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Product Reviews
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Various toys I've bought.
 DOT __________
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[Tuesday, August 13, 2002]
[Updated once more.... August 13/2002]
So after spending several hours with my new mp3 player, I feel qualified enough to give a review. There are several features I have not had a chance to try out, but initial impressions are important, so here we go. This is the only other player which can directly play mp3s in a casette deck without extra cables or add-ons. That was my primary goal; able to easily play MP3s in my car. It's amazing how light this unit really is. At a measly 2 ounces, this thing is even lighter than some casette tapes I've held. However, this lightness makes the player feel fragile. Compounded by the fact the body is pure plastic, and cheap plastic it is. it remind me of a Hyundai Accent dashboard. Not very rugged to say the least. It does come with a complimentary leather-ette carrying case though, so it looks like a necessity. You definitely should not be dropping this player a whole lot. Another thing is that because it is shaped like a casette tape, the footprint of the player is fairly large. Now, maybe we're jaded because MP3 watches do exist, but this is a small price to pay for its unique capability. One of the first thing noticed is the lack of a Power On/Off button. The player shuts down after X seconds of usage by itself. To turn it on, simply press the Play button. This is just slightly odd, but not stupid. In a minimalist kind of way, it makes sense. There are slightly more cables than I would have liked. One cable is a little LCD remote with various controls. This remote has an audio out hole, so that's where the headphones will attach to when used. However, both the USB and LCD remote attaches to the same port, therefore they cannot be used in conjunction. Switching from listening to uploading requires a quick plug/unplug. This will be a wear and tear item to watch out for. The LCD also shows which track is playing and how far the track has been played. It also shows volume level which EQ setting one is using. Incidently, there's also a little cartoon figure flapping its arm whenever the player is running. Cute, but is it sucking my precious rechargeable NiMH battery? I don't know. Lastly, the preset EQ level is also available through the LCD display. What you can do is plug the included earbuds directly to the player, thereby eliminating the LCD remote. What this obviously sacrifices is the lack of any indication as to what track you're listening to, which is OK, because the player does not read ID3 tags anyway. This may be a big deal if the player held more songs, but right now the included 64megs will hold about 1 CD, so no biggie right? Well, yes and no. In its simpliest configuration, all you need are earbuds and player; portable music will be yours. However, the preset EQ function can only be selected by the remote, and by eliminating that, you've lost this little bit feature. Is it necessary? No, I frankly couldn't tell one setting from the other. Maybe I've got bad ears, or maybe I didn't give it a fair shake. I'm sure there's got to be some difference, I just haven't noticed yet. The presets are arranged as thus: Normal Pop Jazz Classical Rock However, when you click the jog dial (included on the side of the remote) left, the EQ setting moves one to the right. This is confusing and my little pet peeve. If I click left, then go left. How hard is that?? The jog dial will also select next/previous track, which is very handy. All in all, the remote is a good control mechanism to unlocking all the features of the player. Don't leave home without it. Of course, the question on everyone's mind is: Does it work in a casette deck? Yes, it does. Very well in fact! Okay, that's not 100% true. Besides the obvious fact that the music is ultimately dependent on the quality of the actual mp3 track, don't forget we are converting digital signals for analog output. This makes most tracks sound way too bright. That is, the bass is not very boomy, while the treble is too loud. If the track hasn't been properly ripped/encoded, then this will be a big issue. If your deck has individual EQ settings, this can greatly improve the output, but on a simple car player like mine, with only bass/treble/fade/balance, some songs sounded terrible, even when I've turned the treble to -9 (which is the lowest settings allowed by my GTI). I am really suspectable to sharp noises, as it hurts my ears and gives me a headache. This one bugaboo alone may ruin my enjoyment, which really isn't the Player's fault. I'll admit the mp3 I was listening too was badly encoded to begin with, so this had a lot to do with it. On the whole, it works and sound okay. Burning mp3s back onto .wav format will still be done, when I get a good collection of music. The player will decode both MP3 and WMA. I have not had a chance to preview the WMA format, but I did get a chance to convert several MP3s into WMA. If WMA playback is very close to MP3s, this will rock. The file sizes are almost always 50% smaller. That means that my built-in 64 meg will be able to hold double of MP3. On a Celeron OC to 500, the conversion wasn't exactly the fastest thing on earth, but if it works as advertised, I'll be spending many hours converting my music collection. If .WMA are half of the size, then I can double the quality of the file, and still get a filesize same as an mp3. Awesome idea, no? All is forgiven once I stick in the earbuds and ride off on the bike. What a feeling when the bike is cranked over in a corner and good music is streaming through. Beautiful is all I can say. More than once I was bopping to the music in my helmet at a redlight, and people around must have thought of me as some strange weirdo on a bike. I turned the music way down, so it's barely perceptable. I can still hear both traffic and my songs. Wicked. Finally, this player is not for the technophobic person in your life. There is absolutely no manual or help with this player. To get the software working on the PC, you have to download the program and USB drivers from the website. Chances are however, if you buy an mp3 player, you should be smart enough to figure out the features. There aren't really that many, and the jog dial is fairly intuitive (previous idiosyncrasy mentioned notwithstanding). I guess I should also mention about the PC software. It is a quick 3 pane window application. On the left is a tree of all folders accessible. The top pane are the files in the current folder, and the bottom pane shows what music is in the player. The app also has a built in mp3 player, so you can quickly preview songs. Works just as well as Winamp in my opinion. If you can use Windows, you can upload/delete songs. Enough said. There is one final caveat. The software is written to prevent easy pirating of music. You cannot upload the mp3s from your player back to your computer. It's an annoying little hitch, nothing more. You can use the player to transport other files (like documents or whatever), as long as it is under the 64 meg limit. But if the file ext is .mp3 or .KSE, you're stink out of luck. Am I happy with the player? After reading my own thoughts, there are certainly more negative points posted than positive. As a standalone .mp3, avoid it. You can do a lot better than this, and I would not recommend it. However if you enjoy music, and want near instant access to your favorite tunes in and out of the car, this is a great little product which eliminates a lot of the hassles of portable tunes in a vehicle. All in all, this is money well spent. For $220 CDN - tax in, my bike ride feels faster, and I enjoy my driving all that much more. ....Note to self: Never listen to a song with sirens on the track. |
