A commonly held view about South Korean-manufactured consumer electronics is that they are cheap and boring. The newly released MPIO portable MP3 player from Daewoo does little to change this perception.
Usually, consumers who buy South Korean electronics are willing to make the trade-off of having the latest and best technology for a middle-of-the-road product at a lower price.
However, priced at $1,180, which puts this player in the middle of the range, few people will find the MPIO appealing.
For those who have been living in a cave for the past year, the MP3 player is the latest in a line of portable audio technologies that began with the venerable, 20-year-old Sony Walkman.
Much like the Walkman, the portable MP3 player has had the music industry in a legal frenzy with its potential to turn upside down the traditional pre-recorded market, such as for CDs.
Last summer, the United States recording industry tried unsuccessfully to torpedo the Rio MP300 - manufactured by Diamond Multimedia Systems - and the MP3 digital storage standard as a major source of music piracy.