Well not really. If you look as some of the reviews on Gizmodo you'll see that based on physical volume of the player it isn't quite the smallest. Some thinner disk shaped players are a little smaller.
The Mobiblu DAH-1500i is a cube shaped MP3 player that includes the following features:
-512MB ($99) or 1GB capacity
-MP3, WMA, and protected WMA compatibility (no it will not work with the subscription based services like Napster or Yahoo!, unless you buy the songs)
-OLED display
-FM Radio
-FM/Voice Recording
-Playlist on the Fly
-Upgradeable Firmware
The Mobiblu DAH-1500i is only available is the US from Walmart.com. This is OK, but left a little to be desired.
This is how it came (Without the soda can, I put that in for a size reference). As you can see Wal-Mart skimped a lot on the packing material, and the player wasn't even in the center of the box surrounded by the paper that they added presumably to prevent damage. Fortunately for me it came in perfect condition and it didn't matter. But as most know UPS is not gentle with packages and this could be an issue for some.
So here is the box it comes in. It's pretty standard, and made to look like the player itself, with that little window showing the player. Before buying it I looked at tons of pictures of it on various review sites, and I still was blown away when I saw it. The thing is really small. There are some pictures of it below next to a 40gb Ipod. But first here is what you get when you open the box.
Basically the player in its little plastic holder, and another box that contains all of the cables and accessories.
Inside the MP3 Digital Audio Box is:
So from left to right you have; the cube itself, the USB/Charging cable, the software (just used for updating firmware), a nice little rubber edge protector, the manual, and necklace style headphones. You don't need any extra software to use the player with a windows computer. You just plug it into the USB port, it shows up as a USB drive, then you can just drag and drop your files onto it.
When you open up everything you will notice that there is only one connector on the player, which serves as both the headphone port and also the USB/Charging port. This helps keep the size down as there is only one connector on the entire unit.
I'm not going to go into much about the actual functions of the player, but one caveat is the controls. I think they are fine and have had no problems with them, but I can imagine some users having trouble.
The controls are located on the sides of the player. With a configuration similar to the Ipod shuffle on one side, (play button in the center with up and down changing volume and side to side changing tracks) and the menu and hold buttons on the other side. You can also see the little rubber protector in these photos. These controls are intuitive and easy to use, if you are only using them a little. I am using this player mostly as a "press play and go" player, meaning that I start it playing and just leave it alone. If you are going to be changing tracks a lot or anything that would require lots of manipulations of the controls you may get frustrated. There are also some press and hold combinations that you need to get to all of the menus, but they are explained in the manual and easy to learn.
One thing that sets the Mobiblu DAH-1500i apart from its competitors is the screen. The OLED screen is blue and is surprisingly readable. Track names scroll across and a pretty good pace making reading the names and also finding the song you want fairly easy.
Another feature that sets it apart is the ability to listen to and record FM radio. Many gyms broadcast TV sound over FM radio, so with the Mobiblu you can tune into these stations without any additional (and possibly ancient) radios.
Setting it to FM record mode allows you to record to MP3 from the radio. It also has a little microphone so you can record voice to MP3 as well.
Conclusion:
In my opinion this little player (with a little help) is the perfect gym companion. It is so small that while running on the treadmill I had to keep checking if it was still there. I say with a little help because the necklace style headphones didn't work out that well. They placed the player right on my chest which tends to be one of the sweatiest places, and also being made of a kind of rope they tended to soak up sweat. So what I did was attach it to my waist and use another regular set of ear buds and it was perfect.
