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Dell Ditty to Take On iPod Shuffle

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

September 20, 2005, 4:25 PM

Dell DJ DittyDell on Tuesday debuted the "Ditty" - its answer to the iPod Shuffle which the company hopes will prove more successful than previous incarnations of its DJ music players. At $99 USD for 512MB, the Ditty is aimed at taking away some of Apple's Shuffle market share this holiday season.

The Ditty has two features that the Shuffle has been often criticized for not including: an FM tuner and small monochrome screen. The device is also "PlaysForSure" compatible, meaning the user can download music from any Windows Media based subscription music service.

Dell said that considerable time was spent creating a more fashionable design, but the end result looks strikingly similar to the Shuffle's "pack of gum" appearance and smoothed edges. Previous portable music players from Dell were criticized for their bulky appearance.

According to Dell, the Ditty will be able to hold approximately 220 songs at 64kpbs WMA; however, users will see approximately half that as most songs are encoded at twice that bit rate. In comparison, Apple offers both 512MB and 1GB versions of the iPod Shuffle.

"With every new generation of Dell personal technology products, we continue to increase value for customers by adding innovative and relevant features at attractive prices," said Michael Farello, vice president of electronics and accessories for Dell's consumer business.

Dell also announced updates to its printers, adding faster operation and wireless connectivity, and changes to its PDA line with devices now shipping with Windows Mobile 5.0.

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By UTAKER

posted Sep 21, 2005 - 4:15 PM

that does not change my mind on buying this, i will still go for ipod no matter what (yes even for the extra money)
mpeg-4 audio/mpeg 1 layer 3 audio are prolly what i need to play and i think ipod is the best

Score: 0

By sartori

posted Sep 21, 2005 - 6:07 AM

Two things that are important to me - capacity and sound quality. For me, at least 2GB in capacity to hold a reasonable amount of songs you don't have to worry about changing all the time for convenience. Sound quality, no idea, no way of telling but 220 songs at 64kbps, you have to be joking. I wouldn't dream of using that quality. The nano is around the best around at the moment imho because of quality/capacity at reasonable price considering the storage format used. Just my 2 cents.

Score: 0

By Velocition

posted Sep 21, 2005 - 12:55 AM

"According to Dell, the Ditty will be able to hold approximately 220 songs at 64kpbs WMA"

One word: Pathetic.

Score: 0

By itanshi

posted Sep 21, 2005 - 8:44 AM

i dunno, i don't need more than 100 for average use and since most of my songs are from y cds, the compression should alow a few extra to be added hmm. I'll wait for 2.0 though

Score: 0

By xoineg

edited Sep 20, 2005 - 5:34 PM

ewww. Note to DELL: you are not Apple!!!
Get an iPod Shuffle or Nano :P

Score: 0

By school1012

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 5:51 PM

The Nano is interesting, but the price of the product is still too high. Why do I want to get stuck with a dictatorship like Apple, when I buy a plays for sure product (40G MP3 player goes for $250 ver apple 40G for $399) and can buy songs from other groups too.

Score: 0

By xoineg

posted Sep 21, 2005 - 12:02 PM

Well, when you buy an ipod you are paying for a product that is not only great looking but easy to use. Apple is known for making products that work unlike other competitors that decide to go the cheap route. If you want quality and design go the apple way. The others that make cheap stuff are just after those people that won’t pay extra for the quality or are just plain cheap. :P

Score: 0

By luvwknd

edited Nov 25, 2005 - 12:32 PM

"Apple is known for making products that work unlike other competitors that decide to go the cheap route".
Computing Market share:
Apple/Mac=8%
PC's 90+%
Now whose known for what?
You think Apple would have learned from IBM and what proprietary-ness did to their PC market share, but nooooooo.....!!!!
Anything proprietary SUCKS! This includes Apple/Mac/iPod/iTunes!
nuff said,

Score: 0

By ptksr

edited Sep 20, 2005 - 9:39 PM

reasons for the nano over a regular hard drive player:

It's not hard drive based. Simple enough. Working/exercising I don't want to be concerned that I could smack it and mess up the hard drive. Not truly sure what stresses HD based players can work under, but atleast that's off my mind.

Oh yea, and I put everysong I have, that I listen to even once in a while, on my nano. Still have 1gb free. Everysong I have, and it fits into my pocket. Worth $250. Doubt I would go iPod with a HD player though.

And compare flash drive prices to nano capacity/price. Not hard drives.

just my opition

Score: 0

By school1012

posted Sep 21, 2005 - 6:35 PM

I agree that the nano is going to be a big seller, and that it is interesting. I just don't like the fact that apple tries to talk all might but in reality they are locking you into a product and service that you can't switch away from (without dumbing everything)

Score: 0

By capandjudy

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 5:06 PM

It is a safe bet that like Dell's other players this is made by Creative.

Score: 0

By heat_fan1

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 5:05 PM

Ok, so it's not quite as sleek as the Shuffle, but it does have more features! A 1GB version would definitely be nice, though.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 5:01 PM

Buy.com has a 512M sandisk player, for 50% of this ditty's cost, including shipping, if you have a visa card and are a new buy.com customer.. Takes the same formats and uses pretty much same interface (WMP)

Score: 0

By Maestr0

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 7:05 PM

I have a sandisk player and huge disadvantage is that it will play protected WMA's that you purchase, but it will NOT play subscription services like Yahoo Music Unlimited. I know the label says PLAYS FOR SURE, but it is split in 2 categories, Downloads and Subscriptions.

Anyways, I thinkt he Dell is ugly, but it does play the subscriptions.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 4:56 PM

uh, so the full name of the product is the

Dell Disc Jockey Ditty?

Are they mad?

Score: 0

By bigsexy022870

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 4:42 PM

I love dell but this thing is ugly. They really need to get a new product desinger.

Score: 0

By funcheung

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 4:37 PM

itz UGLY

Score: 0

By GeorgeSantayana

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 4:24 PM

It was originally the P. Ditty, but they removed the "P" because it was getting between the device and its users.

Score: 0

By Colour

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 4:39 PM

Haha. That made my day. Thank you.

Now I'm going to think of that everytime I see that MP3 player.

Score: 0

By DiGiTaLFX

posted Sep 20, 2005 - 4:21 PM

I'd rather a MuVo tbh...

Score: 0

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