Archive for the ‘Gadgetry’ tag
The new Transcend T.sonic 650 music player
A while ago I blogged about my purchase of a Transcend T.sonic 630 4 GB Music Player here.
Now Transcend has given it a complete looks overhaul and has released the newer Transcend T.sonic 650 players!
Here’s how they look: (Very delicious looking, and curvy compared to my 630!)
If you ask me, its just the same 630 in features, with a 610 style 2-Color OLED screen. All the other features as seen in this Press Release by Transcend are exactly the same as the T.sonic 630 except an additional memory for 10 FM stations. (The 630 has 10 slots, the 650 has 20)
Comes only in 2 GB (The White one) and 4 GB (The Black one) variants.
Microsoft and Drinks - and Halo 3
Remember the Windows Vista drink?
Well here’s another to that, a Halo 3 ultra mega special limited edition ‘Game Fuel’ drink. Yeah, right.
Its a Mountain Dew which pretty much looks like ugly orange fuel in itself (The default is cow pee, as we usually say), and has the Master Chief printed across its curves. You can look at its pictures and the IGN people’s reactions to it here.
The Transcend T.sonic 630 4 GB
I got an music player finally, needed it real bad for my exceptionally long bus rides (1.5 hours +) to and from the college. I first thought of buying one of those uber-good looking and big branded players, and had my thoughts on getting a Nano but it was too costly per MB it gives. So I decided looking for a budget player which would fulfill my space requirements as well as not turn up becoming a coaster on Format (Those damn Chinese models).
I knew about the Transcend T.sonic 610, which came in 1 GB and 2 GB variants, but I needed 4 GB and it didn’t look so good, it looked like a packed up box rather. Then, Xubz at Techspot answered a similar doubt posted there and pointed at another model of Transcend T.sonic, the 630. This one looked a lot better and smaller than the 610 and had a 4 GB variant too, and that too in Black. My search ended there 
Anyway, off to physical features, the 630 is VERY light at 30g including the Li-ion battery which is rechargable only via USB. Battery lasts for around 15 hours of music playback on minimal conditions. Dimensions are (73 mm x 33 mm x 12.5 mm) which is significantly less than the 610’s (70 mm x 34.5 mm x 15.5 mm). I don’t know the exact measure of the screen, but its much wider than the 610 though lesser in height. Its more like a side scroll screen than the down-up scroll screen the 610 possesses. A Line-In port is present along with the standard headphone port. There was no Line-In cable bundled along, though the website mentions so. The box packaging didn’t mention it either.
On the music front, formats supported by 630 are MP3, WMA and WMA-DRM10 (32 kbps to 320 kbps) music. Ack, am no way getting DRM stuff into my player, but its a good feature for those who subscribe a lot to online stores and so on. But WMA is the ONLY format supported for it, so be careful if you’re gonna buy that for use with most iTunes tracks, etc. Has an FM (20 Channel Storage) and voice recorder built-in but I wouldn’t be needing either of them cause all FM plays in Chennai are tamil songs and am not an interviewer or a bathroom singer to make use of the V-Rec. 
The settings and miscellaneous features of the T.sonic 630 are the ones that really rock. It’s got 7 Equalizer settings with a user-defined option available too. And there’s the best thing about 630 over 610, the Playlist feature. You can create a playlist ON the player (Not .pls/.m3u). This feature is cool in such a cheap and small player V-Rec has an auto-time recording feature too, so that you don’t miss your favorite programs over FM, etc. And the screen’s OLED display contrast is just too bright even at the lowest possible level! Has lyrics sync feature too, which would be a sure battery drainer. Oh well, it has loads more stuff, all of which can be found in the Manual that came along.
The music quality is decent, but doesn’t sound good on the bundled earphones. Instead, I tested it out by fixing it up to my Creative SBS 2.1 and the results were pretty clear. Though on full volume it starts to get a little noisy. Coupled with a good earphone, it might be decent enough for all audiophiles alike. What I mean is, its more than decent for music on the road where external noise is very high anyway.
Getting used to the interface is very easy and you hardly need to read the manual to perform basic functions like change Repeat settings, or browse through your music, add files to playlist and so on.
Quick tip: (To add a song to the in-built playlist in the Transcend T.sonic 630, first enable the Playlist Editor via Settings and then while browsing the collection, press the REC button to add the file to the playlist)
All in all, a good budget buy if you want a lot of storage for very little amount, packed into a good stylish casing. The Transcend T.sonic 630 is worth the Rs. 3000 price for its 4 GB variant.
iPhone
Now that you all know iPhone has launched finally, after days of catching your breaths and saving up for it. Here, cool yourself down by watching some of this.
Oh, no worries, its pure Swedish too. Click the box below to begin the unwrapping of the mighty iPhone. Much to a purchaser’s dismay.
Ps. Actual link was at - http://stream.ifixit.com/
Note that the actual post was about the unwrapping of an iPhone itself! To see what all chips it had used, its real value and other things. Things like the locked bluetooth chip, and other things which made the iPhone even more exciting. It was technical porno, inlcuding disassembly, scratching and all, heh.
Edited for fun
And here’s Batman’s new suit!
Click on the image below for a High-Res shot of the entirely new Batman’s suit for the upcoming ‘The Dark Knight’ movie.
Also, a new Bat-Pod was spotted, and it is deadly monstrous in looks! Its Batman’s new bike, and it still has the same reputation his Bat-Mobile gave him as in the first move ‘Batman Begins’. Look!
Terrifying huh? It wouldn’t look so good as it does if it were daytime
