Enjoying a Decade of Portable Entertainment

Portable digital entertainment has come a long way over the past decade. Take a good look at your portable media player and discover its evolution through the decade as we reminiscence its key developments and noteworthy implementations over the last ten years.

By Seow Tein Hee - 15 Apr 2009

10 Years of Pocket Entertainment

Treating yourself to a dose of audio entertainment on-the-go was made possible in the final year of the 1970s with the introduction of the world's first commercial portable player, the Sony Walkman. In an age where miniaturization is king, the Japanese company made a global impact on the world with this portable cassette player. Following through with that, two more physical audio formats came into play as the 1980s came by, namely the Compact Disc (CD) and the Mini-Disc (MD), which was given due attention by major manufacturers of the time.

While small in capacity, the very first digital audio player, the MPMan, managed to run up to 9 hours on its rechargable NiMH battery pack.

Interestingly, the advent of the digital audio player (DAP) was not through the hands of the giants of the time, but by a Korean company, SaeHan Information Systems. 1997 was a major turning point in the portable player arena, when the Korean company SaeHan Information Systems created the very first DAP and released it under the MPMan moniker by the middle of 1998.

The license was subsequently acquired by Eiger Labs and the Eiger Labs MPMan made its debut in the North American market by the summer of 1998. Timed just perfectly at the start of the digital audio era, the MPMan was a player introduced with 32MB capacity that houses typically up to 8 music tracks in the MP3 format. There was no optional memory expansion other than sending the MPMan back to Eiger Labs to upgrade its RAM to 64MB.

Though the MPMan is touted as the ancestor to the generic audio (and video) players of today, it did not receive the acclaimed success of its followers. Ironically, for those who value battery life, the MPMan, being a player running on a solid state drive, could run for up to 9 hours on a single charge, which was impressive for its time and perhaps ahead of its time.

In that same year, the development of a DAP utilizing high capacity hard drives was spearheaded by Compaq, licensing the design to HanGo Electronics Co., Ltd. of South Korea and in 1999, the world saw the introduction of the very first hard drive based DAP, the Personal Jukebox (PJB-100) which houses up to 4.8GB worth of songs, amounting up to almost 1,200 tracks in a single device. This would set a precedence of high capacity DAPs that provides you with a seemingly infinite number of songs on a single device. This trend was quickly adopted by both Apple and Creative as each company churned out their own DAPs at the start of the 21st century.

Apple's first foray into the MP3 scene was in 2001 when its first generation 5GB iPod came into the picture. What Apple set out to do is to work on and improve upon a concept that has been proven popular with consumers as the digital audio era was on the rise. Putting much thought into the design of its iPod series, especially the interface. it went from its Classic lineup to newer iterations such as the Mini, Shuffle and finally, Touch series. More importantly, the introduction of its iTunes Store by 2003 made the iPod series even more successful, allowing you to purchase tracks in the digital format and bidding farewell to the physical CD medium.

Creative started off the race with the introduction of two separate line of devices that utilizes either flash memory or micro hard drives. Initially branded as the NOMAD and branching out into the NOMAD ZEN and NOMAD MuVo series, the NOMAD name was dropped in 2004 and Creative players are now branded under the ZEN and MuVo series respectively.

Whilst Apple's iPods were initially designed for its Mac users (following which, was supported on the Windows platform), the limitations of only having music available on your iTunes player on the iPod would form a barrier for some users. The advent of its competitors such as Creative gave users more options with the ability of its players to transfer music via normal file transfer methods without the need to go thru iTunes.

Beyond the capacity to operate as a portable audio player, video playback was soon added to the functionality list with the introduction of the very first portable media player (PMP) from Archos with its Archos Jukebox Multimedia back in 2002 and the brand has solidified itself as one of the leading portable media players in the market.

As with the case of DAPs, other companies picked up on this trend and soon included video playback support on their next generation of portable media players. The very first portable video player from Apple saw the light of day in 2005 with its fifth generation iPod Classic. The Creative camp started operation just slightly earlier at 2004 when it announced the Zen Portable Media Center.

Fast-forward to our current timeline, and we are now looking at what is essentially a deciding point for the portable media player market. With convergence as the next big thing, it takes more than just higher capacities and display resolutions for the portable media player manufacturers to stand out amongst the sea of devices.

Add to the fact that some of the top-end smartphones have enough capabilities to vie as a portable media player quite comfortably with several mobile manufacturers rolling out their own preferred media platforms to complete the consumers' purchasing circle, the traditional PMP vendors have their work cut out for them ahead.

Truly portable PMPs could very well be on their last leg before the multimedia mobile phone equivalents take up this space and thus rendering PMPs to a niche segment of larger screen devices like 5-inches and larger. Pure portable audio players (e.g. the iPod Shuffle) would likely be around for a much longer period since they can be extremely small in physical size. Small photo and video based PMPs are however likely to see the axe since the mobile phone already sports a decent sized screen and is evolving to cater to multimedia needs. It should be interesting to see how this segment fares in the next couple of years and if there is still demand for such devices in the long run. For now, let's recap how this space has progressed through the years.

1998

The truth is, portable audio devices have been in existence since the early 1970s thanks to the introduction of the Walkman series by Sony back then. From cassette tapes, compact discs, mini discs and onward to the digital era, it was a time of change for the portable entertainment scene. Just a year before 1998, the first digital audio player (DAP) was created not by the current major players such as Sony, Apple or Creative, but by a South Korean company by the name of SaeHan Information Systems. Introducing its first DAP as the MPMan (Ok, no points there for the "originality" of its branding), Eiger Labs subsequently acquired the license and by 1998, the Eiger Labs MPMan F10 was commercially available to the consumers.

Storage capacity wasn't at its best back then, and with 32MB of flash memory, the Eiger Labs MPMan was touted to support 30 minutes to several hours of music. Whether the claim about several hours is through lower bitrates or a repeated loop of the 30 minutes of music, we won't know, but it does have a rated 9 hour battery life.

In that same year, another company took on the DAP approach and introduced another choice for consumers looking for a portable audio player, and once again, it was not from the big boys of today, but from Diamond Multimedia in the form of its Diamond Rio PMP300 . Though just slightly later than the MPMan, the Rio PMP300 was the centre of attention not for its feature, but the legal ramifications due to the action by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its move to block its production. This was the incident that brought much media attention to the legalities of digital audio during the online sharing boom. Needless to say, RIAA lost the case, and the golden age of digital audio began.

1999

The famous Singapore-based audio card company, Creative Technologies, banked on their forte and started on their own DAPs in the following year when the MPMan came out. The Creative NOMAD received its official unveiling at the 1999 PC Show, and kick-started Creative's foray into the portable digital audio business for the years to come.

Looking back, Creative has endured the test of time and kept themselves busy over the years with the introduction of their Creative NOMAD back in 1999.

Flash memory, as you might have noticed, had yet to pick up steam unlike what we see in our present time. With limited capacities of 32MB and 64MB, with possible expansion via its Smart Media slot, it was a whole different ball game with the introduction of a hard drive based DAP from Compaq's development team. But interestingly, its mass production was taken upon by another South Korean company, HanGo Electronics Co., Ltd. and came into existence as the Personal Jukebox PJB-100.

The Personal Jukebox PJB-100 was the much needed device that provides consumers with the capacity to store thousands of songs at one go, albeit it won't be able to play thousands of it at one shot.

The infamous Napster came into existence in 1999 when Shawn Fanning created the online file-sharing site that specializes in MP3 distribution. Unsurprisingly, this formed another point of contention with the RIAA, and in a period when DAPs were getting popular, users found themselves embracing the MP3 file-sharing site, though the legalities of it at that time was highly dubious. Nonetheless, this formed the basis for future manufacturers to formulate their marketing strategy not only on the device front, but also on the content and services front.

2000

As the new millennium approached, there were more developments on the digital audio player (DAP) front. Notably, the manufacturing giant, Samsung, joined the race and introduced one of its many DAPs to come, the Samsung Yepp YP-E2 . But as with previous other DAPs, the data transfer standard was still reliant on using the parallel port to transfer your MP3s from the device to your PC and vice versa. The Samsung engine was already working around the clock as it went full steam to get a bigger piece of the pie by roping in DAPs as part of their consumer electronics division back in 2000.

Creative reigned supremacy for just a short period of time, and back in 2000, the introduction of its 6GB Creative NOMAD Jukebox gave consumers more choices with its EAX audio capabilities on top of its huge storage capacity (at that time). More importantly, the NOMAD Jukebox was one of the first few DAPs that adopted the popular USB data ports for MP3 transfers, which would become widely accepted in the years to come.

2001

While Napster was facing the lawsuit that would dramatically change the face of online music distribution, Apple created a stirring presence with its iPod in the year 2001, making it a force to be reckoned with. Starting off with its 1st generation iPod Classic released on 23rd October 2001, the iPod brand came with 5GB worth of storage capacity (and 10GB at a later time) that catered up to thousands of tracks in the device. But what really brought the iPod out into the limelight was its design factor that was trendy and an interface that worked, creating a niche market amongst Apple users.

Apple stirs up the digital audio player with the introduction of their first generation iPod, which will see a whole lot of changes in the next few years.

Winamp and Windows Media Player were predominantly Windows-based audio players for the PC, and with Apple stepping into the arena, the company also saw the inception of their very own audio player for the Macintosh platform, iTunes. Undoubtedly, the introduction of iTunes to synchronize with your iPod is one of the main conveniences for the Apple user, but in time to come, the iTunes platform would play a big role when it comes to online music distribution.

And on the software front, 2001 was also the year when iTunes version 1.0 came into being, paving the way for Apple users to synchronize their iPods with their Macintosh, and in the future, with their Windows PC.

2002

While digital audio players have picked up steam over the past three years or so, the visual front was just kickstarted in 2002 with the introduction of the first portable video player from the French company, Archos. Though touted as a portable device, video players were by and far a tricky business since one can't compromise too much on screen size to fit the portable aspect of the device.
With that in mind, the Archos Jukebox Multimedia was born as the first portable media player capable of audio and video playback, with support for MPEG4, DivX and Xvid for its video formats. And with camera phones on the rise during that era, Archos went the extra mile to provide various other modules that can be docked onto its Multimedia Jukebox, allowing you to perform image and video captures onto the device.

Being the first of its kind, the Archos Multimedia Jukebox portable media player would go on to be one of the bigger names in the PMP industry in the years to come.

Though the digital MP3 format is gaining popularity amongst the consumers, the predominant audio media, the compact disc, is still well and alive. Manufacturers, in a bid to give ample support to the CD format that was once the most popular format, have tried numerous means, such as a portable CD player capable of MP3 format playback , to give the CD a boost in their sales.

Parallel port data transfers are slowly fading into the background, as the USB and FireWire standard became widely adopted by both Apple and Creative. In 2002, the Zen branding was introduced on a new line of portable players by Creative, dubbed as the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen.

2003

Though the MiniDisc (MD) format has been introduced a while back, it has not received the mainstream support that came with the MP3 format, despite being introduced earlier. Nonetheless, Sony made it a point to support their own format with a lineup of devices that included the Sony MZ-E10 MiniDisc Walkman . But it'll be soon all for nothing, as we saw the major players like Creative and Apple having a bigger and stronger presence in the years to come with non proprietary formats.

The Sony MD Walkman players did bring itself into the limelight, but only for a short period as they were slowly and surely replaced by the MP3 digital audio format that garnered more support from manufacturers such as Creative and Apple.

The MP3 format would only gain greater popularity, and this was aided tremendously by the introduction of the iTunes Store back in 2003. With a legitimate online avenue to purchase music tracks at a nominal cost, the sharp decline in CD and MD sales would soon be evident, replaced by the portable media player market that's strongly supported by the online music (and in the near future, video) distribution methods.

The iTune Store, though not exactly the pioneer of paid online music distribution, is considerably the market leader when it comes to sales figures back in 2003, and even now.

Similarly, Apple's iPod lineup was gaining a strong momentum, stronger than what Creative had tried to emulate and pick up on recently. By this time, Apple has recognized the sales potential for iPod on the Windows platform, and in favor of that, it finally dropped Windows support via the MusicMatch software and went all out with an iTunes for Windows, allowing Windows users to effectively synchronize their iPod to their PCs. More so, the iPod line has seen its capacity grow from its earlier 5GB storage limit to the higher limits of up to 40GB on its 3rd generation iPod Classic. If one wonders what you can do with 40GB worth of songs, you'll probably be still wondering about the current 160GB storage capacity on its newer Classic lineup.

The iPod Classic series, by its 3rd generation, has received a few design and features face lift, bringing it up as one of the forerunners in the portable media player scene.

2004

As with many devices, the evolution of a portable media player would slowly and surely divert towards the miniaturization route, and it was time we bade farewell to chunky and pocket bulging portable media players with the introduction of the Creative Zen Micro and iPod Mini. Though the physical size did diminish quite a bit, storage capacity (not to mention audio fidelity) did not suffer a drop, as both the Micro and Mini came with a 5GB and 4GB storage capacity, which was an impressive amount and more than adequate for your audio storage needs.

The Creative camp was head-to-head with Apple's iPod delivery, providing stiff competition to the Cupertino-based company and its impressive iPod lineup.

But as with all devices, evolution is necessary and with Apple, it's more than evolving their current devices, it's also about redesigning and creating a brand new look for their products that calls out to the consumers, as is seen with its iPod Mini series.

2005

While we have seen numerous developments on the physical aspect of the portable media players, it's undeniable that the technological progress also played a major role during its years of development. This was evidently apparent back in 2005, but to make it easier to digest, we'll be stepping through the major advancements from the respective manufacturers, starting with Apple and its introduction of two new devices under its wing that's worth the mentioning:- the 5th generation iPod Classic (now with video playback capability) and the petite sized iPod Shuffle .

Apple had a bountiful harvest with the introduction of three products under its iPod branding, namely the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano and the 5th generation iPod Classic in 2005.

And being one of the slimmest and smallest portable audio device of the time, we couldn't resist bringing the iPod Shuffle in for a review.

As always, the Creative bandwagon would be hot on the heels in the portable media player race, but beyond the product lineup such as the Creative Zen Neeon , it was the introduction of its Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi (Xtreme Fidelity) that would create a stir amongst the portable media player market in the following years to come. The advancements made in their X-Fi soundcard series would soon front a whole lineup of the Creative Zen series, but we'll be leaving that for later.

Accessorizing was also part of the deal with the Creative Zen Neeon, with variable skins for the product.

The X-Fi series was available in four different editions to suit different needs and budgets:- Elite Pro, Fatal1ty FPS, Platinum and XtremeMusic. Only the higher-end Elite Pro and Fatal1ty editions come with 64MB of X-RAM.

And for entertainment's sake, we reminiscence about some of the odder things that came under the portable audio player category, one of which is the aigo F021/F022 U-watch MP3 Player , definitely a novelty item, but the practicality, not to mention the oddity of having a earphone strapped to your watch, was something of a debatable topic.

Novelty item? Definitely, and at a price of S$239 for a watch with MP3 playback capability, we felt there are better options out there.

2006

If you thought both Creative and Apple had been dominating the portable media market in the last few years, it would be quite a misconception. The Japanese giant Sony had concentrated its full effort in their Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, but haven't forgotten the demand for a dedicated audio player without the frills of a cellular device. And so, the Sony Walkman series was reinvented with the introduction of the Sony Walkman NW-A1000. However, it was a period when concerted efforts were placed in converging devices onto one single platform, which would be the mobile phones division. With their own mobile phone branch under the Sony Ericsson name, Sony has got both fronts covered, but whether it was a profitable move, that's up for debate.

Sony's Walkman name is well known over the years, and its NW-A1000 series definitely did perform as per its high standards.

While Creative may have introduced their X-Fi technology with EAX in the previous year, Samsung hasn't been sitting on its laurels either. The introduction of their DSNe (Digital Natural Sound engine) technology would become the core focus of their upcoming lineup in the next two years. As mentioned previously, the USB data transfer standard had become widely adopted, and with technological advancements, we had also seen the evolution of higher data transfer speeds via the updated USB2.0 standard.

Surely, the PMP market wasn't wholly dominated by the Creative and Apple camp, as we also saw a whole lineup from both Samsung (as featured in the Samsung YP-D1 MP3 Player above) and Sony's Walkman series.

For the big boys Creative and Apple, another development was brewing on the legal front involving the Zen patent issue. Creative announced on May 15, 2006, that it has launched a lawsuit against Apple for the infringement of the ZEN patent, which was then counter-sued by Apple on the same day, filing two lawsuits for infringing their patents. By 2007, Apple and Creative have reached a settlement, with Apple paying $100 million to Creative, joining the "Made for iPod" accessory program.

** Updated on 16th April 2009 **

2007

The Bluetooth wireless connectivity standard had been tossed into the tech market for a while now, and true enough, it was slowly adopted into the mainstream market with the development of the A2DP Bluetooth audio streaming standard for both mobile phones and portable media players. What this meant for consumers at the time was true wireless connectivity, and free of tangled wires. Of course, Bluetooth technology wouldn't provide one with absolute lossless audio, but it performed just fine and was definitely up to par when we took Samsung's first few Bluetooth supported device, the Samsung YP-T9B Bluetooth DAP , for a quick spin.

The Samsung Bluetooth enabled DAP was one of many such devices from Samsung (and various other manufacturers) that would hit the market in the following year.

2007 was a good year for tech enthusiasts. Refreshing your memory, this was also the year when the iPhone was introduced by mid 2007, and with rumors flying around, we were not so surprised, but still pleased, when the Apple iPod touch (16GB) was introduced in the later half of 2007. This was of course in addition to the various other launches introduced by Apple in 2007, such as the 2nd generation iPod Shuffle .

Following up with the tremendous success of its iPhone, Apple was quick to pick up on the trend and introduced the iPod touch for those who seek a device without the power draining cellular functions that comes with the iPhone.

And with the introduction of both the iPhone and iPod touch in 2007, the iTunes Music Store gets a Wi-Fi version which allows users to purchase and download music tracks straight from their devices.

In an age where portable media players are dominated by Apple's iPods, the Archos 605 stands out with its ample 4.3 inch screen, vivid playback quality and an impeccable audio delivery that puts it as one of the must have portable media players for the year.

The Archos 605 also enjoyed our Top 100 Award in 2007, affirming its status as one of the most well-liked and high performance portable media player for the year.