14 DAY TRIAL // Most people simply love taking everything to the extreme, from the sports they're interested in to their basic, daily activities, like listening to music. And this is exactly the market segment especially targeted by Skullcandy, a headphone manufacturer whose products can only be described as "extreme".
Like most companies at CeBIT, Skullcandy's also got a few new tricks up its sleeve, including here the DoubleAgent model, which delivers quite a high level of audio quality, as well as some interesting cool features on the side. First of all, the wireless headphones will substitute for your good, but old MP3 player you used to stash away in your trench pocket. The headphones go straight to the problem, and feature an integrated slot compatible with any standard SD card, just in case you need more storage space than the bundled 512 MB one can provide.
Transferring files has never been easier, thanks to the plug-and-lay feature of the built-in USB port. All you have to do is plug your headphones into a spare USB 2.0 port, then start the drag-drop operation for the files you wish to transfer. The device has all the features of a fully-fledged portable media player, such as basic track control options (volume, play, pause and stop commands), while unleashing the user from the much-hated tangled wires.
The headphones are powered by a built-in lithium-ion battery that recharges in the short amount of time you will be willing to take your headphones off your ears: a single hour of charging will give the user five full hours of uninterrupted play-back time. If you get nostalgic and wish put your MP3 player back to good use, you can always connect the Double Agent too it using the supplied cable, although once you take a bite of wireless freedom, you won't go back.
We've had the chance to have a little talk with Skullcandy's marketing manager for Europe, Mr. Erik Abrahamsson, who informed us that his company's products are also becoming increasingly popular across Europe, despite of the fact that America remains the main market.
Now, for a personal remark. As you can see from the photos, we've all had a bit of a "hands-on" with some of the new products from Skullcandy's booth. And, to tell you the truth, they're pretty darn impressive, both from the point of view of the audio quality and, more importantly, because they provide a sense of coolness and uniqueness few other products of this type can.
Live report by Bogdan Popa and Alex Vochin from CeBIT 2008 Hannover, Germany.
