14 DAY TRIAL // Thomson unveils its latest creation: the Black Diamond digital player. Even though the name suggests a polished gem, the player isn't so, at all.
It is true it comes in a sleek, black body, completed with an ultra sensitive keyboard which offers the user easier navigation through the menu, a real plus for the player. In fact the player's design resembles a lot with the one of the F3 mobile cell phone from Motorola. Anyway, it sports a 262K color display, generous enough to reveal all the included icons.
The Black Diamond can deal with MP3, WMA, JPEG, WMV and MP4 file format. The 8Gb hard drive allows you to store all your favorite music in the player, meaning you can keep up to 4000 songs, approximately 272 hours of continuous music session.
Regarding the first impression, "la piece de resistance" is definitely the 1.8 inch full color OLED screen, quite rare among the other Thomson gems and the tactile controls, so smooth and silent, though kind of slow in performance.
The rechargeable Lithium Ion battery allows you to listen up to 15 hours of non-stop music, not bad at all! The player weighs only 57 grams, as it features dimensions of 47 x 90 x 12mm, so it can be placed in any bag and you can even wear it on a silver chain.
The Black Diamond can easily display photos, while playing your favorite music, so be sure you can use it to show off in front of your friends. The player manages Mp3 Podcast and Web audio formats and comes compatible with all secure downloadable music formats available today on the market. Moreover, while you enjoy the music, the player displays some useful information regarding it, such as the song/album title, artist's name and more, using the integrated ID3 tag option.
Listening to U2 has never been such a personal surreal experience, than with the in-ear silicon headphones. They are also included in the $300.
All in all, the Black Diamond is not at all so funny and mysterious as I expected. So, I guess marketing didn't work for me!