Sound And Vision

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If you're the rock-'n'-roll type that lives in dark sunglasses, you'll probably hail the Oakley Thump 2 (oakley.com) as the best thing since blue jeans. Weighing just 60g, the Thump 2 is a pair of shades with a difference: it features a built-in MP3 player with enough capacity for about 240 songs.

Style-wise, the latest Thump is a sleeker version of its predecessor: it takes inspiration from Oakley's Gascan range of sunglasses, and features a graphics-free, black iridium finish that will look as good on the street as it does on the ski slope or the beach. Another improvement is the way the tiny, dual-joint speakers can be made to pivot in six directions instead of two, allowing the wearer to position them at almost any angle. Operationally, the Thump 2 is a breeze, coming with a USB cable that lets you plug it into your laptop, PC or Mac, and upload songs in WMA, WAV or iTunes formats as well as regular MP3.

It can also store data files, which leads one to the tantalizing possibility of turning up to a meeting, taking off a pair of shades and uploading a presentation from them. Now that's rock-'n'-roll.