Apple rival pitches magnesium music player

Will Max-Ivy grow on you?

By Tony Smith, 29th November 2006

Apple's move to recast the iPod Nano in a metal casing is starting to influence other product designers. Nokia announced a stainless steel phone yesterday, and today German gadget supplier Maxfield unveiled Max-Ivy, an MP3 player with a "scratchproof... flawless" jet-black magnesium shell.

maxfield max-ivy slimline music player

The Max-Ivy is due to ship next January in 1GB, 2GB and 4GB versions. All three sport a 1.8in, 65,536-colour display and the ability to play not only MP3, Ogg and WMA DRM encoded songs but also show JPEG photos. Sound playback can be tweaked with one of six EQ pre-sets, including a bass booster.

The player measures 10.8 x 4.9 x 0.9cm and weighs 42g. It's curvaceous case is marred only by the need to incorporate blobs for the mini USB and earphone ports.

Like most Asia-sourced players, the Max-Ivy has a voice recording facility and can disply .LRC lyric files. It also has a built-in alarm clock. The battery's good for 14 hours' continuous playback, Maxfield claimed.

Pricing has yet to be set. ®

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