Olympus Will Discontinue Production of M-Robe MP3 Players

Olympus

Olympus is throwing in the towel in the digital audio player market due to intense competition and other opportunities in their core business, digital cameras. The M-Robe line of MP3 players never sold that well in the US so I don’t think a whole lot of people will be disappointed.

I was never impressed with the M-Robe series of players. The design was nice but the sound quality failed to impress me and obviously everyone else. But hey… they do make a decent camera.

[Reuters]

Olympus Debuts New M:robe’s: MR-F10 MR-F20 MR-F30

Olympus

All three of them will be flash player released in typical flash player sizes: 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB. The MR-F10 will have a 65k color OLED screen, voice recorder, and 10 hours battery time. It has a loop at the top for a lanyard, so it can be worn around your neck. The MR-F20 has similar features but adds a photo viewer. It also has an interesting knob on the top possibly for scrolling through the hundreds of tracks or photos you may have on the player. The MR-F30 ups the ante with a 260k color OLED screen, photo viewer, FM recording, voice recording, playback time of 15 hours and that same cool looking ‘jog knob’ on the top. No word on release date but they will be released in Korea first, of course. (Pictured in order)

[Telecoms Korea]

abi Editor's Choice

SanDisk Sansa Clip

The Clip has a fantastic little form factor; cheap in build quality but very rugged. The interface is simple and relatively straight forward. The features on the clip are more or less average, mostly identical to the Sansa Express. However, what earns this player a spot in Editor’s Choice is the superb sound quality; you will not find another player at this size and price that can match it. Read the full review or go ahead and buy it.
Samsung P3

The Samsung P2 was a success and the P3 is a very welcome and substantial update. Samsung has paid close attention to users on P2 issues and made great strides in addressing and improving most of them. The best feature of the P3 is its native video support. Most content you thow at it will playback without conversion on the great looking screen. Stop by the Samsung P3 forums for more details or check out our indepth P3 review.
Microsoft Zune 120

Sure, many of us are not big fans of the walled garden, but there are a lot of great things going on with the Zune- sturdy hardware, ultra easy to use user interface, and a media player that is worthy of editor’s choice. The best part of the Zune is the constant firmware and software updates virtually giving you a new device at each major refresh. You can check out the latest Zune 120 & 16 review or stop by our Zune forums for the latest.
Cowon iAudio D2

The D2 is a fantastic sounding PMP with a very nice looking screen and a tone of features. One of the best features of the D2 is the SDHC slot allowing you to add another 32GB to this small wonder. The touch interface does not lend well to on the move operation, but it is not enough to keep it from being an editor’s choice. You can find usually find it at Amazon for the best price and before to check out the review.
Phonak Audéo PFE

Phonak Audéo PFE offer outstanding clarity and precision; natural, dynamic mids and treble, and decent bass for a single armature in-ear phone. They handle dense, complex music very well. The PFE work well with most acoustic and some electronic music genres, but bassheads might have to look at other alternatives. They're great for sports as well, since they fit very securely. Check out our review.