Sony Rolly MP3 Player: Maybe a Little Cooler Than it Needs to Be
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These days, the trends for MP3 players go way beyond simple playing and recording functions. But the growing industry trend toward smaller, cheaper and more powerful devices seems to have gone in one ear and out the other of Sony recently, as they unveiled their newest MP3 product – straight out of Japan. Today we look at the Sony Rolly MP3 player to see if it brings more than trend-bucking looks to the equation.
The latest and greatest MP3 attempt from Sony, attempting to regain its position as top leader in audio and music playing devices, is the Rolly™ Sound Entertainment Player. Market priced at $400, this strange and egg-shaped/miniature football shaped device is quite an attention getter, guaranteed to start many, many conversations. Unfortunately for the Rolly, most of these conversations are going to end with one simple question.
Why?
Strange Days Indeed
Now before I begin telling you about all the things I don’t like about the Sony Rolly, I offer in the spirit of full disclosure to tell you that Sony is one of my favorite companies in the world, and that most of my hand-picked electronics are made by Sony. In fact, I purposely waited to buy a PS3 and have NEVER bought an XBox or anything like it from Microsoft, as I am not a fan.
And it’s not that I don’t support first generation products, or industry breakthrough products either. I was one of the first people to review and purchase my own TIVO with lifetime service, and yes, I even bought the first generation Oakley Thump MP3, at $500 no less, which holds about 20 songs. But you see, the purpose of the Thump is dual-fold of course, cool sunglasses AND good tunes. Keep that in mind; the Thump’s functional design is 100 percent engineered for comfort, easy of use and performance, which is why it is so successful.
The Rolly functionality on the other hand, is not at all dual-fold, unless you want to listen to music, AND need an egg-shaped item that’s not really an egg.
Of course it plays music (2GB, 520 songs, no expansion to date), but strangely can also be meticulously programmed to actually dance to any of the music uploaded into it. That's not too shabby for something that looks like an ostrich egg, but then again, where else can you put two 20-mm, 1.2 watt neodymium magnet driven speakers capped by a protector that flips out when the speakers are in use, and then even rotate to better project sound?
And it’s a good thing they do, because with all the dancing, rolling and flopping around, the movement has a tendency to distort the audio. And while this is easy to stop with the included base for keeping it stable, doesn’t that make it pretty much the same as any other standard player? Only bigger and harder to manage when you are actually trying to listen to music AND do something else?
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