Hearing that Sony had potentially discontinued their Rolly PMP in America had a surprising effect on us. We’d never actually considered going out and buying the dancing, flashing MP3 player, but thinking of it being culled brought back the sort of feelings we hadn’t experienced since watching Bambi as children. Happily it’s good news for all who feel the same, as Sony claim they have no intention of axing Rolly.
As my mother once told me, there’s only so long you can roll around on the floor, bleating and waving your arms around, before they put you out to pasture. The same seems to be true with the Sony Rolly, currently out of stock at the official Sony Style US online store and apparently discounted to just $99 in their bricks & mortar stores.
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s X-mini Happy, the expanding capsule-speaker PMP, comes X-mini’s next speaker system. This time it looks as though the Sony Rolly has been quite an inspiration, as the X-mini Max II gets a plumper body, conical heads and dual speaker cones.
We already know the Sony Rolly speakers got a remote control. That’s old news. However, it was only to be available in Japan. But now, U.S. Rolly users can rejoice. Now, you too can get your hands on a remote for your Rolly.
Relatively pointless, underspecified in key areas like storage, and in today’s economic climate a needless luxury; all criticisms that could fairly be aimed at the Sony Rolly, and yet people keep buying them. Latest update to the dancing, spinning, flashing and flapping PMP is the ability to control it via Bluetooth: the Sony Rolly SEP-50BT has just 2GB of onboard storage and a 5hr battery life, but now you can use your cellphone or Bluetooth-enabled PC to trundle it about.
Video demo of the Sony Rolly SEP-50BT after the cut
Sony have announced two new models in their VAIO laptop range, the NS-series and CS-series. The former has a 15.4-inch display, while the latter has a 14.1-inch; both use widescreen XBRITE-ECO, panels, and both can be specified with Blu-ray drives. Power in the NS is courtesy of Intel’s 2GHz T5800 Core 2 Duo CPU, while graphics are integrated X4500; in the CS it’s a P8400 2.26GHz processor.
Apostol Tnokovski has looked to the future and said “balls” to it. Computer balls, that is, in the shape of his E-Ball spherical PC concept. Envisaged as a 6-inch diameter orb with pop-out legs and projected display and keyboard, there’s even a tiny metal arm that can hold up a sheet of paper for use as a makeshift screen.
Is the tech world set to split into “those who understand the Sony Rolly” and “those that don’t”? No, probably not, but AP’s Rachel Metz would certainly fall into the latter category. In her review of the bizarre twitching, wiggling, flashing PMP speaker – which officially went on sale in the US earlier this month – Rachel’s few good experiences with the device are pretty much overwhelmed by Rolly’s inability to fit into a standard music player niche. Highlights (or should that be lowlights?) include the lack of a headphone socket, the paltry 2GB of storage and the tricky controls.
If Sony’s Rolly portable speaker system is a little too unusual (and rich) for your tastes, then Logitech’s far more traditional Pure-Fi Mobile Bluetooth speakers might be a reasonable alternative. Packing the A2DP Bluetooth profile for stereo audio, as well as a standard 3.5mm input jack, it will happily stream music from PMPs, cellphones or laptops. Two microphones, however, mean the Pure-Fi Mobile serves double-duty as a portable Bluetooth speakerphone.
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