Spring Break
Sony Rolly not worth the money, but worth a look
By: Romy Misra
Issue date: 6/18/09 Section: Features
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"Just one look and I was hooked. Few things can capture people's interest this way," said Kunihito Sawai, one of Rolly's designers.
Price:
Sony products are generally priced steeply and the Rolly is no exception. The Rolly is available at all SonyStyle stores and comes with a lofty $399 starting price tag. Any additional accessory starts at $15.
Strengths:
Gadgets are best when they are simple to understand and you don't have to read manuals to be able to use them. This tiny gadget scores in simplicity. For all the incredible features it is equipped with, it is surprisingly simple to control. The device is seamless and just has one button for playing. To move to the next song all you have to do is give the gadget a forward roll.
The Rolly is egg-shaped, and comes in black and white. It is possible to add a hint of color to the Rolly by adding the red, blue or silver arms as accessories to your Rolly purchase.
The major attraction of the player is definitely the dance moves. The Rolly has six moving parts, sideflaps and tiny wheels which move to music. On both the side flaps there are flashing lights that change between 700 colors when the Rolly moves. This device is best viewed in the dark.
"We applied a little ingenuity in how Rolly emits light. Full-color LEDs are embedded inside the shoulder," said Yujin Morisawa, one of the principal Rolly designers. "Light gently emanates from these slits when Rolly is viewed straight on. When it is viewed at an angle, light reflected from the inside of the wheel streams out. With this little trick of positioning the LEDs, it's not readily apparent how Rolly is lit."
The Rolly can be choreographed to move in different ways with the Rolly choreography software. There is an automatic and a custom mode by which this can be done. In the automatic mode, the Rolly analyzes the music being played on its own and creates its dance moves. The custom feature allows you to control the device's motion: arms, wheels, shoulders and lights.
The Rolly is portable and will fit in your palm, which makes it a great travel companion. It is quite heavy for its size. The device is equipped with high quality speakers for its size and plays a variety of mp3 formats.
The memory size of the Rolly is adequate, storing approximately 520 song, each four minutes long.
The Rolly is not one of those clumsy automated devices. It is intuitive and senses surfaces well.
Weaknesses:
The biggest weakness of the Rolly is that, even though it is so small, it doesn't come with a headphone jack. You can only listen to the Rolly out loud, so if you want to listen to your music privately, you still have to have a regular mp3 player.
As the Rolly cannot replace your personal mp3 player, it is of most use if you travel a lot. Having said so, its price does not match the function it serves. One can easily get good quality portable speakers for your mp3 players for less than $100.
Other contentions include the battery life, which is less than five hours, and the lack of a display screen.
Conclusion:
The Rolly is one of the most entertaining gadgets of the year. However, the price is a deterrent and the gadget's usefulness is doubtful, considering it doesn't come with headphones.
But on counts of originality, the Sony Rolly is definitely worth a look.
"My only concern is that people won't appreciate how entertaining Rolly is until they see it for themselves," Morisawa said. "People who have only heard about it, and even those who've seen video clips of Rolly in action online or on TV - I'm sure their jaws will drop when they see it firsthand. They'll be surprised at how enjoyable it is. I want as many people as possible to interact with Rolly themselves."
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