Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Update: Wow, we have been impressed with the number of entries! We have now closed the competition and picked a winner by using random.org to select a comment number.

The winner is : Roisin Nuttall

Argos is offering a Mighty Gadget reader the chance to win an 8GB iPod Touch, worth £149.99.

Arguably, one of the best MP3 players on the market this is an opportunity not to be missed. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post.

Please use your real name and give a valid email address and only enter the competition once.

All comments are moderated and we reserve the right to accept or deny any comments made. Once your comment has been accepted you will be eligible to win the iPod Touch.

We will be opening the competition to anyone within the EU and we will announce the winner next Friday (20/08/2010).

This prize has been supplied courtesy of Argos, who provide a wide range of MP3 players, such as the iPod Touch and iPod Nano. Please note Argos only deliver to the UK

There’s obviously a lot of mp3 players out there after the top dog spot that Apple selfishly keep with their pricier players so how can the other big players mix it up. Sony’s new Walkman E450 matches the specs of the iPod Nano but what does it do to further itself from the Cupertino music box.

Firstly it’s cheaper, always a bonus and always a good selling point. Starting from £70 it comes in three adequate sizes 4GB, 8GB and 16GB. Housing a 2” sharp QVGA screen it’s certainly on the smaller side and is only slightly thicker than the current generation Nano. Playback wise it’ll play all your usual suspects of mp3 and AAC file formats with a supposed battery life of up to 50 hours.

What makes it stand aside from the iPod though is its Karaoke mode. Providing you’re hooked up with the .lrc lyric file with your music files, the lyrics will actually appear on your screen. Not only that it takes it to the next level and the player can actually knock off the singing in the track allowing you to essentially Karaoke over it without distorting the track.

Available in an assortment of colours this PMP should be on our shores come September.

iRiver has been a leader in the mp3 player market since they first began and always stood out from Apple and Creative by having  a slightly better imagination department when it came to looks. The new T8 seems to buck the trend however and iRiver are obviously looking at a simplistic player to offer the market with a basic USB dongle shaped player.

Although not quite as small and thin as its market leader the iPod shuffle at least this one has a screen but still keeps it more than small enough for your pocket without being too noticeable. It’ll playback most of your favourite file formats MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, OGG and FLAC, comes in two sizes 2GB and 4GB and its obviously connected by the USB sticking out of it, no need for extra wires etc. Now our info didn’t state what colours it might come in but knowing the way the market is and what iRiver usually produce, expect an array of assorted colours to choose from.

No exact date or price to report however it should be available sooner rather than later.

Sony also announced this little gym friendly Walkman the W250 designed to take the full force of gym sweat(ewww) by being splash proof and rinse proof.

Like last-years W-series releases, the W250 has that all in one wireless design where the body clips together in the middle when not in use and when in use the walkman splits and each half sits in your ear. Now obviously if you’re a fitness fanatic, the W250 doesn’t require pockets or a silly armband to use, it just sits in your ears and can be used completely hands free. Inside it’s packing 2GB of storage and charges super fast, 3 minutes of charge will give you 90 mins of playback.

Other good things about it include the dock that comes with, that both allows you to charge the walkman and add songs to the library whilst it’s plugged in. The main emphasis of this walkman though is its splashproof, sweat and a quick rinse will be fine just don’t take it swimming or submerse it in the bath. Due out next month unfortunately we don’t have any price but it’ll probably be in Ipod Shuffle territory.

7Digital will be the default music app for Blackberry users thanks to a deal signed up between the two companies. 7 Digital which recently had 50% of it bought by HMV offers 100% DRM-free downloads and has a rather extensive library.

The price war between 7Digital and iTunes has started already with 7Digital cutting the price of singles to 77c a track, to iTunes 99c per track. As per usual though the UK wont benefit from it as  both companies still sell tracks to us at 79p.

Coming first to the Curve 8900, the Bold and the Storm it will come head to head with iTunes and Nokia’s “Comes with Music”. Over the next few weeks/months it will be added to more of its phones.

7Digital’s music is encoded at 320kbps, larger than your average mp3 but obviously a better quality than what iTunes offers to you. It also has a good little tool called “Wi-Fi Auto-Sync”. When the phone is connected to your mobile network, it downloads lower audio quality versions of tracks, then upgrades that to full quality when your phone's in range of a faster wi-fi connection. Clever eh?

As the unveiling has passed for another year from Apple and as we all knew and expected another year of new iPods. Now obviously I’m all for new technology and gadgets(hence why i write on a blog about them) but I’m getting to a stage of frustration where every year Apple bring out a new set of iPods that aren’t really much better than the last generation. Well this year they haven’t disappointed with only slight changes, but the nano seems to get the major upgrade. Click on for all the info

Read the rest of this entry »

Many people though that the iPod Classic may get discontinued however Apple have announced that the Classic is getting an upgrade to 160GB.

According to Apple, that’s enough room for 40,000 songs. Aside from that, it’s the same deal. Same size, same shape, same software.

Pricing will remain the same.

Apple have announced an update to its iPod Touch line, this includes the new 64GB model which will set you back £299.

Prices of the 32GB and 8GB models have dropped in the states to $299 and $199 respectively so expect the UK to follow.

Apart from that there has not been much of a change but it appears that the new models use the same CPU as the iPhone 3GS, since they can run OpenGL 2.0