The MobiBLU package consisted of the Cube, headphones, protective case, USB cable, user manual, and a software installation CD.  It was interesting to note most of the accessory pieces were bigger than the MobiBLU Cube :-)

You knew we would not be able to resist comparing the MobiBLU to the first generation iPod.  Sure, the iPod has 5GB of storage to the MobiBLU's 1GB, but at about 10x the size!

The MobiBLU came partially charged so we were able to turn it on to check out the display and a few basic functions.

We won't go through the functions (FM tuner, FM recorder, MP3 player, clock, sound equalizer, etc...) in this review.  We will in the FirstUse review.  We did want to show the nice rubber coated buttons and the super bright OLED display.

Since real estate was a premium with this device, the engineers made the headphone jack do double duty as a battery charging/data port. To charge the battery or downloading songs from the computer, the user must use the supplied cable (right photo) with the special "mini-plug" size USB connector.

This MP3 player was so light weight, the designers decided the user should just wear it around the neck as part of the headphones.  They supplied a detachable clip so it can easily be secured to the cord.  The also supplied a protective rubber shell to cushion the cube and to keep the corners of the unit from jabbing the user ... a nice thought, but it didn't do much for us :-)

The headphones which came with the unit was specially designed to let things hang from the user's neck without getting all entangled.  There were two silver rings which moved up and down on the cord to keep the ear bud cables from getting twisted up with the neck cord... very nice. 

We did notice one usability problem  (no, not the tiny buttons)... the natural way for someone to pick up the device and look at it while wearing it around the neck was as in the photo on the right.  However, if you did it that way, the display would be upside down.  We bet this will be fixed in the next version :-)

Last year we had done a RainyDayGarage project showing how to hook the iPod up to the stereo of the Porsche Boxster.  We thought it would be interesting to show the MobiBLU in the same set up.  Look 'ma, no holders needed!

In the RainyDayMagazine FirstUse review, we'll report on our first impressions after using the MobiBLU DAH-1500 Cube.  We'll also compare the software user experience of downloading songs to the MobiBLU as compared to the iPod.

Five years ago, this product would have been in the realm of science fiction.  Now we believe it will become one of the hottest MP3 player to make it to market yet!

This is the MobiBLU DAH-1500i digital audio player.  The entire player is less than 1 cubic inch in size, weigh less than a couple of CDs, and will be the first serious challenger to the Apple iPod for those folks where music players often does double duty as fashion accessories.

In this review, we took a RainyDayMagazine FirstLook at the MobiBLU Cube from box to setup. 

Reviews:

1. First Look

2. First Use

3. In The Wild Report

Review Summary:

Initial Impression- Bright Display!

Usability- Buttons are just big enough

Durability- Test in progress

Price- $99 (512MB), $130 (1GB)

Buy It Now

mobiBLU 1GB 

$129.72