Pink Blog

One thing we know about this thing: It’s got Hello Kitty on it. But at first glance, what we don’t know is…is this a handbag? Well, folks, the answer is NO. It’s a CD player. But for some reason its maker decided it should look like a handbag. I guess it’s kind of like the teacup clock radio…why did they make it shaped like a teacup? Well, because they can. According to the maker’s information on the product, it’s not actually a carrier. The only thing it holds is the CD that it’s playing. So basically you what we have here is a very funny-looking CD player that is bulky and rides on your shoulder so you confuse people with why you have earphones plugged into a plastic purse. Oh, and I don’t think it plays MP3s. Plus there are way cooler ones on Amazon. Oh well!

Woo, hype hype! Apple has added pink to the 3G nano lineup. There’s been a lot of noise about this, which kind of puzzles me – it’s been as if Apple has finally relented to customers’ demands for a pink nano. But the 2G nano, the longer one, already came in pink! They haven’t done anything that special. And yet the official, party line PinkBlog perspective is: thank goodness! Offering a gadget that doesn’t come in pink is just insane. After all, even the 1G iPod mini – released in 2004, and the first colored iPod – came in pink.

Anyway, music lovers who have been dying for a 3G nano but couldn’t bear to buy one in blue, green, black, red, or silver…your day has come. Rush on over to the Apple Store and pick one up for $200. (Hmm…my 5.5G iPod was $350 for 80G, or $4.38/GB. The 3G nano is $200 for 8GB, or $25/GB. But hey, if you gotta have pink…!)

It’s funny. There’s Swarovski, and then there’s Swarovski. You can get a bridal tiara with Swarovski for about $20-30, and then you can get these lovely pink Swarovski headphones for $2400. Apparently DJs all have thousands of dollars to spend on headphones, or maybe they don’t have it but they buy them anyway because it’s a scene that’s so fashion-conscious. These are from Swarovski’s Fashion Rocks line; the website is very hoity-toity, which makes me think Swarovski needs to improve its image considering how cheaply their products can be sold. I dunno though, maybe it’s just a double brand image.

I hadn’t been playing Guitar Hero very long when I slapped some Hello Kitty stickers on my guitar. But for those who’d like a more finished look, there’s the Guitar Hero “Pink Heart” Skin from Amazon.com! It never occurred to me to skin the guitar, even though my Sidekick and laptop are both skinned. But this one looks like a really cool version, because it comes with a piece for the top, too – it looks like some of the other ones don’t come with that top bit. And it makes your GH2 guitar way cooler than even the world-famous Hello Kitty Fender guitar. Rock on!

This little radio is so cute! The Sony ICF-M55 is currently only available in Japan, and who knows if it will ever make it into the U.S. market. It seems like it’s old technology – it’s just a radio – but Sony has put it into a cute little package, so I automatically want it. (It’s cute in silver too.) It comes with 25 presets, which to my mind makes it great for regular travelers. You can set up a couple of presets that you like at home, and then toss it in your suitcase when you go on the road. Add more presets there, and…you get the picture! The price seems a little high at $36, though.

As cute as the DOC speaker dock is, I see some problems. First of all, it’s only for the Nano. Not even the new Nano – only 1st and 2nd Generation Nanos, the longer ones. Second, as you can see from this picture, it fits in your hand…but it would be a little awkward in your pocket. The colors are designed to perfectly match the 2nd generation Nano (unless you got a blue one, in which case you’re out of luck), so if you like this magenta shade of pink, you can get this one to match your Nano. I guess the price isn’t bad though – I thought $39 was high, but the pink iMainGo portable speaker is $50! Then again, this little pink speaker is only $6! But you get what you pay for, eh?

Because no two people have the same shape ears, earbud manufacturers are forced to make very minimalist shapes that end up fitting nobody’s ear. To counteract this problem, there is a tiny industry specifically focused on keeping your earbuds in your ears. There’s the PodFitKit (which I’ve tried, it’s great), there’s Earjams, there’s expensive custom fit earbuds…and then there are Lobies. They’re designed to go behind your ear like glasses or a hearing aid, and you insert the earbud into the hole in the Lobie. They claim all kinds of earbuds fit, but I’m skeptical…how will this help keep the earbuds in your ear? The pictures on the website aren’t very encouraging. At only $12 though, they might be worth a try – who knows, maybe they will be the perfect solution!

To me, this little thing is kind of a waste. It’s bigger than an iPod Shuffle, it doesn’t clip onto anything, and it only has 512MB of memory. That’s not nearly enough for most people these days, am I right? But anyway, it’s the MMP8551 audio player from Memorex. I can’t find a price anywhere but hopefully it wouldn’t be more than $50 because it wouldn’t be worth the price if that were the case. There’s not really anything appealing about this one to me…I don’t even like the shade of pink! So like I said, I’m not sure what this is good for, but it’s pink, so here it is!

Now listen up! If you want cool music pumped out of your pink speakers, the Sony D55HD is for you! As far as I know, it’s only available in Japan, but as near as I can make out from the Japanese site, it’s pretty cool. (I don’t read Japanese, so I’m depending on Google Translate.) The stereo uses Gracenote to pick up CDDB information, so you can put in a CD and it will automatically find the song info, assuming you have it hooked up to your network. It’s wireless network-aware too, which means you can have your computer upstairs play the music that’s stored on your stereo’s hard drive downstairs. You can hook up an iPod (or other player) to it, and it will automatically sync all your songs to its hard drive. So far the price is listed as “upcoming” but I’ve seen reports that the 250GB version will cost about $1000, though the 80GB version will presumably cost less.

This is the first personal XM radio I’ve ever seen – I didn’t know such a thing existed, and I didn’t know they came in pink! I don’t like the combination with the silver (or is it blue?) buttons though, they really should have used black. I’m also not sure about how useful a personal XM radio would be. You need a line-of-sight to the sky for satellite radio to work, and if you’re in a metal box (like a building or a car) you will have a hard time getting a signal. I know they make external antennas for use in cars and houses, but doesn’t that defeat the point of a personal, miniature, headphone-using, belt clip-having device? I do like XM’s offerings though; we borrowed one from friends when we went on a road trip. After we figured out how to hook up the magnetic transmitter on top of the car, it was great listening to commercial-free tunes of exactly the genre we wanted, while still having the slight unpredictability of a radio station. By the way, this is a Pioneer Inno, and it does come with a docking station. Maybe you’re supposed to leave it in the dock all the time and record shows, and then take them with you on the go?