Sony Selling Waterproof MP3 Player Inside Bottles of Water

[Ninmecu]

4gb should be plenty for a gym playlist, I have no idea what you guys are on about when you think its not enough. For me that's what, a couple hours worth of songs?

My 4gig has about 200 songs, 5 or 6 audiobooks and a few playlists set up and it's not even using 2 gigs. I don't know what people are complaining about, it's more than adequate since, y'know, all it does is play music.

On another topic, I wonder if the water is any good.

I have 1000 songs taking up 12 gigs... thats why this is a problem for people

...But do you seriously need 1,000 songs to workout to? Do you need that many songs to go swimming with? Or bicycling in the rain/running in the rain with?

I'll freely admit that this is, most certainly, a niche appeal item. However, you can't think of it as a normal Mp3 or a Phone being used as an mp3(Which I refuse to use.)

 

[Waaghpowa]

Lol @ people whining about 4 gigs. It's for the gym, as others have already said.

mp3 players are only for gym? since when? or for that matter, how does that matter about space size at all?

If you bothered to watch the ad, they make it very clear that the intention of the product was to be for people who go to the gym or swim and want to listen to music. Therefore a 4 gig mp3 player is more than enough, especially so if it's waterproof. You don't need hundreds of gigs if you use it for strictly that purpose.

It's funny that you guys seem to totally forget that Sony clearly shows their target market for this product, yet you criticize it for it for reasons that don't put you within that market.

 

[Grabehn]

It's a Waterproof thing to listen to music while you're at the gym or whatever, which is more than a couple of hours which seems like more than enough... depending on the cost though, I doubt that someone at the the creative team thought "lets have people dump ALL their music on it".

implying all our music would fit in a 32 gb card....

WHY DUDE WHY?! Why do you keep doing this? At what point in my comment did I imply ANY kind of suitable amount of space for the device to hold all "our" music in my comment? I said that probably no person at the creative team thought "someone might want to dump a ton of music on this thing" nothing else.

Why do you keep answering to stuff I didn't meant nor wrote in my comment?! It's the second time, you're gonna make me go crazy next time man!

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Imagine having a waterproofed 20-35gb player that could accept Flac quality music, that shit would be amazing when priced at least £50.

But I guess that opinion is going to be overruled via the 4gb being universally accepted as the norm ergo I can't have nice things.

I just noticed that Haruhi's right hand, the finger beside her pinky is really badly drawn. xD Looks like something I'd draw.

 

[Strazdas]

Actually, yes, it is exactly a valid excuse for it having poor storage. This is specifically made for being able to listen to music while working out in wet conditions. You don't need more than a couple hours of music because, here's the kicker, you can replace the songs between workout sessions. Shocker, isn't it? It's not made for carrying around your entire music collection everywhere you go, it's for giving you the option to listen to music while working out even if you are a swimmer, for example.

No, being able to switch the songs is not an excuse. Nor does it help people who want to have long playlists playing on random. all it is, is extra inconvenience to having to hook the thing up to a computer between each session to switch out songs. This is even ignoring the time spent on making such playlists.

This is absolute bullshit. Lets put the maths up on this.

i already done the math in response to you quoting me on this which btw makes your math wrong (or, rather, right only if you want to hear music in quality that is akin to listening with a bucket on your head).

An mp3 player? How '90s.

Hey, some people like having a dedicated music player, that has a batter that lasts a month and can work even when your phone battery is dead because somone was annoying enough to keep calling you.

Itunes sells music with a bitrate of 256 kbps last I bothered to check, so about 15 mb per min. Assuming you've lost half a gig to software, that's still 239 mins of music - more than enough for even a half day hike let alone a single workout session. Add to that the fact that many people aren't audiophiles and use 'regular' quality mp3s at 160 kbps, doing the easy math that increases the time on our device to 382 mins.

256 is not that bad but really i wouldnt buy anything that isnt 320 nowadays. this is not 2004, why are you so retarded, itunes? Then agian, itunes was never good to begin with.
however no, its not 15mb per minute. at 256 its more closer to 2mb/minute.

The most laughable fact however is that you consider 160 kbps "Regular". even the shitty quality camera rips of movies that pirates watch hasn't been running 160kbps audio for a long while. anyone still running that either bought it over a decade ago or likes listening to music with bucket on his head.
heck, online radios go above that now.

if only you knew how much worse this avatar is going to get

i really really love what you done with it. well played.

If you bothered to watch the ad, they make it very clear that the intention of the product was to be for people who go to the gym or swim and want to listen to music. Therefore a 4 gig mp3 player is more than enough, especially so if it's waterproof. You don't need hundreds of gigs if you use it for strictly that purpose.

It's funny that you guys seem to totally forget that Sony clearly shows their target market for this product, yet you criticize it for it for reasons that don't put you within that market.

i dont watch youtube videos so granted i havent seen the ad, but that is like buying a car and you can ONLY use it to drive to a supermarket, because thats what the ad says. thats not how it works. people dont buy 10 mp3 players for every occasion nor do they make playlists for every occasion. people WANT to have their whole collection on and have playlists they can easily turn on. people HATE having to swap files constantly, especially considering that mp3 players still use microUSB, which makes 4 gb of files transfer a long thing.

 

[Dogstile]

This is absolute bullshit. Lets put the maths up on this.

i already done the math in response to you quoting me on this which btw makes your math wrong (or, rather, right only if you want to hear music in quality that is akin to listening with a bucket on your head).

Oh really? Post it.

Also, Flac files are not and never will be suitable for MP3 use. I also accounted for increasing the bit rate and still came up with more hours of music than i'd be able to listen to (depending on size, 10 to 20). I listen to perhaps three or so hours of music daily. This is when i'm working out and on the way there/back. Rest of the time i'm working or with my family. I imagine i'm not the only one in this situation.

But its all well and good saying you've done your maths without posting it. Good job! That'll convince me.

 

[Kahani]

Lets assume its a 4 minute song so around 4 megabytes.

Interesting that you talk about bullshit and then come out with this crap.

Hell, you could even use way higher quality music and still have a good 10 hours of music.

Quite possibly. So that will last maybe a week at best, then it needs to be swapped so I'm not listening to the same stuff over and over again. Or, I could just use something with a sensible amount of storage to begin with.

Would you go swimming with your phone? Where would you put it?

Yes I do. In an armband.

The device caters to a niche audience that swims a lot, and their marketing strategy is spot on.

I swim several times a week, I'm doing a 10km and a 14km swim in a couple of months. No, this device doesn't cater to me as an audience and their marketing strategy is fucking stupid.

Hey, some people like having a dedicated music player, that has a batter that lasts a month and can work even when your phone battery is dead because somone was annoying enough to keep calling you.

I fail to see how a device with a battery that can last a month is relevant to this article, which is about a device with a battery that lasts 8 hours at best. In comparison, my phone can loop 1080p video for longer than that [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/18/review_sony_xperia_z1/?page=3], and will happily last days if all I'm using it for is music. A dedicated mp3 player that is actually better than a phone for the limited functions it focusses on is one thing, but this piece of crap is actually worse in pretty much every way.

 

[Dogstile]

Lets assume its a 4 minute song so around 4 megabytes.

Interesting that you talk about bullshit and then come out with this crap.

Oh really? Well, lets actually go look at a song. Length? 4:05. Memory? 5.7mb, so 50% higher than I expected, ish.
That's fine, i've not looked at music files in years. So, lets just half my previous hours?

25 hours not enough for you? Like I said, you're in the minority. The song was AFI - the killing lights, if you're interested. I pulled the file from my Itunes folder. This is perfectly listenable. Stop claiming bullshit with nothing to back yourself up.

I can always go home and pull the average for all my 4 minute songs, I guarantee I will stay at above 25 hours worth of music. And that's with me deducting a gb for software. In reality you probably have to only deduct half a gb at absolute most.

Edit: Heh, i've asked a guy who's a bit better at maths than I am, who at a rough estimate puts it closer to 30+ hours.

3072 megabytes divided by 6 (assuming 6 megabytes a song on average) is 512. So that's 512 4 minute songs that you can listen to. That's 2048 minutes of music. 2048 minutes according to google is 34 hours.

 

[Alma Mare]

Anyone who thinks they need more than 4GB to hold a playlist big enough for their swimming schedule is either clueless, delusional or has a practice regimen of an olympic athlete.

For the mortal that spends ~1h at the pool 3-5 times a week it's definitely more than enough. And the campaign itself is smart.

 

[Waaghpowa]

i dont watch youtube videos so granted i havent seen the ad, but that is like buying a car and you can ONLY use it to drive to a supermarket, because thats what the ad says. thats not how it works. people dont buy 10 mp3 players for every occasion nor do they make playlists for every occasion. people WANT to have their whole collection on and have playlists they can easily turn on. people HATE having to swap files constantly, especially considering that mp3 players still use microUSB, which makes 4 gb of files transfer a long thing.

You're assuming people are buying more than one. Perhaps these people only need one, 4 gig mp3 player? Again, you, and many others, are projecting your own needs on the needs of a hypothetical target market that Sony believes exists. Your needs != the needs of others.

I don't buy mp3 playesr because I don't see the point when I have a phone that does all of it. But since my phone isn't a waterproof Sony Xperia Z, there would be a reason to buy this mp3 player if I want to listen to music when there's risk of getting my device wet. Since my phone is, you know, NOT water proof.

 

[Jamieson 90]

This is nothing new, really, Speedo have been doing underwater MP3s for years.

 

[EvilRoy]

Itunes sells music with a bitrate of 256 kbps last I bothered to check, so about 15 mb per min. Assuming you've lost half a gig to software, that's still 239 mins of music - more than enough for even a half day hike let alone a single workout session. Add to that the fact that many people aren't audiophiles and use 'regular' quality mp3s at 160 kbps, doing the easy math that increases the time on our device to 382 mins.

256 is not that bad but really i wouldnt buy anything that isnt 320 nowadays. this is not 2004, why are you so retarded, itunes? Then agian, itunes was never good to begin with.
however no, its not 15mb per minute. at 256 its more closer to 2mb/minute.

The most laughable fact however is that you consider 160 kbps "Regular". even the shitty quality camera rips of movies that pirates watch hasn't been running 160kbps audio for a long while. anyone still running that either bought it over a decade ago or likes listening to music with bucket on his head.
heck, online radios go above that now.

Good catch on my math there, I was probably making a bit/byte error there, although it really only reinforces my point. At roughly 8 times my originally projected capacity there is far more capacity than any average person might need.

As to the bitrate, that can be a topic of hot debate, but when it comes down to it anything over 128 is probably fine. You can change from 160 to 192 if you want, but on earbuds worth less than about 40 bucks you probably wouldn't be able to tell. Anything above that and there is actually some question as to whether the average human can discern the sound qualities - no joke, lifehacker did a little analysis on this, and on average people ranked 192 sounding about as good as 320. In fact the data showed that the only significant difference in quality that people noticed was that 128 was generally shittier than everything else, even though they could barely tell the other four options apart.

I fail to see how a device with a battery that can last a month is relevant to this article, which is about a device with a battery that lasts 8 hours at best. In comparison, my phone can loop 1080p video for longer than that [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/18/review_sony_xperia_z1/?page=3], and will happily last days if all I'm using it for is music. A dedicated mp3 player that is actually better than a phone for the limited functions it focusses on is one thing, but this piece of crap is actually worse in pretty much every way.

Dude your phone also costs minimum 150 dollars plus a two year contract, or 700 without. Nobody is going to ditch their current phone and contract for the pleasure of dropping 700 bucks or entering into a different contract plus 150 bucks for a music player that works while wet.

You'll also notice both products are made by Sony. Without a doubt they would probably be happy to take your money twice, but this is more than likely a product released in order to cover off the market that the phone missed.

 

[Strazdas]

This is absolute bullshit. Lets put the maths up on this.

i already done the math in response to you quoting me on this which btw makes your math wrong (or, rather, right only if you want to hear music in quality that is akin to listening with a bucket on your head).

Oh really? Post it.

already did, here, in response to your other post.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.842168-Sony-Selling-Waterproof-MP3-Player-Inside-Bottles-of-Water#20716433

Also, Flac files are not and never will be suitable for MP3 use. I also accounted for increasing the bit rate and still came up with more hours of music than i'd be able to listen to (depending on size, 10 to 20). I listen to perhaps three or so hours of music daily. This is when i'm working out and on the way there/back. Rest of the time i'm working or with my family. I imagine i'm not the only one in this situation.

Flac is suitable for music player use when you have enough storage space for that. Gladly - we are approaching that time. Good quality audio is always a good thing.
3 hours per day, with 10 hours playlist means you have to swam the songs every 3 days then. This is very annoying.

I fail to see how a device with a battery that can last a month is relevant to this article, which is about a device with a battery that lasts 8 hours at best. In comparison, my phone can loop 1080p video for longer than that [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/18/review_sony_xperia_z1/?page=3], and will happily last days if all I'm using it for is music. A dedicated mp3 player that is actually better than a phone for the limited functions it focusses on is one thing, but this piece of crap is actually worse in pretty much every way.

Its relevant in a way to point that device in the article is stupid for being small storage and short life when the audience want large numbers on both of those. Good that your phone can do that, not everybodies can. I completely agree that thing advertised in the article is crap, which is what i have been arguin had you read my posts.

Anyone who thinks they need more than 4GB to hold a playlist big enough for their swimming schedule is either clueless, delusional or has a practice regimen of an olympic athlete.

or doesnt want to swam songs every week. you know, like, everyone.

 

[Reed Spacer]

I prefer external battery mp3 players as opposed to internal.

I can get almost three weeks of use off a single triple-a battery.

 

[Dogstile]

This is absolute bullshit. Lets put the maths up on this.

i already done the math in response to you quoting me on this which btw makes your math wrong (or, rather, right only if you want to hear music in quality that is akin to listening with a bucket on your head).

Oh really? Post it.

already did, here, in response to your other post.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.842168-Sony-Selling-Waterproof-MP3-Player-Inside-Bottles-of-Water#20716433

Also, Flac files are not and never will be suitable for MP3 use. I also accounted for increasing the bit rate and still came up with more hours of music than i'd be able to listen to (depending on size, 10 to 20). I listen to perhaps three or so hours of music daily. This is when i'm working out and on the way there/back. Rest of the time i'm working or with my family. I imagine i'm not the only one in this situation.

Flac is suitable for music player use when you have enough storage space for that. Gladly - we are approaching that time. Good quality audio is always a good thing.
3 hours per day, with 10 hours playlist means you have to swam the songs every 3 days then. This is very annoying.

Like I said, an itunes quality song, which is more than enough for most reasonable people, is a 6mb four minute song. You've inflated the numbers and are going "I won't accept lower quality!!!!!" when the quality is perfectly fine to listen to. I'm not going to be appreciating the subtle melodies in my classical when i'm lifting/swimming/biking, neither are the majority of the world.

Stop inflating the file size to support your argument, cheers!

 

[Strazdas]

Like I said, an itunes quality song, which is more than enough for most reasonable people, is a 6mb four minute song. You've inflated the numbers and are going "I won't accept lower quality!!!!!" when the quality is perfectly fine to listen to. I'm not going to be appreciating the subtle melodies in my classical when i'm lifting/swimming/biking, neither are the majority of the world.

Stop inflating the file size to support your argument, cheers!

I have not inflated the numbers. I have took the size of file needed for 320kbps audio as per this page [http://www.audiomountain.com/tech/audio-file-size.html]. 320 kbps MP3 files are a standard now, even if itunes still use outdated 256kbps (as i said before, itunes were never quality product). Granted, some people dont care about listening in poor quality, and some people dont care about sleeping in a pond after they get drunk, does not mean we should consider this our goal.
You do have a point that when swimming there are a lot of background noise that may reduce the effect. Lifting and biking though i dont see effecting your ability to appreciate music quality.

 

[Dogstile]

Like I said, an itunes quality song, which is more than enough for most reasonable people, is a 6mb four minute song. You've inflated the numbers and are going "I won't accept lower quality!!!!!" when the quality is perfectly fine to listen to. I'm not going to be appreciating the subtle melodies in my classical when i'm lifting/swimming/biking, neither are the majority of the world.

Stop inflating the file size to support your argument, cheers!

I have not inflated the numbers. I have took the size of file needed for 320kbps audio as per this page [http://www.audiomountain.com/tech/audio-file-size.html]. 320 kbps MP3 files are a standard now, even if itunes still use outdated 256kbps (as i said before, itunes were never quality product). Granted, some people dont care about listening in poor quality, and some people dont care about sleeping in a pond after they get drunk, does not mean we should consider this our goal.
You do have a point that when swimming there are a lot of background noise that may reduce the effect. Lifting and biking though i dont see effecting your ability to appreciate music quality.

Now that we know that you've decided to continue to keep with the inflated file size which is in no way considered the standard, I know that you're trying to debate a point you have lost. Background noise while swimming will hardly reduce the quality, either. The same way that it being extremely windy and raining shitloads outside won't affect the quality of the music. It'll just reduce how loud the music is, making you less likely to appreciate better quality.

I'm out of this conversation.

 

[Alma Mare]

This is absolute bullshit. Lets put the maths up on this.

i already done the math in response to you quoting me on this which btw makes your math wrong (or, rather, right only if you want to hear music in quality that is akin to listening with a bucket on your head).

Oh really? Post it.

already did, here, in response to your other post.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.842168-Sony-Selling-Waterproof-MP3-Player-Inside-Bottles-of-Water#20716433

Also, Flac files are not and never will be suitable for MP3 use. I also accounted for increasing the bit rate and still came up with more hours of music than i'd be able to listen to (depending on size, 10 to 20). I listen to perhaps three or so hours of music daily. This is when i'm working out and on the way there/back. Rest of the time i'm working or with my family. I imagine i'm not the only one in this situation.

Flac is suitable for music player use when you have enough storage space for that. Gladly - we are approaching that time. Good quality audio is always a good thing.
3 hours per day, with 10 hours playlist means you have to swam the songs every 3 days then. This is very annoying.

I fail to see how a device with a battery that can last a month is relevant to this article, which is about a device with a battery that lasts 8 hours at best. In comparison, my phone can loop 1080p video for longer than that [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/18/review_sony_xperia_z1/?page=3], and will happily last days if all I'm using it for is music. A dedicated mp3 player that is actually better than a phone for the limited functions it focusses on is one thing, but this piece of crap is actually worse in pretty much every way.

Its relevant in a way to point that device in the article is stupid for being small storage and short life when the audience want large numbers on both of those. Good that your phone can do that, not everybodies can. I completely agree that thing advertised in the article is crap, which is what i have been arguin had you read my posts.

Anyone who thinks they need more than 4GB to hold a playlist big enough for their swimming schedule is either clueless, delusional or has a practice regimen of an olympic athlete.

or doesnt want to swam songs every week. you know, like, everyone.

Because shifting the players' content once every week sure is hard.

 

[Vivi22]

you have ONLY 200 songs, and judging form audiobooks either they are very short or are in abysmal audio quality. my old mp3 player is 4 gb and i could easily have enough stuff to store in 8 gb already, and thats NOT counting the audiobooks.

Do you really need to listen to every single song you have while working out at the gym? Really? Because I don't buy that.

Lol @ people whining about 4 gigs. It's for the gym, as others have already said.

mp3 players are only for gym? since when? or for that matter, how does that matter about space size at all?

This is clearly meant to be something small, light, and which doesn't get in the way while working out. Not a 120gb player with a screen and video support. In particular, it's specifically made for swimmers or anyone else likely to get their wet while in use. And considering its closest competition, the iPod shuffle, has less space and isn't water proof, it's doing a much better job of fulfilling its intended purpose than anything else is.

And while we're on the topic, most people don't buy dedicated mp3 players these days, and the number that do is just going to shrink in the long run. Why would I buy an mp3 player for carrying around when my phone does the same damn thing and I'm always carrying it anyway? Hell, why would I pay for a second device to do what my phone I already need does?

I wouldn't be expecting this Sony to keep me entertained for a 20 hour road trip. I already have a device that does that.