.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Oakley’s Thumping good time
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY Wouldn’t it be great if someone combined an MP3 player and sunglasses into one device? Someone did, and it’s called the Oakley Thump Pro. Read on to find out what Senior Editor James Booth thinks of Oakley’s flagship tech gadget.
.OTHER
Do you wear an iPod while you jog, cycle, work in the garden, or whatever? What about sunglasses? Do you wear those too? Wouldn’t it be great if someone combined these into one device?
Someone did. Oakley, best known as a maker of athletic and performance eyewear, has mated their sunglasses with an MP3 player. Actually, Oakley’s Thump line has been around for a while, but the Thump Pro, shown in Figure A, is the flagship of their electronic line.
.FIGPAIR A The Thump Pro from Oakley is an MP3 player built into a pair of athletic sunglasses.
.BREAK_EMAIL Is Oakley’s Thump Pro really a thumping good find? Read on to find out.
.H1 How it comes
The Thump Pro, the third incarnation of their MP3 glasses, is available in three frame colors, black, crystal black, and brown smoke. And it comes in capacities of 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB.
A variety of lens colors are offered, from black to clear, in polarized, transition, and iridium (mirrored finish). In addition, Oakley makes their lenses available in your custom prescription, so there are no pesky clip-ons involved.
With the Thump Pro, there are no wires or separate modules to be concerned with; everything is built right into the frame, including the fully adjustable ear buds. Even the controls are built right into the frame. On/Off, Play/Pause, Forward, Back, Volume Up/Down, are all right at your fingertips. In Figure B, you can see where the controls are placed and how easy they are to access.
.FIGPAIR B Oakley has placed the Thump Pro’s one-handed controls at your fingertips.
The Thump Pro even has an Overdrive feature to instantly kick in that one song that gets your engines revving.
For formats, the Thump Pro will play MP3s, of course. But it will also play AAC and WMA. It is compatible with iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, and many other media players. Although the Thump Pro works with iTunes, it will not play songs purchased from iTunes.
But then, only an iPod will play those, anyway. However, you can play songs transferred from CDs into iTunes.
With its USB connection, the Thump Pro can also be used as a portable drive.
.H1 What I think
Although I was quite excited to get my grubby mitts on the Thump Pro, I was concerned they would be a bit on the heavy side because of everything they contained. Was I ever wrong!
They are extremely light. In fact, just like the glasses I normally wear while cycling, their weight virtually disappears while being worn.
As a part of this review, I had planned to loan the Thump Pros to a marathon-runner friend of mine in order to get his opinion. His first remark was, "They’re SO light!" He didn’t need to test drive them, he decided to buy a pair right then. And another friend of mine commented on how good they would be for skiing.
With a song capacity of 240 for the 1 GB version, 120 for the 512 MB, and 60 for the 256 MB, and up to 6 hours of continuous play from a single charge, the Thump Pro will keep you in music for the duration of any activity. Whether it’s mowing the grass, a workout at the gym, a marathon, or even just basking on the beach, your eyes will be protected from the sun while you listen to your favorite tunes.
I was actually able to get eight continuous hours of play from a single charge. Results will likely vary from user to user though.
File transfer is as easy as drag-n-drop. The tracks will play in the order you copy them. Or, you can create playlists in Windows Media Player and sync it to the Thump Pro.
As awesome as the Thump Pro is, though, I did find one shortcoming; there’s no Shuffle feature. Windows Media Player can be set to Shuffle when it syncs, but it would be nice to be able to do it on-the-fly. And it’s a feature that virtually every other MP3 player has.
I’ve been very happy with the Oakley Thump Pro, they have made my indoor workouts much more tolerable, and my outdoor rides more enjoyable. Some may balk at the $300 price tag, but you would easily spent this much for a quality MP3 player and athletic sunglasses separately.
The Oakley Thump Pro came very near getting a perfect 5, but as it lacks a Shuffle feature, I have to give them a 4. But it would seem to me that a firmware update could add one.
.RATING 4
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Learn more [[http:// www.oakley.com|about the Oakley Thump Pro]].
Learn more [[http://www.apple.com/itunes/|about the iTunes Jukebox]].
Learn more [[http://www.winamp.com/|about WinAmp Player]].
Learn more [[http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx?displang=en&qstechnology=|about Windows Media Player]].
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
