Digital portables archaeology

"The Walkman has Landed" (2000-2001)



For Sony NW-MS7 and NW-MS9, the first 2 MemoryStick players. I suppose Sony was trying to completely reboot the Walkman brand... and for good reason, it faced much fiercer competition in the digital music space out the gate. Plato the Blue alien is quite weird looking... I don't particularly see him as endearing. Nevertheless, these posters are really cool.

 

Rio "Bring It" print ads (2002)

 

PC Mag's first review of the iPod (2001)



You NEVER see reviewers so positive about a tech product today... everyone wants to moan and whine about little compromises they have to make... instead of highlighting the positives.

 

Motorola Razr V3 "Music" (2005)



This is an old web ad showing the 2005 Motorola Razr V3 atop a mountain of jewel cases. This phone was the absolute hotness at the time... everyone wanted one... and for good reason. It was a phone so slick and premium feeling, you'd have sworn Apple came up with it. From my memory, this was one of the first phones that offered MP3 ringtones... meaning people's ringtones got crazy for the first time! MP3 playback wasn't ideal from my recollection... it had a custom Mini USB headphone out... for Razr buds only, and I seem to remember Verizon charging a fee for the ringtones feature...

(Most don't realize that you can use MP3 ringtones on the iPhone today as long as you use GarageBand for iOS to import the MP3 and export it to an iPhone ringtone.)

 

Mazda MP3 (2001)




Nope, there's not something missing here... Mazda literally chose to name this car the 'Mazda MP3'... and this print ad claims it's not a sedan, but rather an MP3 player on wheels that lets you downshift as well as download! This is really just an '01 Protege with a performance Kenwood excelon sound system built in and a few other gimmicks. Goes to show you, MP3 was such a trend at this point, and even Mazda was trying to get in on the action.