Portable Audio Player Hall Of Fame

CNET featured some 9 portable audio/MP3 players recently. I was looking at the photos published in the slide-show referred to in that article. All the 9 shown below in one collage here.


Interesting how when new devices come into the market all kinds of features are tried out. Then as the products mature the features mature too. Almost all of these 9 devices have similar features. Originally they were just MP3 players but now they are turning into more of media players. Video playing becoming a big requirement. FM radio has become standard as has photo viewing feature. Most of them thus have a LCD screen that can show the video reasonably comfortably.

Back in 1983 while traveling to US for the first time I had a stopover at Tokyo Narita airport and had stayed at the Nikki Narita hotel, courtesy Japan Airlines. As I was window shopping I was amazed by the really small color TV model that had remarkable images. Almost like high quality photograph. Obviously on small screen the usual TV image blemishes were not noticeable. That possibly was a small CRT, these are LCDs, video viewing ought to be very comfortable on these devices!!