Someone did. Oakley, best known as a maker of athletic and performance eyewear, has mated their sunglasses with an MP3 player. Actually, Oakley's Thump line has been around for a while, but the Thump Pro, shown in Figure A, is the flagship of their electronic line.

FIGURE A


The Thump Pro from Oakley is an MP3 player built into a pair of athletic sunglasses. Roll over picture for a larger image.

How it comes
The Thump Pro, the third incarnation of their MP3 glasses, is available in three frame colors, black, crystal black, and brown smoke. And it comes in capacities of 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB.

A variety of lens colors are offered, from black to clear, in polarized, transition, and iridium (mirrored finish). In addition, Oakley makes their lenses available in your custom prescription, so there are no pesky clip-ons involved.

With the Thump Pro, there are no wires or separate modules to be concerned with; everything is built right into the frame, including the fully adjustable ear buds. Even the controls are built right into the frame. On/Off, Play/Pause, Forward, Back, Volume Up/Down, are all right at your fingertips. In Figure B, you can see where the controls are placed and how easy they are to access.

FIGURE B


Oakley has placed the Thump Pro's one-handed controls at your fingertips. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The Thump Pro even has an Overdrive feature to instantly kick in that one song that gets your engines revving.

For formats, the Thump Pro will play MP3s, of course. But it will also play AAC and WMA. It is compatible with iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, and many other media players. Although the Thump Pro works with iTunes, it will not play songs purchased from iTunes.

But then, only an iPod will play those, anyway. However, you can play songs transferred from CDs into iTunes.

With its USB connection, the Thump Pro can also be used as a portable drive.

What I think
Although I was quite excited to get my grubby mitts on the Thump Pro, I was concerned they would be a bit on the heavy side because of everything they contained. Was I ever wrong!

They are extremely light. In fact, just like the glasses I normally wear while cycling, their weight virtually disappears while being worn.

As a part of this review, I had planned to loan the Thump Pros to a marathon-runner friend of mine in order to get his opinion. His first remark was, "They're SO light!" He didn't need to test drive them, he decided to buy a pair right then. And another friend of mine commented on how good they would be for skiing.