NOISE GATE: Wi-Fi enabled MP3 Players

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From today, I’ll be contributing a new weekly column to the site every Tuesday afternoon about digital music. We’re calling it Noise Gate – which refers to an electronic device that cuts through the noise and crackle of an analog signal and delivers you a noise-free result. In the same way, I want to cut through all the crap surrounding digital music, mainly delivered by major labels and tech companies, and deliver you the pure, unadulterated facts. Think you can handle them?

Creative to roll out art-inspired ZEN Mozaic media players

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Elegance, simplicity, functionality, subtlety. These are words that you might use to describe a certainly overwhelming popular portable music player. That poses a problem for rival manufacturers who now have to slash a few of those adjectives off their list or risk just being complete clones.

Creative has the spirit though, it’s eschewed elegance and subtlety in favour of a new bold, tiled design obviously inspired either by the Dorchester Roman town house or the sight of a chess board falling into a Battenberg cake mix. Creative wouldn’t be the first though.

Shiny Video Review: four best PMPs for watching Lost on, from Archos, Creative, Apple and Sony


In case you haven’t been suckered into it, Lost has left our screens for a four-week hiatus, so I thought it was high time to review four of the best PMPs for storing the last four seasons of the addictive show onto, for watching when you’re on the train to work, at the football, or waiting for your colleague who’s in a sex shop.

Take a look above at the video, which we just filmed on the streets of London’s Soho district, for our thoughts on the Archos 605 Wi-fi, Sony PSP, Creative Zen, and Apple iPod Touch….

Date confirmed for Creative Zen and Zen Plus MP3 players with inbuilt speakers

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We’ve known of this update for a few months now, so it’s refreshing to be able to write the words “THEY’LL BE AVAILABLE FROM MARCH THE 1ST”. That should sate the Creative fanboys’ appetites for a few more weeks, methinks.

As you know, the colourful range will now feature inbuilt speakers so you can annoy everyone within proximity with your incessant death metal. Actually, come to think of it, owners of these Zen Stones will probably be listening to Justin Timberlake, but I’d like to think someone out there is cranking up the Rob Zombie.

The black 2GB model will be £29.99, the 2GB Stone Plus will be available in black, champagne, pink and blue for £37.99 and the 4GB Stone Plus in black will be £49.99. Yes, that’s official – THEY’RE CHEAPER THAN IPOD SHUFFLES. Get…