Read this review of the new MSI Mega Player 521 and 522 [left and right, respectively] and tell me you don’t see the shadow of the iPod shuffle hanging over both of them. Both of them have decent features, including an integrated pedometer in the 521 and built-in Bluetooth in the 522, but it’s hard not to look at both of them and wonder why I should pay more for a screen and some features when I could get at least twice as much built-in storage for the same price (especially in the 521, which cannot accept SD cards like the 522). It’s totally not fair—the iPod shuffle is about as cut-rate as it gets—but yet I still can’t imagine paying more for a non-Apple player than an actual iPod. That means two things: I’ve succumbed completely to Apple programming, and flash players may actually hit the sort of price-to-feature ratios this year that will make them worth having as a secondary music player—the role they excel at in the first place.
The New Vanguard: Portable MP3 Players from MSI [TosmHardware]
