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Ready for this? Yes, it's another feline invasion of the lipless kind, this time in the shape of pink and white X-mini Hello Kitty Capsule Speakers. Given that the cat's incapable of articulating anything, this makes for an odd pairing.

Still, Singapore vendor XMI, which dropped by CNET Asia's labs to surprise us with this Kitty outing, believes this to be a sound investment. Its CEO, Ryan Lee, hopes to snag the other half of a demographic that has been predominantly male.

Will the female set see this Hello Kitty mini boombox as a must-have accessory in … Read more

Five months after the X-mini Max II and MP3-playing X-mini Happy were announced, they're finally ready to ship globally come mid next month. According to Singapore company XM-I, both speakers have had their drivers fine-tuned for better sound playback. Certainly, when we got a demo of the tweaked Max II, it was a blast.

Generation two of the X-mini Max will retail for $59. In addition to the white prototype we saw in April, there will now be two additional color choices: black and red. The volume dial now sits on the cable.

For X-mini fans concerned about the … Read more

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Well, the guys behind the red-dot-winning X-mini capsule speakers are taking a design leap of faith with the X-mini Max II. Instead of the grenade appearance of the Max, the next-gen stereo speakers have taken on a "Star Wars" drone look with cone heads. While we're told the material and colors may be different come the May global launch, the Max II's exposed and angled tops are intended to "open out" the speakers for more focused sounds.

The pumped-up girth also ensures more space for a bigger driver. If we thought the Max was already bombastic enough to wake up a few banshees, CEO Ryan Lee says the Max II will "nearly double" the sonic prowess of the original. That doesn't yet factor in the buddy-jack system where the user can daisy-chain as many X-mini units as he likes to crank up the decibels.

Other than the design makeover, the Max II retains the cool magnetic base design of the former to hold both speakers together, which kind of gives this resculpted X-mini a rather Sony Rolly look. The accordian vacuum bass also remains, to give the Max II its boom. What we did notice missing was the volume dial, with control now relegated to the player that the speakers are hooked up to. … Read more

It's a mark of achievement when competitors start making clones of your product. Apple's one such trendsetter, and XM-I may be another. Though definitely not in the big boys league, the Singapore-based company has blown us away over the years with its "little speakers, mighty sounds" innovative spunk. Having scored a red-dot winner with its first X-mini outing, and following this up with the X-mini Max stereo and its clever magnetic hamburger halves, it's now continuing the momentum with the X-mini II.

At first glance, generation two is incrementally larger than its pocket-size predecessor at about 2.9 ounces, though the audio boost is also markedly enhanced, thanks to a larger 40mm driver. When we tried both out on a laptop, the ramp-up in sonics was clearly audible. However, heavy beats and the larger driver caused the X-mini II to play hopscotch across the table, unlike the X-mini, though this is a minor gripe.

But what's a lot more interesting is the new buddy jack with a built-in 3.5mm audio cable that's designed to tuck away neatly into the base. XM-I CEO Ryan Lee told CNET Asia that the new feature is more modular, letting users form an almost endless daisy chain of their X-mini IIs for more volume. It's frightfully loud, all right.

In a demo where they rigged up seven speakers, it got so deafening in the Lab that our senior editor almost cried mama. We did note that linking two together will still give you mono sounds, though the bass-enhanced impact of several booming speakers made the difference moot. … Read more

You've got to give it to the XM-I guys.

Barely three weeks after we reviewed the prototype, the Singapore-based team went back to the drawing board, made a few crucial tweaks, and will now roll out an improved version. The commercial launch may have been pushed forward from March to the end of April (we're told April 28 for Singapore, and the U.K., Australia, and Ireland after that, but no firm dates for the rest of Asia yet). But that's a good thing since we like the fine-tuned version much better.

Improvements now include a thicker, … Read more

The folks at Singapore's XM-I are a very busy team. Besides readying a stereo edition of their current best-selling (mono) X-mini Capsule Speaker, they've disclosed to Crave Asia that they are working on a next-gen iteration that will go wireless too.

Whether the new speaker will operate through Bluetooth or radio frequencies is still a question mark, which is a key point for sound quality. But it's at least something for X-mini fans to look forward to, particularly those who'd like nothing better than to get rid of their cables. Not to mention that they can … Read more

After some frighteningly ugly false starts, it's a relief to see that electronics manufacturers are starting to come up with plug-in speakers that don't look like laboratory mistakes. The latest success, at least from an aesthetic perspective, tries to mimic the acoustic principles of full-blown speakers on a diminutive scale.

Like the "PodXtreme" featured awhile back, the "X-Mini Pocket Accordion" from XMI literally compresses a built-in bass into a Lilliputian form that Mobile Magazine describes as a little bigger than a golf ball. But unlike its predecessor, the X-Mini actually looks like a finished … Read more