually a USB cable in disguise. The cable can be unplugged from the head and can be plugged into a USB port to charge or sync data. No other hardware is included with the phone. As for the software the Dare has voice commands, a basic calculator, tip calculator, a powerful calendar, alarm clock, stopwatch, world clock, notepad, voice recorder, and a drawing pad. I also wanted to mention that the Notifications bar is an actual menu on this phone instead of just being meaningless indicators. When clicked on, information about missed calls, messages, and events will be displayed. The extra components were also though through carefully.

Conclusions
The LG Dare is the best Verizon Wireless phone I have yet to review. I would have to highly recommend this phone for those interested in a new device. It has been well throughout and is a very worthy competitor to the iPhone. Although it may lack the huge application store that Apple offers, there’s still plenty to keep you busy. Everything from the large touch screen display, the camera, the browser, and music player are all solid. The reception was one of the better ones I have seen as well. The phone is available for purchase already through Verizon Wireless stores and online. The LG Dare will cost $200 with a new two year contract. Those of you who are eligible for upgrade should be able to get an addition $50-100 knocked off the price based off your current calling plan.

Links: Verizon Wireless – LG Dare
Buy Now: LG Dare for $137 with New 2-YR Contract (via Amazon)

“We’re very excited to achieve this breakthrough of adding our X-Fi audio technology to a ZEN player, setting the highest standard in audio quality for portable music players,” said Craig McHugh, president and COO of Creative

In addition to the new WiFi hardware component, the Zen X-Fi now has built-in speakers, a SD card reader, built-in FM radio, and a microphone for voice recordings. With a 2.5-inch TFT display with the ability to playback WMV, AVI, MJPEG, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD, the player should satisfy the needs of most customers. As for audio, the unit supports playback of unprotected MP3, WMA and AAC audio formats. Creative also bundles in a set of high quality EP-830 in-ear earphones, which are much better than the standard sets of headphones that usually come with most digital media players.

The ZEN X-FI with Wireless LAN 32GB and 16GB models are now available for $279.99 and $199.99, respectively. They are now available for purchase through online retailers including Amazon.com, Buy.com, Creative.com, Fry’s.com and Newegg.com. The standard ZEN X-FI 8GB (without WiFi) will become available later this month for $149.99.

Links: Creative.com ZEN X-FI
Buy Now: Zen X-Fi 32GB $280 | Zen X-Fi 16GB $200
Related: Creative ZEN Review

LG VX9100 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (800MHz / 1.9GHz CDMA )
• Form Factor: Laptop-like w/ QWERTY keyboard
• Internal Display: 2.4-inch 320 x 240 pixels
• Media: MP3, WMA, AAC plus WMV, MP4, 3GP
• Imaging: 2.0 mega pixel camera and camcorder
• Other: Bluetooth, microSD (8GB max), stereo speakers
• Battery Life: 320 Mins Talk-Time or 520 Hrs standby
• Dimensions: 4″ H x 2.13″ W x .65″ D (inches)
• Price: $130 after $50 rebate plus a 2 year contract

LG enV2 Body: 4/5 stars
The enV (VX9900) was a more compact version of the LG V (VX9800) and now the enV2 is even smaller. The phone is quite small and can fit in just about any pocket. It’s a bit heavier than I had imagined (4.23 oz), but it’s still lighter than the enV. The enV2 is a whole lot shorter and thinner than the enV, however it is slightly wider. Both the front and back are pretty flat and all edges are smooth and rounded. It’s a pretty good looking phone and is easy to handle as well. On the front you’ll find a tiny display at the top and improved numeric keypad right below. The backside of the phone has the removable battery and the 2.0 megapixel camera. The right side of the phone has the 2.5mm headphone jack and microSD card reader/writer while the left side has the volume toggle keys and the camera button. As for the inside of the phone, the top portion features the 2.4-inch display with stereo speakers on the sides and the bottom portion has the QWERTY keyboard. And finally a micro-USB port can be found on the bottom under a socket cover for charging and data transfer. The only thing that I found disappointing was the extremely small screen on the front which has been rendered almost entirely useless. I feel that there would have been more to gain by making the keypad a bit smaller and by adding a larger screen.

The Screen(s): 4/5 stars
In terms of brightness and colors, both the internal and external displays are top notch. The internal screen is much bigger and brighter than the one on the enV. It looked quite good especially when I was able to view images I had taken in a full screen mode, which the enV didn’t allow. Watching videos on the internal display was quite decent as well. The external screen is now a rectangular strip which doesn’t offer enough room to perform most tasks. The external display on enV was more of a square and it’s menu system was quite fulfilling. Both screens were bright enough to be visible in direct sunlight.

User Interface: 4/5 stars
After messing with the internal interface of the phone I’ve got to say there’s a lot of improvements. Everything was quick and easy to learn and use. The interface will be quite familiar for previous enV owners. The phone also offers a layouts for messaging or multimedia, in case you plan on using one or the other more. I personally opted for the standard menu interface. Some of the stylish curves seems to have eaten up some screen estate which could have been used for displaying more information, however it wasn’t a problem. Overall the internal interface has been improved and works smoothly. The main fall back of the phone would have to be the external interface which I feel is a disaster. First off to get into the interface you’ll have to unlock the keyguard using the OK button. Next since there are no true soft keys, the up and down buttons launch the your contacts and message, respectively. The clear key which is usually centered on most phones has been placed at the top right which was quite awkward to use. The top left button is now the ‘Music’ button which should have just been one of the two customizable soft keys. The contacts list can only display two contacts at a time, however you’ll survive since it has a search function. The phone allows sending a text messages from the tiny front display, however the interface is confusing and slow. Even viewing ‘recent calls’ was quite tedious. If LG had offered a larger display and Verizon had built a better interface this would have had potential.

Media Playback: 4.5/5 stars
The interface for playing back music on the enV2 is pretty much the same as what it was on the enV. There doesn’t seem to be too many changes. I do however feel that it is about time that the player got a new look. Despite that caveat, the has and continues to player run without any problems. For those who have not used the interface on a previous phone, it allows searching or browsing by Songs, Albums, Artists, or Genres. It supports MP3, WMA, and AAC formats. It’s good news for both iTunes Plus and Amazon MP3 customers since all that content will be compatible. The V CAST Video also has been improved, streaming seems to function smoother than before and there wasn’t as much frame rate drops as there was on the enV. If you want to add your own video clips onto the phone, you can do so easily using 3rd party software and converting the content into WMV, MP4, or 3G2 formats.

MicroSD + Syncing: 5/5 stars
The LG enV2 doesn’t have too much room for storing content on it’s internal memory, however it has a microSD expansion which solves the problem. The phone now supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which should be plenty for the majority. Syncing music onto the phone is also a cinch. You can either use a micro-USB cable and sync content using a program such as Windows Media Player 11 or use a microSD card reader to copy content into the automatically created folders on the card. Even those with limited computer knowledge should be able to figure it out easily!

Speakers & Headphones: 5/5 stars
LG has once again improved the speakers on the enV2, making it better than those on the enV. I’m glad they improved on this, I was worried after I heard the speakers on the expensive LG Voyager. The speakers are clear at even full volume and manage without beginning to crackle. The sound great both for listening to music and when used as a speaker phone. If you plan to use headphones you’ll need to purchase a 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter to use with standard headphones. Listening with headphones will satisfy the average consumer, however don’t expect top notch music playback out of this phone.

Digital Camera: 4.5/5 stars
The main improvement in the digital camera on the enV2 would probably have to be the speed it takes pictures at. The enV constantly lagged and it often took forever for the camera to focus, snap, and save the image. The enV2 acts almost instantaneously. There are few disappointments with the enV2 such as the loss of the build in flash, which made a big difference for closeups taken in under-lit situations. The camera is also still a 2.0 mega pixel which was the same as what was on the enV, so no improvement there. And finally the lens cover has also been removed leaving the camera exposed. The video mode functions smoothly as well, there were no problems there. The front screen can be used to take photos and can also be used for self portraits when flipped open, however due to the small screen size, only a small strip of the full image will be visible. Overall the enV2’s camera functions as it should with some speed improvements, however the camera hasn’t been upgraded and there are no new features.

GPS VZ Navigator: 5/5 stars
I have to mention this feature, since it is one of my favorite part of Verizon Wireless phones. The VZ Naviagor, now on version 4, now includes tons of new features including traffic alerts. The interface is quick and easy to use and the phone can detect your exact location in a matter of seconds. It’s actually much more accurate than the locater on the Apple iPhone. The application will be an addition to your monthly bill unless you have a premium plan. The maps offer live turn-by-turn directions with voice overs which actually state the street names. Address can be saved into the phone. The local search can help find businesses or restaurants instantly. The program also displays the phone number of the address and can dial the number for you. And finally it can lookup movie showtimes near your location and assist in booking tickets. The new version also locates the cheapest gas in near your location.

Messaging (IM, Email, & Text): 5/5 stars
This is a great phone for those who message a lot. It’s got a built in chat client which supports AIM, MSN, and Yahoo!. The software now allows viewing your full contact lists, which was previously limited. The new Mobile Email client supports Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, and Verizon. If you use another provider, you can just enter the POP3 or IMAP servers and it should work perfectly. The Email Client also can be setup to notify you each time an email arrives in any of your inboxes. The text messaging component is vastly the same, but there are some improvements. The inbox and outbox is no longer limited to 50 messages. (In addition the phone can now hold 1000 contacts.)

Conclusion:
This is a great phone for those who love to message others wirelessly since it has a QWERTY keyboard. The phone is also a great improvement to the enV with a whole new look and a compact design. I wasn’t too fascinated by the maroon color, but I found the black version to look a whole lot better. It does lack some features such as a flash, a lens cover, and auto-focus all for the camera. It also doesn’t yet have a HTML browser. The main complaint I have would have to be the tiny external display, but if you set that aside the rest of the phone is quite impressive. The phone is also quite affordable and will be of interest to many Verizon Wireless customers looking for a new phone. The phone is now available on Verizon’s website and in Verizon Wireless stores for $130 after a $50 rebate and 2 year contract.

Limited Time Deal: LG enV2 for $50 with a 2 Year Contract
Links: Verizon Wireless | Data Sheet (.pdf)
Related: LG VX9900 Review | LG VX10000 Review

Nokia N95 8GB Specifications:

• Type: WCDMA 850/1900 + WiFi
• Display: 2.8-inch with 320×240 resolution
• Form Factor: Two-Way Slider
• Battery Life: 5 hours talk & 12 days standby
• Main Camera: 5 megapixel w/ flash & auto-focus
• Storage: Built-in 8GB Flash Memory
• Special: WiFi, GPS, 2nd Camera, Home Network
• Other: Bluetooth and Standard Headphone Jack
• Dimensions: 3.9″H x 2.09″W x 0.83″D
• Price: $550 – $650 for an Unlocked Version

The Body – 4/5 stars
From looking at the images, you’ve probably realized that this isn’t exactly the best looking phone. It’s a bit bulky and definitely doesn’t look attractive. Keep in mind the reason you are probably purchasing this phone is for it’s features. On the front of the phone you’ll find the large 2.8-inch display with four-way controls, send/end buttons, the left/right soft keys, and a couple other short cuts. Above the screen is the secondary camera with its flash for video conferencing and self-portraits. Sliding the screen up will reveal a numeric keypad while sliding it in the opposite direction will reveal multimedia controls. The power button can be found on the top of the phone while the mini-USB and charging connections are on the bottom. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack can be found on the left side of the phone besides an infrared transmitter. A volume toggle, media button, and camera key are all on the right side. The 5 mega pixel camera is on the back above the battery compartment which also holds the SIM card.

The Screen – 5/5 stars
The N95’s 2.8-inch screen can only display at a maximum of 320×240 pixels, but is extremely bright and sharp. Just about anything displayed on the screen such as the menus, photos, or videos all look wonderful. The screen also looks great out doors and glare isn’t as bad as it is on other phones. And for those of you wondering if the screen is touch capable, it isn’t. Although I felt it would have been neat for such a large, the control system is fairly easy to use once you get a hang of them.

User Interface – 5/5 stars
For a first-time user of the Symbian OS it took a little bit of time figuring out how everything in the phone work. But once you learn the general stuff, everything becomes quite easy. Just about every place you want to go in the phone such as the phone book, email, or browser are all individual applications. You can open them up and close them when you are done. Running too many at once can slow down or possibly crash the phone. Most of the apps have a similar layout. The left soft key just about always brings up a context menu of options to perform including quitting. The four-way pad is to browse through the menus and the center button is usually the ‘Enter’ key. The home screen is also quite informative as it displays shortcuts to the phone book, email, web browser, clocks, and camera. It also will show alerts, upcoming calendar events, connected access points, the time, signal strength, and battery life. Overall I loved it a whole lot more than the Windows Mobile OS which I dreaded to use on the HTC XV6800.

Office Suite – 5/5 stars
I also discovered that the Nokia N95 had a built in Office Suite with support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDFs. I was able to quickly transfer a couple of documents onto the internal storage device with a USB cable then view them on the phone. Although the formatting on some them got distorted and others were slow to load, it would indeed be quite need to have these document views on a phone. To create new documents or modify current ones, you’ll have to buy the full $70 QuickOffice Suite. As for email, the phone supports the IMAP, POP3, and SMTP protocols. The interface is neat and easy to use. Push email is also supported by using the widely popular corporate Microsoft Exchange Server.

Digital Cameras – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 8GB has a 5 megapixel camera, which is the most powerful camera I have used on a phone. I only wish it had some optical zoom, which it didn’t. It does have a digital zoom, however this means quality is lost the further you zoom in. The phone takes photos quite instantly, however I noticed some lag when it tries to auto-focus and when saving the photos to the memory. The built-in LED flash is also quite bright and can easily make photos taken in under lit places a whole lot better. The quality of the photos themselves were pretty darn good. The colors looked natural in outdoor situations while the images were well focused and sharp. I was shocked to see how many options the camera settings offered. There were 6 scene modes including an Auto and a Custom option. The Flash can be turned off, always on, or set to reduce red-eye. There’s a self timer to take group photos. A burst mode to continuously take photos is available in addition to an option to take photos at a set time interval until the space runs out. The color tone, white balance, sharpness, contrast, and ISO can all be customized as well. Moving on to the .3 mega pixel camera on the front, it is plentiful for video conferencing since too much bandwidth can’t be transfered anyways. The quality is incomparable to the camera on the back and barley any customization settings are offered for the secondary camera.

Multimedia Playback – 5/5 stars
Once again, the N95 beat my expectations regarding music, video, and photo management. Starting with music, I was able to immediately start syncing my DRM-Free Mp3s in Windows Media Player 11 with the Nokia N95 without any additional software. I was also able to manually drop music onto the phone’s mass storage device and the files were also automatically recognized if placed in the right folders. The phone supports playback of AAC, MP3, and WMA files. I loved the music player interface as it was quite powerful and allowed me to browse by Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres, and Composers. Browsing through was quick and smooth without any hiccups. And with a 3.5mm headphone jack I was able to use my own Shure SE210 earphones. The built in FM radio was also a neat addition in case you get bored listening to your 8GB of music! To make things even better the phone also has a built in podcasting client. I was quickly able to download and start listening to the latest episode of TWiT through my WiFi network. (Can also use 3G data network!) Moving onto Video, the phone runs Real Player which has an excellent 3GP and MP4 decoder turn it into a great portable media player. I was also able to playback iPod Formated movie trailers and even DiggNation episodes without needing to re-encode the content into a special format. Everything worked as it things should without any horrible twists.

Speakers & Headphones – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 has a set of stereo speakers which was the best that I had seen on a mobile phone. The quality was clear and crisp. Even with the volume turned up to the max, it remained clear without beginning to crack like most phones do. The audio playback quality through the headphones was excellent. I wasn’t able to tell apart it apart from when playing the same song on my iPod Nano.

N-Gage Games – 4/5 stars
I had a chance to play some demo games available on the phone and the quality was quite impressive. The graphics was much better than I had expected a mobile phone to have the power to handle. The games are by no means as good as those on the Sony PlayStation Portable, but are much better than games available for most mobile phones. The games seemed a bit pricey, but it’s still a plus that they are available for purchase and that the phone can handle and support playing them.

Phone Functions – 5/5 stars
The phone comes with all the standard functions of most phones on the market. These features include an excellent phone book with pretty much no capacity limit, speaker phone, conference calling, bluetooth headset with stereo support, speed dial, voice commands, text messaging, email, calendar, calculator, notepad, voice recorder, and more! With a 3G Network, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, and WiFi (b/g) the phone is almost always connected to something. Despite this it has a impressively powerful battery and manages it’s power saving quite well with the ambient light sensor. The phone had better signal in most locations versus the phone I usually carry. Call quality was pretty clear and crisp. WiFi signal strength was quite strong as well. The Bluetooth in the phone supports more profiles than any phone I have ever used meaning that it should connect to just about any device you can think of. The phone also supports the new DLNA media sharing protocol so once I connected my phone to my home network, I was able to access music, photos, and videos on the phone from my laptop and even my Sony PlayStation 3.

Web Browser – 5/5 stars
The N95 features an impressively powerful web browser. Sometimes web pages took a bit long to render, but in general they rendered a whole lot better than on most phones I have seen. I still feel the iPhone’s Safari browser is superior to this one in most aspects. However the N95 topples the iPhone’s browser in some aspects such as supports for the Flash player. This means YouTube and a whole slew of other streaming videos can be viewed from within the browser. The browser works by accessing either a WiFi access point or using the Cell Phone network, both of which functioned well.

GPS and Maps – 5/5 stars
The phone has a built in GPS which can be utilized for many different purposes. The N95 allows locating yourself on a map, getting directions, looking for points of interest near by, and much more. I didn’t have a chance to test the turn-by-turn directions, but I would expect it to work as advertised. The phone also has a cool feature to tracking your jogging and it takes it to a whole new level by recording pace, distance, time, altitude, speed, and steps taken. (Displays pretty-looking data graphs too!)

Included Items – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 comes with a couple accessories in addition to the power supply. Nokia includes a USB cable for data transfer and syncing media. A pair of headphones and a small wired controller to control music playback. The phone is also capable of video output using the included composite cables. Other than that Nokia provides a CD with some software, a couple of manuals, and a quick start guide. For the price that this phone goes for, I wish they would have also thrown in a case.

Conclusion
Overall the Nokia N95 is now one of my personal favorite phones. It is definitely not for everyone and most people will probably never get to using even half the features it offers. But for those who are looking for a high end smart phone, the N95 8GB will not be a disappointment. The only thing I felt that this phone lacked and that I should mention is the fact that it lacks a microSD expansion. Although it has 8GB of on board flash storage, it would have still been a nice addition. The phone offers more battery life talk time than most phones. With a powerful office tools and media playback tools the phone covers just about all grounds. The only downside might just be the high price of $600. The phone is currently not available through any service providers in the United States. However that doesn’t mean it won’t work here. You can just go ahead and purchase the North American version from a site such as Amazon. And for service, you can sign up to a calling and data plan from AT&T and insert the SIM card you receive.

Links: Nokia N95 8GB (nokia.com)
Purchase: Unlocked Nokia N95 8GB (US) – $580

First off, we would like to thank the folks over at Creative for providing us the new ZEN for review. We have been messing around with it for a week and we’ve got to say there’s a lot to get excited about, especially the price. The Creative ZEN has quite a few extra features including a microphone, an FM tuner, and a SD card expansion slot, which none of the mainstream Digital Audio Players (DAP) offer. Although there are plenty similar players hitting shelves this season, including the Microsoft Zune, Sony Walkman, and Sanza View, the Creative ZEN stands up to its competitors quite well.

Creative Zen Specs:

• Type: Portable Flash Video Player
• Capacities: 4GB, 8GB, & 16GB
• Screen: 2.5-inch 320 x 240 LCD
• Music Format: MP3, WMA, AAC, & WAV
• Video Format: MJPEG & WMV9
• Special: FM Tuner, SD Expansion, & Microphone
• Connection Type: USB 2.0 (mini)
• Price Range: $129-$250

Initial Impressions: – 4.5/5
As Creative claimed in their advertisements, the Zen is about the size of a credit card, which actually appears to be a decent size for a personal media player. The unit is 3.26-inches tall, 2.16-inches wide, and .44-inches thick, making it larger than the iPod Nano. Despite this, the unit is just the right size for everyday use and will fit into just about any pocket. The front of the unit is home to the 2.5” TFT display on the left and the standard navigation buttons on the right. Although the glossy finish makes the ZEN look quite fancy, it is quite a hassle when it comes to fingerprints. You’ll constantly find yourself having to wipe it down. In addition, since the screen is glossy it will reflect a lot of unwanted light in well lit environments. The back-side of the unit, on the other hand, is made out of a black matte plastic, which is actually surprisingly nice. All the important parts including the power/hold switch, headphone jack, and USB connector can be found on the right-side of the unit. Other than that, the Secure Digital (SD) card slot can be found on the top, while a pinhole reset button is located on the bottom.

Controls – 3/5
The Zen was clearly designed with right-handed users in mind, since all of the operational controls and buttons have been placed on the right side of the unit. Navigation controls and their ease of use represent an important factor in any portable media player. As such, the centerpiece of the Zen’s control scheme is a square directional pad that features an “OK” button at its center. It might not be as innovative or intuitive to use as the click-wheels on iPods or the touch screen of the iPhone, but it has definitely been tested and proven to be a worthy system. The main problem we faced with the controls on our Zen, was that not all of the buttons were equally responsive. This caused some frustration especially while trying to glide through menus quickly. In our particular case, the down button had to be pressed down harder than any of the other directional buttons, which meant that menu navigation was often slowed down by having to repress that particular button. Now in all fairness, this might very well be an isolated incident, but other units may face similar problems. The iPod Nano we reviewed had a click-wheel that froze after every few minutes of use, so the ZEN isn’t alone when it comes to defects.

Not everything can be easily accomplished with only a simple set of navigation buttons, so Creative included four more buttons: “Menu/Back,” “Options,” “Play/Pause/Record,” and a final button labeled in the Quick Start Guide as “My Shortcut.” Overall, there is nothing all too special or noteworthy about any of these buttons, except for maybe the last one: the customizable shortcut button. If you’ve ever found yourself wishing that there was a button on your media player that did X or Y, then Creative might just have the answer. With a trip to the settings menu, you can choose to assign any one of seven different functions to the shortcut button. The most useful of which, I believe, is the function labeled “Jump to:”. With this feature you can literally jump to just about any menu in the player with a single click. One of the things that annoys me the most on almost all portable media players is that there is almost never a button that will take you back to whatever is currently playing. Since the Creative Zen has a dedicated “play” button, you can jump back to whatever is “Now Playing” with a single click. I do wish that the Creative Zen had some dedicated volume controls, but then again the iPod Nano doesn’t either.

Screen & Video Quality: – 3.5/5
One of the Creative Zen’s selling points is it’s ability to playback video. The screen on the Zen is fairly decent and can recreate an impressive 16.7 millions colors as advertised. Unfortunately, though, the screen is only 2.5-inches in diameter with an disappointing 320 by 240 pixels. The screen did a good job of keeping up with the video feed without visibly smearing or ghosting the image. Color accuracy, as with most portable media players (even the iPod Touch), was an issue. The colors were generally a tad too vivid and a slight greenish yellow hue was visible at all times. Another issue that kept me from enjoying the fourth season premiere episode of House was that I kept noticing the refreshing and vertical re-syncing of the horizontal lines, especially when the camera panned. Because of the small screen, I found myself holding the unit fairly close to my face and doing so caused the spacing between the individual lines to become even more apparent. (Same problem on Sony’s S610 Walkman). Although it’s great tool for watching TV shows and Music Videos occasionally, if I had a choice, I wouldn’t want to watch a full length movie on the Zen. And in case you’re wondering, the same goes for the Flash Zune, iPod Nano, or any portable media player with a small screen for that matter.

The Menu System – 4/5
Menu navigation is something that seems like it should be trivial, but, alas, there are actually very few players that can be navigated without deliberate thought. Unfortunately, the Zen is not among this elite. One issue that becomes immediately apparent is the lack of responsiveness between the hardware and the software. When a button is pressed, it takes the device a slight fraction of a second to react to the user input and perform the desired action. The system is by no means unusable, but it may invoke some frustration if your previous player happened to run faster. See the video for a full interface walk through:

http://skattertech.com/media/2007/11/creative-zen-interface.flv

Audio Quality – 5/5
Despite a lackluster interface, the audio quality of the Zen is actually surprisingly good; it’s on par with the iPod Nano, if not better. The midrange was articulate and clear, even though there was a notable lack of strength at either ends of the spectrum. Even though the bass was slightly lacking, the treble, on the other hand, had no problem making itself known. Overall, though, the sound was very favorable, and most of my complaints are very nuanced. Fortunately, all of these mild shortcomings can be easily corrected with the built-in equalizer presets. If you still can’t quite hear what you want with those, there’s always the options of manually equalizing the sound yourself.

Syncing Content: – 4/5
Getting your music onto the Creative was quite simple. If you’ve got a Windows XP or Vista with the most recent version of Windows Media Player (WMP), you’re all set. Just plug in the Creative ZEN and your computer will automatically detect it as a mass storage device. WMP is quite easy to use and will allow quick transfers between your library and the ZEN. If you do not wish to use WMP, you do have the option of copying your media onto the mass storage device through the file explorer. When you unplug the device, the ZEN automatically takes a few seconds and indexes any new files. Once complete, your content should automatically appear in the ZEN’s library. Creative did include software to manage the ZEN, but we were a bit frustrated that it took over 20 minutes just to install it. If you do install it, the application will allow you to manage your music, photos, and videos. The software works and it’s got some neat features, however I prefered manually copying the content I needed directly onto the device. We didn’t have a chance to test it with Mac OS X, however if it’s recognized as a mass storage device then there should be no problem manually copying media onto the ZEN.

Media Formats: – 4/5
The ZEN supports a wide range of media formats. For audio, the ZEN can playback MP3, WAV, AAC, and WMA. The only DRM audio format it supports is protected WMA. With that being said, the ZEN is compatible with plenty of online music stores including Yahoo! Music, Audible (audio books), Napster, Amazon MP3, and iTunes Plus Tracks. As for photos, the ZEN can only display JPEG, but Windows Media Player will allow you to transcode GIF, TIFF, PNG and BMP for added compatibility. Finally for video, the ZEN can decode WMV, MJPEG, MPEG4, DiVX, and XViD. Unfortunately the highest supported resolution is only 320 by 240, therefore videos must be converted before they will play. The ZEN is also compatible with Amazon’s Unbox TV and Movie purchases and rentals.

SD Card Expansion: – 4/5
One major advantage that the Creative Zen has over other DAPs is that has an SD expansion slot. If you were to run out of space, which you’re bound to do, you can always pop in an SD Card of any size into the top of the unit. Once complete, you’ll be able to access your media right off the card. The only draw back may be the fact that the ZEN doesn’t integrate the content on your card into the library stored in the on board memory. This means you’ll have to head over to the Memory Card menu to access these files. The Creative ZEN can also turn into a SD Card Reader/Writer when connected to your PC, therefore no extra accessories are required to add or remove content on the card.

Microphone: – 4/5
The Zen also features a pinhole microphone, allowing it to be used as a personal voice recorder. It works just as expected, you’ll be able to record a file and play it back from the Music menu. If you’ve got a extra storage space this will save having to carry another gadget around with you. The recorded files can be copied back to your machine. As for recording quality, the microphone performed quite well. Voices from across the room were crisp and could be heard easily.

Conclusion:
If you’re in the market for an affordable portable media player that will allow you to enjoy your music, listen to radio, and watch the occasional video, then we would recommend the Creative Zen. The one thing the Creative Zen does best (without garnering any complaints, whatsoever) is, perhaps, playing music. In addition the ZEN is much more affordable than Apple’s iPod Nano and includes bonus features such as the FM Tuner, SD Expansion, and Microphone. The iPod Nano is only available at a 8GB max, while Creative offers the ZEN a 16GB flash model. SD cards are also quite cheap, making storage a not an issue for most customers. The battery life met what Creative stated: 25 hours of audio and 5 hours of video. Other than that, the only other suggestion we would make if you do purchase this unit is to upgrade your headphones to something along the lines of Shure’s SE110 Earphones and possibly purchasing a case. The Creative ZEN costs $120 for 4GB, $180 for 8GB, and $250 for 16GB and is available online and in stores now. Overall the Creative ZEN will be worth just about every penny spent.

Links: Creative ZEN

Skatter Tech recently got a hold of Sony’s NWZ-S610 Video Walkman to review and we have been messing around with it for a few days. We’ve got to say that Sony should be proud since they have finally taken a big step by launching Video Walkmans which are also “open format.” (Means support for most DRM-Free music formats.) If they keep up the pace, this could help them regain their market share in the portable media sector. Getting back to the review, since this was Sony’s first Walkman in the U.S. that can playback video and the first to be “open format,” we weren’t expecting too much. As we got more into the player’s features and capabilities, we were surprisingly impressed with what Sony has turned out. Just to heat things up, we’ll even go as far to say that we’d recommend this over Apple’s new iPod Nano!

Sony NWZ-S Walkman Specs:

• Type: Portable Flash Video Player
• Capacities: 2GB, 4GB, & 8GB
• Screen: 1.8-inch 320 x 240 LCD
• Music Format: AAC, MP3 & WMA
• Video Format: MP4 Only
• Special: FM Tuner w/ Presets
• Colors: Silver, Black, Pink & Red
• Connection Type: USB 2.0
• Price Range: $99-$179

The Body: – 3.5/5
The S610’s body is simple and elegant, but not eye-catching. The unit is quite durable and wouldn’t be easy to break. The Walkman is just 3.25 inches tall, 1.7 inches wide, and .45 inches thick, making way sleeker, but thicker and taller than the new iPod Nano. On the front you’ll find the display followed by the navigation controls right below. At first we assumed the four-way commands were touch sensitive, but it ended up that all the controls on the unit are actually hard keys. The ‘back’ and ‘option’ buttons, which are awkwardly placed at the top left and top right, are used to return to the previous menu and bring up an options menu. We felt both these buttons should have been placed elsewhere, but it wasn’t a problem after some getting used to. The ‘play’ button in the center acts as the enter key. I actually prefer hard keys since it is easier to navigate the player without having to be looking at it. The hold key can be found on the left side and the volume controls are on the right. Other than that the stereo headphone jack can be found on the top of the unit while the data port for syncing and a reset pinhole are on the bottom.

The Screen: – 5/5
The 1.8-inch display, just .2 inches smaller than the Nano, is surprisingly bright and sharp enough to watch videos on. The resolution is a standard 320 x 240 and plays at 30FPS. We didn’t notice any lag or audio/video sync issues and the screen didn’t go dark when viewed at from angles as it does on many portable players. Instead of making the S610 “fat” like the new Nano, to retain the form factor the screen has instead been placed on the unit vertically. This of course means to utilize the entire display, the unit must be held sideways when watching videos. To make the unit friendly to left and right handed owners, the video and photo orientation can be set in the options to rotate to the preferred side.

Battery Life: – 5/5
Sony’s always been on top of things when it comes to battery life. My 3-year-old thumbdrive sized Walkman often lasts up to 50 hours. In the case of the S610, it supposedly lasts up to 33 hours for music playback and an amazing 9.5 hours for video playback. This of course depends on many factors including volume level, screen brightness, file sizes, and plenty more. Either way that’s quite good considering that the new iPod Nano is limited to approximately 24 hours of audio and 5 hours of video.

Media Formats: – 5/5
As we mentioned in the intro, Sony has finally gone “open format” with this Walkman and two others. They have dumped Sonic Stage, the Connect music store, and even the ATRAC format. For music, the S610 now supports MP3, AAC, WMA, and WAV all of which have to be free of DRM. The player is also compatible with Napster’s Subscription Based service and iTunes Plus tracks. As for video, the S610 will playback MP4 formats encoded in H.264/AVC and AAC. This part was a bit disappointing since they don’t exactly offer much leniency onto other formats. It even got worse when we realized that they hadn’t included any conversion tools, specify where to download samples, or to know exactly what is supported. This wasn’t an issue for us since we’ve got tools to re-encode videos, however some one-click conversion tool like the one in iTunes should be included for general consumers. We also found that all the Movie Trailers we downloaded which were encoded for iPods on iTunes worked just perfectly. Finally for the part people almost never use, photos, the unit has been limited only to JPEG.

Interface: – 4/5
We were quite pleased with the interface as not only looked fancy, but was also clean and quick. The learning curve is short, only requiring a few minutes to master. The Walkman has even got some neat features such as holding the ‘back’ key will take you back to the main menu and the ‘option’ key will power down the Walkman. Music can be surfed through by Album, Artist, Genre, Year, or in a long list of All Songs. Photos will appear in a simple folder layout just as they are copied onto the unit. Videos on the other hand will appear in a straightforward single list with thumbnails. The Now Playing screen displays standard song data plus Album Art. In addition to the standard Shuffle, Sony has added an interesting “Time Machine” Shuffle now randomly selects a year and plays songs within it. A search feature, which only works for music, can be found in the main menu, however was quite disappointing since it only lets users search for the starting alphabet of an Album, Artist or Song. The settings menu were pretty clear-cut, offering equalizer, volume limiting, and playback mode settings for music, slideshow interval settings for photos, and orientation plus brightness options for videos.

FM Radio: – 4.5/5
The quality of the built in radio was strikingly good. It has been hard wired and coded into the unit and isn’t just an extra add-on. Browsing through channels was both smooth and quick. The Walkman utilizes the plugged in headphones as an antenna to gain better signal. Users can save their favorite stations into any of the 30 available presets by simply holding down the “play” key.

Syncing Media: – 5/5
Transferring data to the NWZ-S610 was a cinch. We didn’t have to deal with any drivers or compatibility issues, both my Vista and XP machines detected and self-configured the device automatically after connecting the USB cable. Since the unit is “Play For Sure” it works with Windows Media Player 11. We had no issue copying songs over and received no errors. Since the songs are DRM-Free the unit isn’t limited to just a few “licensed machines” as iPods are. Songs can be taken from one machine and a friend can easily copy, add or remove your files. We didn’t have a chance to test the unit on a Mac OS X computer and Sony doesn’t mention anything about it. We’re going to assume that if a Mac is able to recognize the unit as a mass storage device there shouldn’t be any problems since the Walkman automatically creates Music, Picture, and Video folders, which can be seen when the drive folder is opened. When compatible media is copied into the corresponding folders, the Walkman will automatically index them after being disconnected, and the items will appear in the interface.

In The Box: – 3.5/5
Other than the S610 Walkman, Sony bundles a pair of stereo headphones, a USB cable, a dock adapter, and a Quick Start guide. For such a great Walkman we were very disappointed to see how poor of quality the included headphones were. If you purchase this Walkman or even an iPod for that matter, we suggest upgrading to the Shure SE110 or SE210. Anyways, back to the box, a CD with Windows Media Player 11, Napster (trial), and a MP3 Conversion Tool (based off SonicStage) was also included.

Overall we give Sony’s Video Walkman a BIG THUMBS UP! Even though some work still needs to be done around the video part, I was satisfied to see that they have finally dumped DRM which was holding them back. I will bet that if they continue to keep their players open to a variety of content, they will be able to boost their sales. As we mentioned the video codecs are a bit limited, but most iPod formatted content should work. This should also be resolved possibly with a firmware update or when they launch a second generation Video Walkman. As for this one, it is available online and in stores as of this month and is very reasonably priced at $99, $129, and $179 for 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB. Exactly $20 cheaper than each of the new iPod Nanos of the corresponding size capacities. We recommend this Sony Walkman to anyone who is finally willing to give iPods a break, wants to be free from DRM, likes occasionally listen to the radio, and is looking for a cheaper unique product which everyone else doesn’t have.

Important Note: The unit which was provided by Sony and was used for review was the NZW-S616F which held 4GB and was silver.

Buy: Sony NWZ-S616 (4GB) | Link: SonyStyle.com

Last week Creative introduced a new “credit-card-sized” multimedia player with a 2.5-inch simply called the Creative ZEN. One neat aspect is that it now supports playback of the new unprotected iTunes Plus tracks in addition to DRM-Free WMA and MP3. As for paid media, the unit is compatible with Napster to Go. And for video formats the ZEN can read WMV9, MJPEG, MP4, DivX, and XviD. In addition it reads JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF since it’s also a photo viewer.

Other features built into the ZEN, which aren’t found on iPods, include a FM radio with 32 custom presets, a voice recorder, and an organizer with contacts, to do lists, and calendar which syncs with Microsoft Outlook. The unit is available in capacities of 4GB, 8GB, and a whopping 16GB (all flash-based). In addition the unit accepts standard SD cards, which are available at prices as low as $20 for 2GB. As for battery life, Creative claims approx. 25 hours for music and 5 hours for video playback.

The new Creative ZEN hit the market this month (September 2007) in Asia and unfortunately isn’t available yet in the United States. Creative is expected to launch this product worldwide very soon. As for pricing, after a currency conversion, the units will approximately cost $150 for 4GB, $200 for 8GB, and $300 for 16GB ($USD). As the holiday season is only a few months away it will be interesting to see what types of media players other companies including Creative will introduce to compete with Apple’s infamous iPod. We are trying to get a hold of a unit for review, so check back soon!

UPDATE 09/20/07: We’re getting one next week for sure and we promise an in-depth review!

Links: Creative Zen Product Info
Pre-Order: 4GB | 8GB | 16GB via Amazon

Sony NWZ-A810 & NWZ-S610:
Both of the two new video Walkmans sport the new user interface to browse through music, photos, and videos. Both units feature a QVGA 320 x 240 pixel LCD display running at up to 30fps. And both units can playback music for up to 33 hours, however the S610 can play video for up to 9.5 hours while the A810 runs short at 8 hours. Also since the new Sony Walkmans are “open platform” they now support non-secure AAC and MP3, secure WMA, plus JPEG for pics, and MP4/H.264/AVC video codecs.

The A810 comes with a high-quality set of Sony ear-buds (MDR-EX082), while the S610 includes a built-in FM tuner with custom presets. Both models are available in three capacities: 8GB, 4GB, & 2GB.

Sony NWZ-B100:
For those who just want a music player, the B100 packs a 3-line color LCD display and a FM tuner. In addition the entire unit can be plugged right into a USB port to charge, transfer music, and even copy other documents. In addition, the B100 can even record FM radio in addition to capturing voice notes with its built-in microphone. Since this walkman is also “open platform” it can also play any non-DRM music file. This Walkman is available in 1GB and 2GB capacities and offers up to 12 hours of playback.

All three players is available online at SonyStyle.com/walkman for pre-order and will become available in retail stores starting in September. Pricing is as follows. A810 Series: 2GB $140, 4GB $180, and 8GB $230. S610 Series: 2GB $120, 4GB $160, and 8GB $210. B100 Series: 1GB $60 and 2GB $80.

Links: SonyStyle.com

In case you don’t already know, Microsoft’s stab at Apple’s iPod, the Zune, will be released on November 14, 2006 for a retail price of $249. The Microsoft Zune features 30GB of storage, WiFi for sharing music, photos, or videos, a FM Tuner, and a bright 3″ LCD display. The Zune supports playback of WMA, MP3, AAC, and music purchased from the “Zune Marketplace”. (also supports WMV, MP4, and H.264 video formats) As displayed in the image above, the Zune will initially be available in three colors: black, brown, or white. Unlike iPods the Zune will only be available in one storage capacity size, 30GB.

The Zune does in fact offer some better features than the iPod. These include WiFi for sharing media and a much larger and brighter screen for video playback. The Zune is reasonably priced at $250, which is the same as that of the 30GB iPod, making it a possible competitor to the Apple iPod. Even so, it is unlikely that Microsoft will win this market, since the Apple is already on their 5th generation iPod, while Microsoft is just pushing out a first generation device. (also need to explain what a “zune” is)

Links: Microsoft Zune $250 (white)
Related: Microsoft Zune PressRoom

Today (04/04/06), Sony officially announced a new E-Series Network Walkman lineup. This walkman, unlike the previous series, takes the form of a standard USB thumb drive, making it easy to transfer files back and forth without additional equipment. This product is very similar to Apple’s iPod Shuffle; except for a bonus it has an OLED display. The E-Series will be available in six bright colors: sliver, green, blue, pink, violet, and black. Sony stated that the new walkman would be available in three base models: 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB. (certain models include a FM tuner)

Sony also uses very powerful batteries allowing longer lasting battery life than any Apple iPod. With their quick charge technology, 3 minutes of charging offers 3 hours of playback. (total battery life ~28hrs) Sony has finally been able to get licensing from Microsoft so that they can play WMA (DRM-Free) files along with Mp3 and Atrac formats. Unfortunately purchased music can only be played on this walkman if they are downloaded from Sony’s Connect Music Store. ($0.99/song) Sony also bundles SonicStage, management software, which is very similar to iTunes.

We had tested an older E-Series walkman, the NW-E407, and it was in fact much more robust than the iPod Shuffle. The new Walkman will be available towards the end of April 2006, but no prices have been set. If the prices are reasonable we would recommend this over the iPod Shuffle because of the FM tuner, battery life, and display. Please check back for any updates.

Links: Sony E Series Walkman | Press Release
Related: SonicStage + Connect Music Store | Sony.com