Wednesday, July 02, 2008

The Saga Continues...

The Search for the Perfect Digital Music Player takes a new step today...

Last week, Raincoaster posted "The Swag Report", and sent me an email pointing out how I should give this a shot: fill out a brief online survey at Matchstick.ca then wait to see if you fit their profile. If so, they'll send you a Zune mp3 player to try out. I guess I fit their profile...

Since I got the call today, so soon after Canada Day, I feel I should mention that this is a promotion for the Canadian launch, so only Canadians need apply (not USians).

"What's the catch?" I can hear my loyal readers saying...Ah yes, there's always a catch. The idea is that when I receive this thing, try it out, and (hopefully, on their part) like it, I will chat it up with friends and acquaintances. And, as I clarified with the man I spoke to today, if I have problems with it, that I give them honest feedback.

It's always a danger giving stuff to bloggers -- you've got to be mighty confident of your product, and ready to stand back and let them review or not review as they see fit, as the audience will always know a sell-out. But I have absolutely no problem being honest in my praise or criticism.

I've had quite a time in my quest for the perfect digital audio player...
  • I started off with a something-or-other provided by Audible.com when I signed up (about 3 years ago now?)
  • I bought Metro a Samsung Yepp, which at the time was pretty high-end. He still has it and uses it happily, even though it's got the memory for 1 album's worth of music. Long lasting thing. I don't know what their new products are like, but I'll link to the site -- his has lasted since the spring of '03!)
  • I then bought the ill-fated piece of junk, the Rio Forge (Here's Metro's blog post about our trials and tribulations with that one!)
  • Then we received a video iPod (no link, too much press for that damned company already!), which had awful battery life, so I returned it for store credit. I then did my research and came up with the Archos Gmini -- a thing of beauty, albeit a little bulky. That full story is on my blog, here and here.
So now, the quest continues. I'll keep you all posted as to what I find. And in the meantime, check out the survey, maybe you'll qualify as well. Then we can try out the wi-fi file sharing between units.

Lori

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good, I look forward to much stealing of your music...I mean wireless sharing.

Lori said...

The first thing I did today was check out some of the talk on CNET for the Zune (Here's the link.)

One of the (very few) complaints is the fact the wireless capacity is a battery sucker. Ah well...how often will we be using that anyway? Find out soon enough, I imagine.

:-)

Anonymous said...

My particular complaint so far is that, since I live downtown, they're always trying to deliver the bugger at 8am! Needless to say, this is not working for me, particularly during Birthday Week.

Lori said...

That's the problem with couriers -- they developed for businesses to send stuff to each other. They've not adjusted to individuals. You should be 'open' when they come and call.