Digital portables archaeology

Wow, ~50% more expensive than the D6C!

 

VAIO Gear - Music Clip (2000)



Got a VAIO? This one's for you. Who ever thought neck phones were a good idea?

 

Panasonic 'e-wear' SV-SD80. (2000)



Had one of these around '06. Don't ya just love how the bottom of the print ad features search engine terms to help you out? ... like seriously back then searching on excite was hard.

 

iPod - Dancing Girl (2003)



Apple's silhouette campaign looked so different when compared to the 'other guys' It was the primary reason I began really thirsting for an iPod. This dancing girl poster from 2003 is especially hot.

 

Totally! e-wear was Panasonic's very honest try at MP3... and it was really a good effort. They went hard into the wareables thing, with SD audio headphones, watches, and clip-ons. Too bad they had that SD Jukebox (like SonicStage) software that could only be used with their own SD card readers.

This was my first ever music player... I got it in '05. I was in the 2nd grade.



Lexar JumpGearMP3. It has a removable USB stick (the thingy in red) of 128mb. I was actually well enough along then to get on my parents computer and drag single songs to it via Windows Media Player on XP. My point is... in the early years, removable storage was sought after and a little more common (pre '04), and Apple was the company to truly kill that idea. I loved being able to fill up a stick or card with stupid kidz pop, then just grab another and do the same. I never understood why so many later flash players with under 512mb had no removable storage... no one wanted to delete everything they just put on their device when done with a playlist. for HDD players, it was meant to be filled up with a library, then just leave it all for access to all of your music from anywhere... not for the small flash players.

 

Dell DJ MP3 (2003)



Dude, ur gettin' a Dell! Sadly, you are also getting Musicmatch.

 

Sandisk Sansa e200 "lil Monsta" (2006)



If you didn't have iPod money in the mid aughts, but you wanted something that looked, walked, and quacked like an iPod, a Sansa is what you bought. They were really darn good players, and for awhile neck and neck with Apple feature wise; they had a form factor very similar to the nano, a great UI, and photo/video playback. Sub out the beautiful metal/stainless design of the iPod for a creaky plastic shell, you got the Sansa! I never understood these ads... I was never compelled to buy one and frankly I saw the monster thing as weird and off-putting.

Family member had a Sansa c150, and I got a clip Christmas '08.

Here's a web gallery for Lil' Monsta by the graphic designer who originally dreamed it up:
http://www.thibodeauxcreative.com/936691967557

 

Really interesting! I didn't know they offered the DJ as an add-on. I've never fooled with the DJ, although Dankpods did a cool video on it?

A family member had a Dell Dimension 4400 in '03 to like '09... really cool all metal tower case with a full plastic shroud. Incredibly over engineered... it had a button on the top you'd press and the unit would split apart with a hinge in the middle so you could change out the components without screws. I remember dad changing the HDD this way and loading up Norton Ghost '03. Dell quit making the cases that nice the next year or so (looking at the 2400).



I didn't mind MusicMatch, but it seemed like the newer versions weren't as good as the earlier ones. From memory (which is foggy and maybe screwed up), MusicMatch 5 was the version that solidified the killer feature of tagging, but by the time 9 came out in like '04, it had developed a less than stellar reputation... and didn't have much of a place with MWP10 and iTunes in the lime light. I wasn't really able to experience the older MusicMatches till I found a disc at a thrift shop years later. I think they had a plus subscription too?

 

Hamasaki Ayumi for Panasonic D-Snap (2005)



Even in 2005, Panasonic was still pushing SD audio. I had an American market D-Snap player at one point, but it was the SV-MP020 (PlaysForSure version)... so not glamorous or sexy like this at all.

 

Here's an absolutely stunning website from the former creative director who redesigned "Network Walkman" for 2004-2005. Peak y2K vibes here.

http://www.ericravenstein.com/work/sony-walkman/

 

Here's an enlightening article from Korea in 2012. Apparently, iRiver ran a series of ads at one point with models wearing iRiver products and eating red apples. It was a nod at iRiver unafraid of Apple and iPod... which was ultimately their fall from glory. You can actually gain insight into iRiver's shrinking market share in the mid aughts with the article. This was also before the high-res revolution and before they made the pivot to become A&K.

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.co...e-MP3-makers-struggle-to-survive/2950714.html