Can old-school A/V purveyor RCA make a comeback through nicely designed, fully compatible gadgets? It looks like they’re counting on it, and we’re willing to give them a chance.
RCA, by way of parent company Audiovox, is announcing two interesting gadgets of note tonight, the LYRA Slider media player and the RCA Infinite Radio system.
The main features on the $100 8GB LYRA Slider are its sliding mechanism (familiar to anyone with a recent phone), as well as a promise of some of the best quality audio and video recording. As the biggest voice-recorder aficionado in the Gadget Lab, this perks up my ears, but I gotta say I’m skeptical. So far, no media player has accurately recorded voice or tunes in the same way as a dedicated recording player.
As for the hardware, it does look sleek, and the slider is an interesting choice. I guess they’re counting on the built-in experience people have with slider phones, though the only obvious benefit I can see is that it forces the user to keep an eye on the screen when the controls are hidden below.
Much like other players struggling to cut into the market dominated by Apple, the LYRA maximizes its file compatibility options, accepting seven types of video and music files each.
RCA will also be releasing the WiFi RCA Infinite Radio RIR205 (above), a digital device set up perfectly for the Slacker music Internet service. It comes with dedicated ‘heart’ or ‘ban’ keys to further improve the quality of the song recommendations, which will be reflected on the site that manages the list. If you’ve already invested a lot of your time on your Slacker playlists, this might not be a bad gadget. If you haven’t, you’re likely wasting your time. There’s no word on price at this point.
Audiovox is also releasing a pair of new headphones tonight, through its Acoustic Research divisions, the AR Dolby Digital 5.1 Compatible Surround Sound headphones (with three speakers in each cup), and the AR Noise Canceling Earbuds.
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