Aussie company Laser has just launched a new MP3/MP4 player called the T9. Despite its decent enough spec sheet and attractive price point though, I highly doubt Apple is quaking in their booties.
The T9 has a 3-inch full colour touchscreen, inbuilt accelerometer and vibrate function, microSD card slot, voice recorder and FM radio functions. It supports a range of file formats and has 4GB of storage inside for just $110.
Part of me wonders why smaller companies try and take on Apple in this market. A Microsoft with a Zune HD – yeah, that makes sense. But something like this will just end up buried under the weight of the billions of dollars Apple will make selling iPods without really doing anything to them…
[Laser]
matt
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 11:44 AMAnd thats what we call “anti competitive”
the only part of apple’s operation this doesn’t threaten is their marketing department.
radio and additional storage seem like notable pluses over the nano.
I see no reason to buy a nano over this.
matt
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 11:51 AMscratch that about the radio, nano has radio, seems pretty cool as well.
Peter McHardy
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 12:33 PMSure Nick … I lament the fact that most smartphones simply aren’t (and the iphone is actually pretty close to the best there is), however, I rejoice in the fact that there are options …
Smacking smaller companies with your ‘why bother’ attitude is poor. Sure some of them might mimick, however, make a few bucks from the mimickry and you might be able to innovate.
I still don’t see much codec support from Apple or Microsoft and they have just as many negatives as positives. I would prefer a zune because I am more the visual type, however, how many music lovers would like to see more universal flac support that will, almost certainly, never hit an apple or microsoft device?
You are just being a little to near sighted for me Nick … You can’t be that depress/ed/ing on hump day … Perk up fella … Fight for the little guy … Even one reason for survival is better than none.
matt
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 10:59 AMsaw this cool creative one today:
http://au.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=18965&nav=1
$155 for 8gb video,music,radio,mic,other semi useful features if you don’t have a smart device. and it plays xvids and flacs!
not to mention the xfi stuff which almost definitely means its sounds better than an iPod.
honestly, you got to wonder why Apple bother competing with that!
Nahcoob
Friday, November 13, 2009 at 2:46 AMScratch that Idea.. Creative isn’t even able in retail channels in Australia anymore,
Chris
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 3:05 PMHi Nick,
This is the thing, Laser is NOT trying to compete with Apple in this space. Laser is a challenger brand that offers consumers value options in the IT and consumer electronics arena. The T9 media player has all the features of similar products in the market, as well as the cooler features that currently only a small number of other products have with one of the key differentiators being a significant difference in price.
Peter McHardy, appreciate the support!
Chris
Andrew Bitto
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 4:02 PMI can’t believe not one single company, has bothered to build an MP3 player with more than 32GB storage to take on the iPods properly. Seriously, WTF? Why would I buy any other device that just can never, ever compete with Apple in the storage space? It can’t be that hard to sign a deal with Seagate or Maxtor and put more than 4GB into a music player. The market is out there, folks. I want ALL my music on my music device, not just a tiny trickle of it.
Andrew Bitto
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 4:06 PMAnd no, SD card slots just don’t cut it. Maybe when you can buy Class-6 speed 64GB SD cards, then maybe. But by then, we will have 500MB solid state drives in iPhones/iPods. Surely some company can see that the dudes who want to lug around the most music are also the ones who will fork out the extra dollars for a the space.