Want to impress your jaded gadget geek friends? Show 'em the Signeo SN-A800, a sleek and unusual MP3 player straight out of Japan. From the beginning, the retro-styled flash-based player, with its circular display and 14 "blister" buttons caught our fancy; you might even say it's our current MP3 crush. But in the A800's case, love is costly.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Available in 512MB or 1GB capacities (at a spendy $170 and $250 respectively), the MP3/WMA/OGG/WAV player has a basic set of features that is spread out across its numerous Intellivision-style puffy keys. Available in black, 1970s yellow, or a superfresh 1970s blue, the device was designed by renowned industrial designer Marc Newson.
The control system is anything but iPod. The numerous buttons (which aren't as difficult to press as they seem, but could annoy some) may confuse the first timer, but eventually, they make a great deal of sense. Each function has its own dedicated button, so menu surfing is unnecessary. For example, Line takes you to line-in recording, Voice takes you to the excellent voice recorder, and FM takes you to the autoscannable 20-preset FM radio feature. There are even dedicated buttons for power on (green) and power off (red). The hold switch, by the way, is on the back.
Four arrows plus the center Play/Pause button stand out as a cross underneath the charming circular OLED display (the actual display is actually a 1-inch diagonal rectangle nested inside the 1-inch diameter circle). The up and down arrows are dedicated to volume control, while the right and left arrows serve both as forward/reverse and for menu navigation. A button labeled Mode/EQ allows you to apply the extensive set of EQ effects (Normal, Rock, Jazz, Classical, two User Settings, SRS, TruBass, and Wow). Holding for a bit longer sweeps you through the repeat and shuffle options.
The display itself is monochrome and legible; the playback screen is packed with relevant info, including a clock, scrolling songs titles, format, bit rate, and a tiny output level meter. The cool shimmering screensaver with clock is a nice digital touch. Pressing the Menu button opens up the minimal icon-based options such as Music, Setup, Game, Text, and Record Play. Record Play simply takes you directly to your recordings. Voice, line-in, and FM recordings (in up to 160Kbps MP3) are actually easy to make on this device. The only hiccup to navigation is that you need to learn that the Menu button, and not the Play button as would seem natural, is the select button.
Digging deeper, you can adjust playback speed of MP3s 150 percent down to 50 percent; adjust the record gain, use the player as a text viewer, and even play games (Blackjack and a strange game called Biorhythm).
Though the novelty and the smooth looks of the device appealed to our visual sense, audio quality is also quite good. The included olive-colored headphones are reasonable, but the player truly shined when we had our Shure E500s plugged in. The battery is rated to last 11 hours per charge, which is on the weak side. Battery life fared better in CNET Labs testing at 13 hours. The battery is charged via either the included AC adapter or USB. The USB port is uncommon (though the Kingston K-PEX that we just reviewed had the same tiny port), so you'll want to keep the bundled cable near. Incidentally, line-in recordings are done via USB with the included USB-to-1/8-inch-minijack cable. You also get a lanyard in the package.
All in all, we really dig the design of this player, though all the button pushing can get a little bit 1990s. It's most definitely a fresh conversation piece, and it has some good sound to back up the pretty face. However, the device's inflated price (you can get two 1GB Creative Zen V Plus's for the price of the 1GB A800) is likely to keep most of us wanting but not needing this museum piece. If you are interested in this player, it is being sold at a couple of places online, including Dynamism.com.