Tag Archives: playback

[Christmas 2015 Gift Ideas] Review: 1byone Portable Briefcase Turntable

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Rating: ★★★★

PROS:

  • Very well built, nice design
  • Inexpensive
  • Has line in and headphone connectivity
  • 3 speed playback (33/45/78)

CONS:

  • Built in speakers lack clarity
  • Can’t be powered by batteries

RRP £99.99, best price at time of writing £65.99 on Amazon

So here’s one that’s a little more of a personal interest – maybe not so high tech by today’s standards – but still a very interesting product! These days vinyls are very much a blast from the past – but surprisingly they seem to be gaining quite a cult following, particularly from students and young adults. Nowadays you can get hold of portable turntables that include built in speakers and other capabilities, and I was handed one to try!

There’s no doubt about it – this really looks the part. The turntable looks sturdy in its nicely built case with a well finished denim lining. Build quality is very decent, with exception to a small amount of movement in the actual turntable controls.

To the right of the turntable case you have a set of inputs and outputs together with a volume control. You can plug in the turntable to an external amplifier with an RCA cable or plug it straight into any set of speakers with the 3.5mm output. The turntable also comes with a 3.5mm line in for connecting an MP3 player.

Under the lid, together with the turntable itself, you’ll find a 3 speed control as well as an auto-stop setting to prevent the turntable spinning once playback has completed.

Playing a vinyl through the portable turntable is as easy as you’d expect. Simply place the record on the turntable, set the appropriate playback speed, align the needle accordingly, and turn the turntable on with the volume control to the right of the player.

The onboard speakers for the turntable are a little quiet and weak in my view. The output is perfectly audible, but to get the best from any record I think you need to have the turntable hooked up to an external amplifier. Thankfully, this is very easy to do with an RCA cable. Playback to an external output is much more impressive and allows for a deeper listening experience.

I feel that die-hard vinyl fans might be somewhat disappointed by the weaker built in speakers. However, if you’ve got a good quality external speaker handy then this is a very convenient way of being able to play vinyls (without having to drag a huge 1970’s style sound system around!).

I was really impressed with how light the turntable is – it’s incredibly easy to take with you out and about and with the sturdy carry handle it won’t suffer from regular travels.

It did slightly disappoint me that the turntable can’t be battery operated. The turntable comes with a suitable DC power adapter to power from the mains, but given the low amount of energy that the turntable needs to operate it would have been nice to have seen a battery powered model.

Overall, this is a very impressive attempt at a portable turntable. It’s not perfect – I’d love to have heard slightly better audio quality and the addition of a battery pack would have made it more portable – but it’s certainly enough to keep your vinyls playable at university or if you spend a long time away from home. This could be a great gift for anyone with a personal vinyl collection.

Buy now from Amazon

Why I’ll hold off with Windows 8; Windows 8 won’t have Media Center or DVD playback built in

Quick note: Really sorry I haven’t blogged for a while – been busy with other things! Will try and keep a vague schedule for posts going.

I read in the news recently that Microsoft are stripping back some of the built in features that will be included in Windows 8. Windows 8 is Microsoft’s new flagship operating system that is expected to reach computer screens in the last quarter of 2012.

Two things came to my attention as I read these two (one & two) blog posts by Microsoft.

  • First of all, Windows Media Center is going to be an extra add-on to Windows 8. This means, unlike Windows 7, you’ll have to pay for it on top of the price of the core OS if you want – no matter whether you have the home or pro version of Windows 8. Whilst this won’t bother most people, for anyone using TV tuners on their computer (ie me), this could be a huge downfall. Media Center has a fantastic interface for TV and the EPG is great too – so I’ll be rather peeved if I have to pay for Media Center.
  • Secondly, Windows 8 will not be able to natively play DVDs or Blu-Ray discs. Why, you ask? Well, I’m not sure, but it does make some kind of sense to an extent. The key idea of Windows 8 is that it will be usable on tablets – which, in most (if not all)  cases, won’t have a DVD or Blu-Ray drive – so Microsoft are probably thinking they don’t need to waste money on licensing codecs to decode the discs. However, this is no good for anybody who is planning to use Windows 8 on a laptop or a desktop.

I fear that Microsoft are going to fall into the same trap with Windows 8 as they did with Windows Vista/7. Windows 8 will be fantastic on new devices that have it preinstalled, but Microsoft will face the backlog of people using their existing machines with Windows 7. Then, years after Windows 8 has launched, there will still be a vast majority of people on older operating systems that are still supported.

At the moment, I can’t see any huge reason to upgrade to Windows 8. There’s nothing in it for me that stands out and makes me think “I really want that”.

Ah well, Windows 7 is going to be supported until 2020, so I think I’ll stick with that for now.