Digital-Audio Reviews

It's refreshing to see Palm come out with a competing product to the Sony Clie's. Lots of cool stuff for the price point. My review is more critical of the flaws of the device. It's still a good PDA, but there are some quirks. The Zire 71 is meant to compete against the Sony Clies. In the effort to get a product quickly to market, there are some rough edges.

PRO: Lots of cool toys - MP3 player, web camera, SD slot, and a great color screen. There are plenty of positive reviews, so see them for more positives.

NEG: BATTERY LIFE: Color screen, digital camera, and MP3's eats up battery life like crazy. This becomes a problem if the battery dies before you can hotsyc. MP3 FUNCTIONALITY: You'll need 1) a separate SD card - from $60 to $100 AND 2) a SD card reader for transfering files to and from the SD card. I found that a 5 meg song took about 20 minutes using the serial interface. RealPlayer, which comes with the Palm, works ok, but it's a pretty lousy player/burner. Another irritation is that you can't "lock" the PDA when playing MP3 files. DESIGN: Seems that the engineers and the designers didn't talk with each other. It's too easy to accidently turn on the Palm. The Palm cases available can catch the "joystick" or allow the hot keys to be depressed. In addition, you can accidently turn on or off the PDA when you remove or replace the stylus.

Overall, if you can live with the shortcomings, then the Zire 71 is a buy.

OK, the people that designed this baby, should be fired, or given a crash course on not getting cheap with a product of this price.

I love this little baby; mp3, buttons, video fx, pictures (fair at best,). But, I have my distaste for certain things which may sound trivial, but are important to many of us.

1-Can't Palm supply this expensive device with a quality belt carrying case? I paid 20 bucks for mine at Staples, and the button is starting to become loose. A 4 dollar product for Palm, if they decided to buy them and including them with the product. Instead, they give you this piece of crap cover, which is the most impractical case you can see.

2-The blue paint on the side, peels like a banana. What the hell is that made of?

3-The power on button is awkward, somtimes turning on when the case touches it out of random motion. Couldn't have placed it on the bottom of the unit?

Apart from the aforementioned, the unit is pretty good. But why would Palm get so cheap, and not address these petty problems which could of been rectified with some practical designers?

Next time I buy a PDA, I will do my homework, and see if the competition can offer a solution to these petty problems.

Otherwise, I'm somewhat satisfied. I hope not to encounter the battery life nightmares that some people have. Not able to replace the battery, is like spending $$$ on a car, and not being able to replace its battery. Makes you wonder if Palm wants you to replace them every year.

Disposable Palm is what the message is conveying.

I've been using handhelds/PDAs for many years, and I've been a Palm OS user for the last 3 years. When my aging Handspring Visor recently started giving me troubles, I began to casually look around for a decent upgrade. A review of the Zire 71 in MacAddict caught my eye, and a couple of days later I went and bought one. To say the least, I am very satisfied with this purchase.

The Zire 71 has a beautiful display, which is very crisp and vibrant indoors. The color is a bit washed out when outdoors in bright sunlight, but it is still quite usable. Multimedia playback works nicely on the Zire, although movies don't play quite as smoothly as I would like. The need to purchase a memory card just to store MP3s is also a bit of a bummer. But then again, the device only comes with 16MB of RAM as it is, so you'd probably end up buying a memory card at some point anyway.

The Zire 71's camera takes good pictures, and is very handy for those moments when you don't have a regular camera with you. Granted, the photos are 640x480, there's no flash, no zoom, etc. This is obviously not going to replace a dedicated digital or film camera for serious picture taking. But sometimes you spontaneously need to take a picture or two, and if you carry your handheld with you everywhere (as I do), the Zire's built in camera will no doubt prove useful.

My only real complaint about the Zire is the little navigational stick. I like the stick itself, but the fact that pressing it turns on the handheld (to display the time) is troublesome. The included case is a tight fit, and it would always press the nav stick when I was putting the Zire inside. The last thing I need to worry about is bumping the stick while the handheld is in my pocket, and thus wasting battery power. Fortunately, there is a solution: a program called "Disable Buttons" that lets you disable the physical buttons when the handheld is off. You can disable the various buttons (date book, contacts, etc) or just the navigation stick if you want. Search for it on Google or PalmGear.com (it's freeware).

To sum up: The Zire 71 is a very capable little machine. It's certainly enough to organize the contacts and data in your life, and the multimedia capabilities are a nice touch. Definitely a worthy successor to my ol' Visor. Highly recommended.

I am writing this because it was from reading the extremely helpful reviews here at Amazon that I purchased this very item. I usually buy higher end stuff, and would have preferred the pricey Panasonic, but I decided to try out this Audiovox player because of the good price and reviews. I was pleasantly surprised! The picture is fine, sound was great even through a splitter to two sets of headphones (as is fine as well through the teeny speakers) - best of all the battery is solid, lasting at LEAST 3 hours. Many people here have described the weight/bulkiness as an issue, but I had no problem in that regard. I actually like that it sits heavily on a table on its rubber base, and is less likely to slip or be bumped off.

There were no DVDs I had any problem playing provided they were clean. Letterboxed DVD's are perfectly watchable on this size of screen, and Full-Frame ones are huge on this screen as they take advantage of the full square size, rather than being squished into the middle like they are on those wide-screen models. One tip: the picture seemed best if I put all brightness, contrast and color saturation levels down to their lowest levels.

So bottom line is, while this is certainly not the highest quality electronic device you have ever seen, it definitely works, and I was impressed by it.

We absolutely LOVE this product! After researching all the portable DVD players available and comparing prices and customer reviews, we finally settled on the Audiovox DVD 1680 Portable DVD Player. We definitely made the right choice. First of all, the screen is slightly larger than average. The controls are simple and easy to understand, even for children. The picture quality is excellent- very crisp, and the sound is great; certainly loud enough for everyone in the car to hear easily. I read reviews on some other players where people had trouble with them skipping, freezing up, and/or getting very hot. We have had absolutely no problems with this player at all; it works perfectly every time. I think the best thing about this product, besides the quality of the player itself, is all the accessories that come with it; specifically the car cigarette lighter adapter, the AC-to-DC switch adapter, headphones and remote control. Shop around, not many have all these things included. The only thing we had to buy was a carrying case. Excellent product, excellent price, and happy children during lengthy travel time- you can't go wrong!

I bought this model almost 3 years ago and it is indistructable. I bought it for my husband but we ended up using it to entertain our son when we go out to eat. We have used this at least twice a week for 3 years and it performs great. It still holds a 3 hour charge. We have taken it on planes, in the car, every where and it keeps going. I'm looking to buy another one but will probably get a newer model. Hope it holds up as well.

I have purchased 3 different Archos MP3 Players and they all have 1 thing in common within a year they are broke. I like the features and the ease of handling with their product but the quality is just not there. The Studio 20 is a paperweight. The 2nd I gave away and the 3rd one Broke today. Their support is inferior and takes forever. The batteries constantly die out. Good product just bad engineering. Dont make the same mistake I did it will be a waste of money. I think I am going to get a IPOD

My Jukebox Recorder 20 is a wonderful product! I received it as a birthday gift, and it's become indispensable after just one day.

Here's a list of pros, in no particular order:
1) Works equally well with Windows 2000 (work) and Mac OSX (home).
*Note: this used to be the case, but now it only works with Windows and OS 9...not X. Don't know what happened, but Archos' tech support was not the slightest bit helpful.
2) The sound quality is great, and changing the sound settings adds a lot to the unit.
3) The drag-and-drop method is simple for anyone to use, which means...
4) Updating the firmware is a breeze.
5) Ability to record directly to the unit is a huge plus.
6) The buttons do exactly what you think they will do.
7) The storage capability: 20 gigs of music/files is great!
8) Definitely small enough to carry in a purse; I'll take mine everywhere.
9) The bundled MusicMatch software isn't a necessity for folks who'd rather use another program to create MP3s, but it is a very nice program.

The only reason I don't give the product 5 stars is because of little things:
1) The interface is not as elegant as the interface I've seen on the Apple iPod.
2) The manual is inadequate. However, the Archos website has a lot of helpful support information.
3) The headphones are not great quality, but they fold up pretty compactly (which is convenient) and you can always purchase your choice of headphones separately.

Overall, I would recommend this product to any music fan or anyone who needs to swap files from one computer to another.

I bought Archos recorder 20 with the primary intent of having a nice big HDD in a small, fast device. The MP3 side was a secondary feature (though I listen to the thing all day at work.) As a portable drive I could put in my pocket, it has saved me hours of headaches as I have to transfer hundreds of megabytes on an almost daily basis. It's very easy to use, easy to navigate and very fast. So-far it has proven to be very reliable too. The USB2 port is well worth any extra outlay for a USB2 card as the speed increase over 1.1 is amazing. I bought 2 USB2 cards, one for each (remote) machines I use so I could transfer files quickly using Windows Explorer drag and drop. Because USB2 is so much faster, your batteries last longer as the Archos sucks juice much quicker when acting as a standard USB HDD. File transfers are so quick with USB2 that it only needs to be connected for a couple of minutes.

As an MP3 player, I'm generally very happy with it. The supplied headphones are abysmal and need replacing immediately. The sound quality (when using better headphones) is very good overall. Menu navigation is easy so finding the song(s) you want to hear is a painless operation. One thing I don't like is trying to skip backwards through a song, it gets it's pants in a twist and ends up sounding like a stuck record. Going forward is fine though. There are also plenty of controls to adjust if you like tweaking, or you can just leave it as it comes. I notice little difference in sound quality between the Archos and my SB Audigy MP3 card played through my Sennheise HD580 headphones. It has copious output power and can drive even big cans very loud and clean.

I don't use playlists as I setup all my files manually in Explorer so can't say whether they work well or not. Besides, I don't really like using the supplied MusicMatch Jukebox software. I don't record mp3's straight to the Archos either so cannot comment on that function. The build quality isn't the greatest though it's perfectly functional. The casing just doesn't have that feeling of precision. I would imagine that the I-pod or whatever it's called feels much nicer... though slower and a much smaller drive for the cash. Battery life is good given the drive size and power output. Supplying two sets of batteries is a nice touch though, as is being able to using it while it's charging with the batteries in place. The USB cord is a pain as Archos opted to use an 'A-A' cord rather than the more standard 'A-B' connectors. This means that if you want a second cord, or a longer one, you'll have trouble finding one. Archos do sell cords but they are short and expensive. I still haven't tracked down anywhere that sells a 6" long A-A cord, just A-A extensions which are useless on the Archos.

In the end I wanted a big drive, good speed, good functionality and portability, the Archos Recorder 20 fitted the bill nicely. I have no regrets buying it or hesitation reccomending it as long as people are aware of the above points. I'm very happy with mine and if I had to choose over again, I think I'd still buy the recorder 20.

First, the good news: the Rio Cali has some excellent advantages over the other mp3 players I looked at. First, it's the only one rugged enough for sports (I take mine snowboarding and jogging), the yellow and black design intentionally recalling the old Sony Sportsman, I think. The arm band and belt clip give you a number of options for carrying it, and both work fine. Also, it's tiny and light and slips easily into your pocket.

The player is extremely easy to use with loads of great features. The simple joy stick; the language options; a fully adjustable graphic equalizer (a must for me); date, time, and radio options for Europe, Japan, and the US (I travel to all 3 a lot). The radio is a big selling point, with 8 presets. One surprise feature I love is an "adjustable" key guard lock: you can lock the power button and joystick, but keep the volume free for adjusting. This is just great! Add to that that the volume up/down buttons are different sizes and shape with a raised "plus" sign on the volume up, so you can feel which is which in your pocket. A lot of good thought went into the design.

The screen is big and easy to see with lots of nice information, and there're plenty of options for timing its illumination, and also a power-save auto-off feature.

The biggest selling point is its expandability: you can slip up to a 512K SD memory card in there to make room for a couple hundred more songs. Never mind that the card will cost more than the player.

The software it comes with is well organized, intuitive, and easy to use, or you can use Windows Media Player, take your pick.

Now the bad news: first, file organization is a little poor. A folder system would be nice. Instead, you get play lists (which, if you add a whole album to, the songs get alphabetized and thus out of order) or bookmarks. Bookmarks would be great, except you can't name them. You have to remember what was bookmark 1, 2, etc. Perhaps they can fix this with a firmware update (which is updatable from their website).

Lastly, and most importantly is the sound: there was a lot of "operational noise" when a song was playing - this had nothing to do with the quality of the sound file, but came from the player. The sound was also a bit flat and tinny - very disappointing. I took it back to the store and exchanged it for a new one, but had the same problem as the first. The other features made it nice enough for me to keep, but especially on quiet songs, I was annoyed. Then I tried some higher quality headphones to check if that was the problem, and indeed it was - with better headphones, the sound was crystal clear, the tones rich, and the equalizer even more effective without any tinniness.

SO. For the price it can't be beat, especially if you're using it for sports as it was intended, or for travel. But to get it up to snuff with the more expensive players out there, you're going to have to invest in better headphones for sure (good quality, say 50 bucks minimum) if you want to appreciate digital clarity in all its glory, and the SD card (another 150 for 512K) if you're lazy about swapping out songs. With the upgrade, I'm completely satisfied aside from the bookmarks/folder issue, which could conceivably be solved with software in the future. Still a delight to use straight out of the box if the little whine in the background on quiet songs doesn't bother you too much. Recommended.

PS It's been 4 months since I bought it, and I was wrong about the sound with new head phones: that back ground buzz is STILL there. Why has no one else complained about this? The sound was there on BOTH players I bought. You can really hear it when you play an MP3 with the volume all the way down. The buzzing is LOUD. So, I take it all back. The features are great, but in the end, it's the sound that counts.

I bought the Rio Cali 256 MB Sport MP3 Player for running. It doesn't skip and is extremely light. The arm band is great - keeps it place nicely.

The headphones are good, though they do not provide much in the way of adjustment and fit loosely on my ears. The headphones occasionally pop out of place in my ear, but have never fallen off (a minor annoyance that I attribute to using while running, but a tighter grip on the ear wrap would probably prevent it.)

The player is easy to use (intuitive interface) and the display is very informative. I have not been able to get decent FM reception, but the FM tuner was a bonus for me, so I don't really care that it doesn't work. Other reviews correlate FM reception to the quality of the headphones. If you care about the FM reception, you may want to read the other reviews.

Battery life is fantastic compared to CD players (it only takes one AAA).

Compared to portable CD players, MP3 players, especially this variety (large storage volume, light, long lasting and easy to use) are terrific.

I bought this mp3 player 8 months ago after becoming frustrated with an RCA model that did not work with macs (despite packaging claims). I use it about four hours everyday: 2 listening to the radio and 2 listening to music. The radio reception is great. The stopwatch is very handy. It interacts very well with iTunes (make sure you have an updated version of iTunes before you try to upload to the player). The battery life is fabulous. I have dropped it and used it in the rain. The arm band is convenient. It has been the most reliable and user-friendly mp3 player I have owned.

First, the good news: the Rio Cali has some excellent advantages over the other mp3 players I looked at. First, it's the only one rugged enough for sports (I take mine snowboarding and jogging), the yellow and black design intentionally recalling the old Sony Sportsman, I think. The arm band and belt clip give you a number of options for carrying it, and both work fine. Also, it's tiny and light and slips easily into your pocket.

The player is extremely easy to use with loads of great features. The simple joy stick; the language options; a fully adjustable graphic equalizer (a must for me); date, time, and radio options for Europe, Japan, and the US (I travel to all 3 a lot). The radio is a big selling point, with 8 presets. One surprise feature I love is an "adjustable" key guard lock: you can lock the power button and joystick, but keep the volume free for adjusting. This is just great! Add to that that the volume up/down buttons are different sizes and shape with a raised "plus" sign on the volume up, so you can feel which is which in your pocket. A lot of good thought went into the design.

The screen is big and easy to see with lots of nice information, and there're plenty of options for timing its illumination, and also a power-save auto-off feature.

The biggest selling point is its expandability: you can slip up to a 512K SD memory card in there to make room for a couple hundred more songs. Never mind that the card will cost more than the player.

The software it comes with is well organized, intuitive, and easy to use, or you can use Windows Media Player, take your pick.

Now the bad news: first, file organization is a little poor. A folder system would be nice. Instead, you get play lists (which, if you add a whole album to, the songs get alphabetized and thus out of order) or bookmarks. Bookmarks would be great, except you can't name them. You have to remember what was bookmark 1, 2, etc. Perhaps they can fix this with a firmware update (which is updatable from their website).

Lastly, and most importantly is the sound: there was a lot of "operational noise" when a song was playing - this had nothing to do with the quality of the sound file, but came from the player. The sound was also a bit flat and tinny - very disappointing. I took it back to the store and exchanged it for a new one, but had the same problem as the first. The other features made it nice enough for me to keep, but especially on quiet songs, I was annoyed. Then I tried some higher quality headphones to check if that was the problem, and indeed it was - with better headphones, the sound was crystal clear, the tones rich, and the equalizer even more effective without any tinniness.

SO. For the price it can't be beat, especially if you're using it for sports as it was intended, or for travel. But to get it up to snuff with the more expensive players out there, you're going to have to invest in better headphones for sure (good quality, say 50 bucks minimum) if you want to appreciate digital clarity in all its glory, and the SD card (another 150 for 512K) if you're lazy about swapping out songs. With the upgrade, I'm completely satisfied aside from the bookmarks/folder issue, which could conceivably be solved with software in the future. Still a delight to use straight out of the box if the little whine in the background on quiet songs doesn't bother you too much. Recommended.

PS It's been 4 months since I bought it, and I was wrong about the sound with new head phones: that back ground buzz is STILL there. Why has no one else complained about this? The sound was there on BOTH players I bought. You can really hear it when you play an MP3 with the volume all the way down. The buzzing is LOUD. So, I take it all back. The features are great, but in the end, it's the sound that counts.

I bought the Rio Cali 256 MB Sport MP3 Player for running. It doesn't skip and is extremely light. The arm band is great - keeps it place nicely.

The headphones are good, though they do not provide much in the way of adjustment and fit loosely on my ears. The headphones occasionally pop out of place in my ear, but have never fallen off (a minor annoyance that I attribute to using while running, but a tighter grip on the ear wrap would probably prevent it.)

The player is easy to use (intuitive interface) and the display is very informative. I have not been able to get decent FM reception, but the FM tuner was a bonus for me, so I don't really care that it doesn't work. Other reviews correlate FM reception to the quality of the headphones. If you care about the FM reception, you may want to read the other reviews.

Battery life is fantastic compared to CD players (it only takes one AAA).

Compared to portable CD players, MP3 players, especially this variety (large storage volume, light, long lasting and easy to use) are terrific.

I bought this mp3 player 8 months ago after becoming frustrated with an RCA model that did not work with macs (despite packaging claims). I use it about four hours everyday: 2 listening to the radio and 2 listening to music. The radio reception is great. The stopwatch is very handy. It interacts very well with iTunes (make sure you have an updated version of iTunes before you try to upload to the player). The battery life is fabulous. I have dropped it and used it in the rain. The arm band is convenient. It has been the most reliable and user-friendly mp3 player I have owned.

I have been carrying this unit on my daily 2-hour commute since buying it two weeks ago. I record programs I want to watch on the hard drive of my DVD recorder in my absence, then copy to the lyra. Saves me the cost of recording shows I don't want to keep permanently to DVD's just for portability. Wish the timer recording feature allowed selections of smaller than 1/2 hour increments, though. The video and audio quality are plenty good for me.

But... the fast-foward bug is NOT fixed. I have to reset the unit several times daily. It should have come with an attached reset accessory. Plus the leather cover has to be removed to reach the reset hole - not good planning. Also, the cover's see-through plastic over the display ripples and reflects light so it's sometimes a struggle to have a glare-free picture.

Battery life is not impressive -- under two hours for me so far.

You can't name files using the unit directly, but you can re-name in windows explorer when attached to your PC.

On-line customer support is non-existant. I've sent two inquiries -- one about buying additional accessories and the other reporting the FF bug remaining -- both replies came quickly but basically said they weren't equipped to respond.

The buttons are quirky - and if you don't push in the precise direction, you won't get the result you want.

Despite the problems, I really like this unit and will be keeping it.

Got this for my son for his teenage birthday. He wanted an ipod, but they're just so antiquated already. He loves this machine, and all the buds are clamoring over it because he can play movies, funny TV clips, all his favorite music, and show photos. It also can play stored movies and music onto a friend's TV or stereo, or do a slideshow from our camera's CF card. Also comes with a tape adapter to play your music on your car's tape player. The size is still pocket-sized and not too heavy (around 12oz.). The video screen is excellent and shows up much better than the Archos models. Comes with nice earbuds and has great sound quality. A HUGE plus is that it comes with all the accessories you need: case, USB cable, two audio/video in/out cables, self-contained battery, tape player adapter, etc. Has 20Gb memory, and if you go to the yahoogroups user site, you'll see that alot of techhies have upgraded their Lyras to 80Gb without much difficulty.

Guess what people. On April 3, 2004, RCA came out with a new firmware upgrade (Ver. 17.9) for its RD2780 A/V Jukebox. It is the best yet!!
I was really disappointed when I just bought this device and noticed all the features it had but were not available yet. Finally yesterday, I went to their website and there it was..,, the new firmware upgrade, Even though it doesn't have completely all of the features ready to use, it has a lot of stuff that I personally was dying to try and now I will!!!

Some of the enhancements are:

*Audio Graphic EQ enabled! Choose from 21 unique settings as well as a customizable 5 band graphic equalizer.

*Video Book marking enabled! Bookmark and restore up to 10 separate time-indexed locations from each movie on your Lyra™ AV.

*Smart Tagging and Playlist Creation Enabled! By using the plus and minus keys, songs, photos and videos can be tagged for creation of and adding to "playlists" for each media type.

*Video Indexing Feature Enabled! When the menu button is depressed during Video playback, a NEW video banner is presented with +/- 30 second and +/- 15-minute fast forward and fast rewind (small and large arrows).

*PAL Recording Frame rate Bug has been fixed!

So do yourselves a favor and download this last firmware version and start getting the best out of your Lyra RD2780 A/V Jukeboxes!!

This MP3 Player uses a AAA battery. This is a terrible design decision. It severely curtails play life (by 1/3 to 1/2 compared to a AA) while the batteries themselves are not significantly cheaper than AA's. I have also had a hard time finding rechargeable AAA's compared to AA's. And while it sounds trivial, it is NOT minor that AAA batteries disappear much more easily that AA batteries at almost 3x the size. I bought 4 rechargeables shortly after getting this. A month later, 2 have disappeared. Did I mention AAA batteries are not notably cheaper than AA's?<br /> Dont buy this.

I've been using the 256 meg version of the player for over a year now. Its main use for me is when I go to the health club 3 time a week to work out. It hangs from cloth band around my neck which is really convenient. I'm basically happy with it for it performs quite well for its size. However, there are a few details you should consider before to purchase it.
1.
The advertised battery life of 11 hours is a basic lie. I never got more than 6 intermittent hours on a Duracell Ultra AAA battery and since I've installed an additional 256 meg of memory (total memory=512 meg) the battery life is down to about 4 hours. Still,,, this does not bend me out of shape
2.
The software that comes with it (MPIO Manager 2.0) really lacks the control that you need. The playlist feature is next to useless so I choose to upload files directly from their folders without using a playlist.(I, therefore, am not able to reproduce the exact download for future use). Real Player does work with the FL100 on a limited basis. It only recognizes the root directory and will not see any subdirectories. This is not good if you want to pick from the middle of the list of 512 meg of music.
3.
The FL100 a little weak on power/amplification but if you consider its size you probably need to be somewhat forgiving here.
Overall I like the FL100. It serves it purpose well. If anyone knows of some better software that works with the FL100 please drop me a note.

Thanks...

I bought the DMK 128 player because when I was looking through all the options, it was the player that seemed to have the best reviews. It was also the right price and size so I didn't look much farther. Imagine my suprise when I came back later and the number of negative reviews had doubled. So, as I sat playing with my player, I felt I had better put in my two cents.

I love my MPIO. It is the perfect size for what I use it for, working out. It includes a arm band and holder which also works just fine. The head sets are nice as well, with neck band and all. For such a small package, the MPIO pumps out a amazing amount of sound, with a max of 30 and a usual setting of 10. So if you really want to bleed your ears, this can do it for you.

The battery is a AAA and it doesn't last all that long but it is long enough. Besides, if any of you are like me, you have hundreds of AAA laying around that you have never used. Plus, its an AAA so finding a good rechargable isn't immpossible.

The MPIO is simple to use almost to the point of being idiot proof. Its got one toggle switch, a start stop button and volume controls. Other than that there is a "hold" toggle amd not much more. Yet with these few controls you can easily scan through music, change play mode and Equalizer settings as well as how the display...displays. The manual is brief and to the point but not terribly amazing. You can figure out what needs to be done but not much more. Basically the controls are intuitive.

Now for some negatives. The actual putting of music into the MPIO is a little annoying. The included software is sparse without a doubt. Listening to the music you are going to download can be done but the feature is lacking somewhat. For instance, you must first download a songf into a play list before you can play it, rather then being able to play anything in the folder. Its a small thing but an annoyance all the same. I also experienced the occasional crash of the program while downloading songs. Its easy to fix but annoying all the same. There is also no "find music" option to get all your music in one place.

They say there is a flash card that can be added for more room. 128mb is about 30 songs give or take so its not as if there isn't plenty to hear. If you use songs downloaded by Windows Media Player, you can get double the number i.e. sixty songs. As for the card, I want to buy the thing but I cannot for the life of me figure out where the thing plugs in. Just another small thing.

Over all, I am very happy I bought this device. I looked around a bit and it seemed to be the best for the price. I wish I could say what other players might be better but all I can say is...this one works just fine.

Pro's
1. Easy to operate
2. Plays both MP3's and WMA's
3. Built in FM transmitter to play music through vehicle antenna
4. Plenty of storage space
5. Good sound quality through headphones
6. 20 "free" songs from Napster
7. Nice visual appeal

Cons
1. FM transmitter (not radio receiver)is too weak, sometimes the sound quality is worse than AM radio (6 foot range between car antenna and unit if you are lucky)
2. The FM transmitter is especially degraded while charging in vehicle

3. I have been unsuccessful in attempts to remove music from the unit.
4. No ability to creat playlists without hooking unit back up to computer.

Impression: I don't care for Apple products much my friends IPOD seems to work much better for my purposes

I was almost convinced to get an ipod by some friends of mine. They all say the ipod is "awesome". Well, its not, its just an overpriced storage device that some people think looks cool.

Its large and costs too much. So does the Napster player BUT, if you are going to shell out this kind of money you might as well get the S. Napster player as its sturdier, has fm, a car adaptor, voice recorder, fm recording capabilities and works with Mp3 and WMedia files instead of the iTunes format.

I got my Napster player as a gift so I am happy but I almost ended up asking for an iPod.

I would never spend this much just to listen to music. A Gateway or Samsung 256mb keyring player for around $100 is a fra smaller player and a better bet unless you are planning on using your device as your primary storage component, in which case the Samsung Napster player almost justifies the price while the Ipod is a blatant ripoff.

This Samsung Has more feature than any other MP3 Player.
I can record the music directly from any CD player without a PC. And also I can record from FM radio directly to this player. It is a excellent MP3 Player. I can play music using FM transmitter in my car. I am very pleased with this Samsung MP3 Player. Finally, you pay less, and get more feature than iPod.

Stay away from creative - far away. They only want your money. The unit itself - a creative zen 20 gb - has a few quirks but operated sufficiently. However, it did not hold up well and each time a repair was made, we were charged $100 minimum. Now, just over a year later, the headphone jack no longer makes contact. We were told "This unit is no longer supported" but we were offered a REFURBISHED unit (now, where did that come from?) for a price more expensive than a brand new 30 gb unit. I thinks its time to get an iPOD.
Consider me a disgusted, former customer of Creative. I will never buy their products again. I expect a several hundred dollar item to last longer than a year and to be supported as well.

I got this back in March when Creative themselves were running a big sale on their site. I had most of my CDs already ripped on my PC in WMA and this player supported them fine. Most people compare this to the iPod though it really it is like the Dell Jukebox just slightly cheaper (the sizes are almost identical). The iRiver could also be compared to this.

Pros
Almost half the price of the iPod of the same capacity. Sound quality much better than the iPod. Controls on the side mean you don't have to take it out to change tracks. They are not totally intuitive but when you get use to them you can navigate very fast. Battery life great (I'm getting about 14+ hours out of it.) USB2 transfer does about a track in under a second.

Cons
Only currently supports MP3 and WMA, though Real seem to have an update on their site but I have not tried it. It requires drivers installed on any machine you want to dock with. Software is not great. Although much better than previous Creative outtings it still has limitations. For example you can't have two tracks on an album with the same title. Doesn't link to WindowsMedia library correctly if you rip in WM9 (you have to import the tracks - using the watch facility doesn't get the tags). Slightly larger than the iPod. I also have a strange issue on Nomadworld where there is an autoupdate facility for the firmware. Whenever I use it my system reboots!

In all I can live with the limitations because of the huge price difference and significantly better sound quality. By the way if you register your player you get a discount on their site for a select set of their other products.

i got this for christmas. i was going to get a 10GB ipod, but after looking at the 10 DAY WARRANTY FOR IPOD AND WWW.IPODSDIRTYSECRET.COM (BATTERY LASTS 18 MONTHS ; IT costs like 200 dollars to replace - now you mail it off to get the battery replaced for like 99 ... what a big improvement ... lol) and the fact that lots of people have had problems with iPODs on windows computers, i realized this is a much better buy. Not only is it more affordable, but its a better player for windows, which is what i have. anyway, on with the review.
so far i've only had it since christmas, so i cant tell you much about the battery life. it hasnt gone below the second notch (i charge mine whenever i'm at home and not using it), so the battery life seems fine (so far).

SOFTWARE: for the people who complain about software, please, stop complaining. once you hook the thing up to the computer (via the USB cable), the machine instantly recognizes the fact that it's there & installs the drivers. from there, you transfer files from your computer to the mp3 player (with the help of the media sniffer...read the manual). my only complaint would be that you need id3 tags & that takes a while to do if your mp3 files don't have them. if you're copying CDs with windows media, its really simple to give your songs id3 tags, so thats what i do. oh...and file transfers are fast & easy.

THE PLAYER: it's silver. a little weighty (9 ounces ... no biggie), but otherwise fine. people complain about the scroll wheel, but its not a big deal at all (though it is just a LITTLE annoying at times). it's easy. the buttons are easy to use, and its easy to navigate. the big backlight makes things easy to see, and the writing is big enough for people to see. my favorite thing about the nomad is the EAX feature. you can customize bass, etc. like usual, but also you can customize the sound of the player (like how it would sound in a concert hall, jazz club, etc). its really cool. sound quality is AMAZING. i was expecting worse, but its really good (especially if your files have good sound quality). you can also slow a song down & speed it up, which is cool too. BUT THE EAR BUDS SUCK! BUY NEW ONES ASAP. every time you move your face or something they pop out. for a 250 dollar player, they could have thrown in nice headphones. a remote would have been cool too ... but lets not push it. oh... one more thing. i forgot, the case doesn't fit. my case doesnt close...maybe mine was just faulty, but the case isnt that great.

so far the player froze on me once (i started pushing buttons before it loaded) but since is hard drive based - you have to expect that. so all you do is stick a pin or something small in the reset button & you're golden.

also, you can store data on it, which is a plus. for all you people who want to buy an iPOD just to say you have an iPOD, don't bother, this is a MUCH better buy. HOPE I HELPED !

(Corrected and updated) Like most here, I had no problems with my A-120 DVD player for the first 10 or 11 months of ownership. Then I started getting consistent "NO PLAY" messages at about the 1-year mark, with occasional errors in play plus minor pixellation or noticeable minor audio glitches. I thought at first it had to to with dust or disk errors (even though I am a light renter, and take great care of the ones I own). But the player soon had to be coaxed to play almost anything I owned -- only by repeatedly opening and shutting the front tray could I get it to sometimes play a disk in spite of this. Horribly frustrating, especially for an appliance that's in flawless condition, and seems way too new to me to simply conk out after light use.

But it's dead. Now it won't play anything at all, and I'm definitely an unhappy camper. Panasonic reps were rude and basically told me to "buy another one."

Um... no. Like I told Panasonic, I think I'll just try Sony next time instead... a really disappointing experience, from a company I used to trust. Stay away from Panasonic unless you can afford to replace what doesn't work the first time.

I know how many opposing reviews there are and I know this is just another one to take in but, what I speak about the DVD-A120U is the truth. The PANASONIC DVD-A120U is a very respectable DVD player for the money it is worth. It has a lot of the features more high priced DVD players have (ex. Virtual Suround Sound, CD/VCD capability, S-Video/Component Video, DTS outputs, and Angle Selections) and it has no problem playing DVD's with superior visual effects, such as the "Matrix" and "The Rock". Unfortunately, I don't know how well the player plays DVD movies longer than 2.5 hours (I have just purchased "Salem's Lot" which is 3 hours long so, I will soon find out) but I will say that if you are planning to purchase your first DVD player, I would HIGHLY recomend this one!

P.S. If you are also shopping for a TV with your DVD-player I would Highly Recomend NOT to get an RCA or a GE Brand due to faulty soldering in both brands' tuners which causes picture distortion and visual noise.

This was my first DVD player (received as a gift in Dec '99) and is still working ok. I have never received any error messages when playing scratched DVD's (mostly rentals) - but it does show some pixellation when it encounters this - or skips to the next chapter, which can be aggrevating...Never had a problem with new DVD's. I was disappointed that I could not play CD-R, CD-RW, etc a year after I got it, but at the time, I was just elated to get a DVD player! The optical audio output has been nice (to my Harman/Kardan AVR85). The remote is pretty easy and comfortable. I have since purchased the Sony 725 (for it's flexibility - I am making more and more home movies of the kids and I want to watch my DVD creation on the big tv.

All in all, in has been a faithful performer that has run its course - or is a good player to have in the kids room, bedroom, etc..