New Earphones

I went for a little 3-day holiday and now I'm back for more. I also have a new pair of earbuds. My DealExtreme orders have arrived, including these cheap in-ear earphones. I've had a 54 km bike trip today with these new ones.

For those of you who don't know about DealExtreme, it's a Hong-Kong based web site. It sells China made technology gadgets, they're very low quality but most of the time they do the job. Prices are at "you gotta be joking" level and they ship them free worldwide. Buy a keychain for $ 0.79 and you have it delivered to your door all the way from Hong-Kong without any shipping cost. It's quite safe, it accepts only PayPal.

I think I made quite an advert about the site and now it's time for the earphones. I got them for $ 4.38, it may sound cheap (in fact it is) but it's one of the expensive ones on the site. I read some good reviews and some bad, I decided to give it a try. This is my 4th cheap earphone, previous 2 were also from DealExtreme. I had a pair of fake iPod earphones and a pair of iPod style in-ear earphones. They were both rubbish, and worth $ 3.86 combined, I kept one for back-up and gave other as a gift.

I usually can't get along with in-ears, this one is no exception. Again the middle size pads didn't fit my ears and again the right (I think my right ear canal is wider) one feels a little bit loose. I needed something like this because my Sennheiser earbuds are useless in public transport. This one has better noise isolation, it's not perfect but what you expect from an in-ear. The thing I like about this one is it has more (except Sennheisers, Shures and Koss') treble than the other in-ears on the market, the bass is more balanced, it doesn't blow your ears but doesn't sound very good either. One let down of this thing, and the biggest is it's mids. The mids are terrible and spoils all the fun.

They maybe a good choice for an average music listener but for me it just isn't. I have to admit they sound better than Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone's bundle in-ears and most Sony's or Philips'. Some earphones sound better in time but I don't think I'll like these. Not because they sound bad, I just don't like in-ears, and probably will never do.

The Magnificent Apple iPod

I just wanted to pay my respect to this incredible piece of technology; the 30 GB iPod 5G.

We are together for about two years now and not just my opinion, this is one of the best products Apple has ever created. Mine is actually a 5.5G which is an updated and more stable version of the 5G. Most of my friends are surprised when they hear it but I find 30 GB limited sometimes as my music library is growing steadily. the 80 GB model is a lot thicker than this and battery life is not as good. I use it with a pair of Sennheisers mainly and on long journeys I use Philips' SBC HP200. I also have some crappy bundle white earbuds as back-ups. Amateur or professional, every musician agrees that the quality of equipment is crucial for making or listening to the music. Believe it or not, this thing has better sound than most of the laptops on sale today.

This is unfortunately the last real white iPod that money can buy. It's Al Gore who forced Apple to discontinue their glossy white design products. As some of you might not know, he is in the board of directors and well you know his enviromentalist stuff. Today the only white Apple product on sale is the good old MacBook. I had my hands on the new iPod Classic but it's nowhere near this. Somehow it doesn't feel right. Cover flow is good but with white background? Come on Steve! Plus you get the album covers with reflection (again on white background) and slightly angled. Who wants that? I want my album covers as straight squares. The unit, screens, menus, every bit of it's design is perfect and flawless. I think this is Jonathan Ive's best work up to date.

So overall, my iPod is great, iPod Classic is not, don't buy it. It only comes in black or silver so it's not even an iPod. I'm sure they'll notice their mistake (the white iPhone is also a crap) at some point and will give us white, proper iPods and I will be happily using this one until that time.

"I will hold you for as long as you like, I'll hold you for the rest of my life."

Paul McCartney - Calico Skies