We know the winter's coming soon, and if you haven't hit the slopes just yet, we know you're itching to climb back in that ski lift as soon as possible. Shred Ready is making sure those "first day back" errors won't cost you an MP3 player, as its Freestyle Audio DMP is not only small enough to fit in any of the 238 (or so) available pockets your
ski coat presumably has, but it's completely waterproof as well. Designed to handle the harsh, unforgiving nature of the mountain, the DAP promises "skip-free" playback from the built-in 512MB of storage, and even if you pull an all-nighter on the black diamond trial, the reported "40 hours" of battery life should keep things jamming 'til the break of dawn. It also comes bundled with the SR Can-Can Earflaps to conveniently attach to your
helmet and keep the cabling under control. Unfortunately, the $199.95 price does
not include a helmet of your own, but there's certainly no shortage of
MP3-ready headgear if this one looks a little steep (ahem) to you.
[Via
Red Ferret]
posted Nov 10th 2006 10:15PM
My wife got one. After a few months it started to rattle and one of the buttons stopped working. Then, it got water inside and wouldn't work. I dried it out in front of a fan and got it working again. (waterproof - my a**) Then, it completely died. The only reason I don't smash it open to find out why is that I'm hoping that complaints to the company will initiate a recall or a class action suit and she can get her money back. This thing is complete cr@p!
waterproof, schmaterproof. my dad kept a nokia 6600 on him all day with no waterproofing, and was skiing all day, and by the next morning the phone dried out and the water did no permanent damage. and i rode my bike through sprinklers with my old LG phone in my pocket, no damage.
if super-sensitive phones can do it, so can the average mp3 player, so I'd only go waterproof if it was hardly any money more than the regular version. or if it came with waterproof headphones that had IP56 certified connectors or had built-in waterproof speakers. and 200 dollars for 512MB is harsher than the winds at the peak of everest.
...but the battery life's amazing.
hmmm... could be handy if you got caught in a freakishly fast moving glacier. Which is one thing I always consider when looking for a DAP. Glacier threat is a very real thing and I have a feeling a Nano just wouldn't hold up to the intense pressure and moisture.
Hey, what's with people suddenly posting that are also named Aaron? At least this other guy can spell correctly and use punctuation, so he doesn't make me look bad.
Anyway... looks pretty cool. Pricetag is a little hard to justify considering the small capacity, though.