[CES 2010] Abbee Radio Records Commercial-Free Music To An Included MP3 Player

By Chris Scott Barr

These days buying music and putting it on your MP3 player of choice is a pretty simple task. Unfortunately for some of the older generation, even that can seem like a daunting task. Instead they’d perhaps just prefer to listen to the radio. Well if you’re looking to bring them into the age of MP3 players without scaring them too much, here is an interesting device that I saw while roaming the floor of CES.

Myine has created a rather curious radio called the Abbee, which is essentially used to record music. At its very basics, it  is your average FM radio that your parents and grandparents have used for years. The interesting thing is the small MP3 player docked on top of the unit. When you turn on the radio and hit the record button, that MP3 player will begin recording the music played (while automatically editing out the commercials and DJ talk).

Once you’ve let the device record for a while, you can take it off and use it as an MP3 player. There is no screen on it, so unfortunately you won’t have any way to see the song that is currently playing or anything. If there is a song that you like, just hit the star button and it will be saved. Otherwise once the 500 song (approximate) limit is reached, it will begin recording over the earliest songs (first in, first out) the next time you dock it an hit record.

It really seems rather simple to use, and could be good for those that really don’t mess with computers too much. The $249 price does seem a bit steep, though I suppose you are technically going to get a lot of free music (not of the highest quality of course) so you can factor that into the price. Most tech-savvy users won’t take much of an interest, but if you have an older relative they may very well love one.

[ Myine ]