Gems Sty

Panasonic released a new mp3 player, SV-SD800N, with a noise-cancelling function. Panasonic’s design, especially in items like MP3 players and handphones are improving. While not breath-taking yet, their design are showing a distilled and refined look of simplicity.

And so it disappoints me to see that while this seems to be an important model in the product line (they’ve got Ayumi Hamasaki to endorse it), they have absolutely neglected the piece that speaks for this player – the noise-cancel controller. Tell me that didn’t come straight out of a stock OEM part for a light switch. Totally incompatible with the design language of the player. It is a big let-down.

Apple still packs the lesson here: the attention to every detail matters. Here’s the MagSafe power adaptor: a magnetic connection instead of a physical one, thus able to break cleanly away when someone trips over the cable – instead of dragging your MacBook Pro. As Apple claims, no detail is too minor.