November 7th, 2008 
admin 
Okay, Yamaha is coming out with a box that is cool in concept and terrible in application. The Yamaha BodiBeat grabs music tracks that match your workout pace. I wonder if it will make me continually ramp up my runs?
The Bodibeat is a music player with heart rate monitor. Unfortunately, it can’t run DRM songs and it only has 512MB of memory. Also, unfortunately, it’s like running with a small cinder block on your wrist. But, don’t worry, because the user interface is archaic and corny. If we had a graph of this device and say, Apple’s music products, we would probably put them at opposite poles on the cool axis. You have to pinch paddles to move up and down lists. Say what? Now it’s time to affix the heart monitor to your earlobe. Nothing says “I’m a dork” like running around with a giant sized paperclip earring. Nah, we didn’t want to do that at the wrist – where the actual player rests?! Oh, and the headphone and heart rate monitor jack is proprietary. And the headphones suck. And you can have all this suckiness for the mere price of $299. It’s not everyday you have to pay $299 for all these features. :^(
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