2006Switchies
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Switched On: The 2006 Switchies -- Portable Products
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: The "Ink Well" Award (and Portable Device of the Year) goes to the Sony Reader (pictured at right). With a slim, portable design, restrained feature set, breakthrough display and great battery life, the Reader was a bit of a sleeper from a company known for its audiovisual heritage. The product would benefit from better bitmap scaling, color, and a clip-on light like the "Itty Bitty" variety available for print books, but it represents the kind of smart design and well-integrated service that could have made the electronics giant a stronger competitor in the digital audio player market. The "Big Ideas in Small Sound" Award goes to the Altec Lansing InMotion 500, the slim battery-powered speaker dock optimized for the iPod nano, and which is compatible with both generations of the popular digital audio player. Altec Lansing's decision to use its own speaker technology for this paid off; it produces far superior sound to its closest competitor. Runners up include the Samsung K5, iriver clix, and the Samsung Helix/Pioneer Inno and the Coby MP-C341 Portable MP3 Boom Box.
