Digital-Audio Reviews

For another $50 you can get a mini-iPod. Don't waste your money on this for an mp3 player. It's butt-UGLY, software sucks and it's got the cheapest case. There is no style to it, and you could do a lot better for just a little more money with an Apple mini iPod where you can download your music off the iTunes store, and look cool to boot.

The look and feel of this product next to the iPod is just not even comparable, let alone the packaging and the black cable madness you have to deal with when you get the product out of the undestructible plastic case. The tiny lcd screen that you can hardly read what song you are playing is awful. The buttons to control the thing suck.

Do what I did and harvest the hard drive and use it in a good digital camera (like a Canon 10D, or 1D) and be done with it.

5***'s for the Hitachi removable compact flash drive though. Works great!

The four stars are strictly for the following:
-4Gb hard drive, which alone is a $300 item in bulk;
-WMA and MP3 playback;
-nice LCD interface;
-USB 2.0 speeds for really fast xfer rates;
-instantaneous recognition by WinXP/2k machines.

Those features above make this an outstanding player, and should make this a 5-star item. However:
-the enclosed headphones are earbuds, I don't like 'em;
-it isn't armored enough for decent shock-resistance (would like to see it rubber-skinned like its cousin the Rio Cali);
-no belt-loop holster or anything like an armband, so exercising with it might be a little challenging;
-FM headphone function is extra (boo!);
-controls are dexterity-building exercises in themselves.

This thing has an LCD screen, so why not use a thumb-wheel with pushbutton ability to handle on/off and playback? Granted, it has a four-way pad and a separate button which should be sufficient, but my banana-sized fingers keep jumping selections to "Menu" instead of scrolling left or right through the playlist.

Here's why this is so critical: this player can hold 500-1000 songs, depending on how dense the encoding is. Navigating through a straight list of 500 or 1000 songs takes awhile. Folders become paramount to organizing songs or artists, just so you can find something you like inside of a minute.

But does it play well? Does it do what it should? Oh yes, most definitely. And having a Li-On battery in it that recharges off the USB port is *exactly* what every player should have (if it used my Nokia 3650's battery I'd have given it the fifth star for the serendipitous convergence).

"Would I buy it again?" Sure, if I could find another one.
"Is it better than the Rio Cali?"

Hmmm... the Cali is definitely nice, armored with an armband I really like, better UI (LCD presents info much faster, is square and shows more at a glance), has FM built-in. But 4Gb makes up a lot of ground on 256Mb, even 768Mb if you pony up some cash for a 512Mb SD Card. Nah, the Muvo2 isn't perfect, but it's capacious, and sometimes that's more important.

Fred

Looks like this ended up being a verion 2 unit... too bad, very nice MP3 player though, but not the "original". For my purposes did not matter though. Great player!

i bought this one two weeks ago and returned it after 3
days. i noticed that its battery life is not very good.
further you need to send it to toshiba for a replacement
battery after 1-2 year of use (i called toshiba service).
it still does not fit in a pocket well....
fortunately, during that period, ipaq 1935 came out
at the same price after rebate.

1935 has everything e355 has except that
it uses a slower processor, but i dont use it for
intensive computing. it is a lot smaller. it is battery life
is quite good....very happy to swtich to 1935

I recently purchased this PPc. It was the first one I had purchased and found it very easy to use. I used it mostly for taking notes, and keep an organized schedule after I purchased the Targus Universal Keyboard, which works very well with the e355. I was impressed with the battery life on medium settings which gave about 3-4 hours of battery life.

Hopefully this review will give a student a little insight into this "student" view of this.

I am a high school teacher. I wanted something to take notes on and to remind me when homework was due. I searched far and wide reading review after review. I got alot more than that with the e355. I have been using it for about 3.5 months now.
I'll just list the Pros and Cons becasue i could go on all day!

Pros:
1. Great speed.
2. Works right out of the box.
3. Excellent battery life (3.5 to 4hrs continuous running)
4. Crisp display. (especially for video playback)
5. Smooth buttons that feel pretty nice on your fingers.
6. Good price for the quality you get
7. The speakers on this player play audio in the best way i have heard for a small speaker unit. You would not believe that a pda could do so well with sound. It plays my mp3s, wma, anything and don't forget the videos.
8. It has a SD card slot so you can expand the memory at any time. the SD card slot has a dummy card that protects it from being damaged by dust or other particles.
9. Quick charge time. Good size storage built in, 64mb.
10. Windows Mobile 2003 is much much much more stable than its predeccessor.
11. It's much much much thinner than many other pda's i have reviewed.
12. It's much more resiliant to 'falls to the floor' than the Dell or Ipaqs for example. I'm a teacher. I can guarantee you...running around the class will lead to a fall on the ground. It has a metallic covering. (no shaking inside!)

Cons.
1. Sometimes if you use up close to 90% of the memory, it stalls.
2. The 'record audio' button is placed near the top so sometimes taking it out you may mistakedly begin recording. (this can be disabled though so it is not really a con)
3. It does not include the ability to 'go wireless' for internet. You can still access the internet though but you need to be connected to your computer. I did not need wireless internet just yet. When it does become ubiquitous...maybe then i'll go for something else.
4. The battery is not removeable. By the time this actually becomes a problem I'll be getting a new pda..about 2 to 3 years from now.

THis is an excellent PDA is you do not need wireless internet access right away.
I would recommend it with all authority people out there.

I am a former owner of the original T|T. After a little over a year of T|T use, the power button became much less responsive. After several calls to PalmOne's customer service and speaking to several nice Indian folks (Note: PalmOne customer service is obviously outsourced overseas), I was told that it would be $125 to have the unit repaired. This was too much to invest in old hardware. I enjoyed the small form factor of that device so much, I decided to buy a T2 (depite PalmOne's abysmal customer service).

The appeal of the screen has been mentioned several times. I would agree tremendously! I thought the original screen was pretty good. However, the 320x320 display on this unit makes the original T|T look like someone put window tint on it. I also enjoyed the extra internal memory. The subtle changes with the Palm OS were nice too: like hitting the 5 way button to the right when in your address book to look a name up and the color themes.

One aspect that I just could not bring myselft to do was to adopt Graffiti 2. I have used the original Graffiti for so long that using anything else is heresy. For those that are like me, simply grab your old handheld with Graffiti 1 and get a file manager program. Search the ROM for the following two files: Graffiti Library.prc, and Graffiti Library_enUS.prc. Now beam them to your new handheld. Do a Soft Reset on your new handheld and PRESTO, you now have Graffiti 1 again.

If I had any advice, it would be to buy PalmOne products with a credit card that doubles the manufacture's warranty because their customer service is terrible and they will deny warranty service if your handheld is 1yr and 1day old.

Having owned the original Tungsten T for just over a month, I have to say that the original is a great Palm device. Compact, quick and very useful. The Tungsten T2 primarily refines the great features already present on the original T.

So why buy? Why upgrade? If you are a casual user of a Palm that primarily uses the device for occassional reference, stick with the original T. There is some great pricing available right now. But if you use your Palm frequently, the screen and additional memory are worth the upgrade.

The original screen is fine, and until I compared the two devices side by side, I was completely content with it, but a transflective screen is a lot easier to look at for quick glances or extended work sessions. It requires less time to focus on the information you need and while it is completely subjective, I find that has value for me.

If you like to read, ebooks on this device are absolutely incredible, and totally accessible while the device is in closed position.

The additional memory means you won't have to spend any valuable time trying to shoehorn even more programs into the 16mb memory space. 16 megs is plenty, but 32 megs is better.

There are more refinements, all the Tungsten patches are now incorporated into the OS upgrade, the graffiti input has been upgraded to Graffiti 2, which should be easier for new users. But there are text input utilities to customize character recognition anyway you want.

Hunt for a good bargain and jump in. An additional Tungsten model (the T3) will be available before Christmas with some nice specs reported, but when a Palm is this good, there is no compelling reason to wait. This device will still have a good resale value if you can't resist the new model. Something that can't be said for the original T with it's reflective screen.

My 1 month old orignal Tungsten T? My co-worker was still using a M100, I don't think he'll be disappointed with the replacement.

Somebody's got to test these new units.

I absolubtely love my Tungsten T2. I've had no problems and, unlike a reviewer below, I've never had a 'fatal error' or had to do a hard restart and lose any data. I'v also never run out of batteries or had any other sort annoyance. This is just an all around great palm, and makes life a heck of a lot more organized. Two great uses: 1. I cook a lot and when I find a recipe I want to ty online, I just immediately type in the ingredients onto my desktop software's to do list, do a hotsync, and go to the grocery store w/ everything on a neat checklist. 2. I also travel a lot. When I am preparing for a trip, I can search for restaurant reviews, store locations, museum exhibit details, and then just copy them and paste them onto my memo pad on my desktop software, hotsync, and then I have full articles and reviews at my fingertips. Those are some awesome bonuses to an already highly useful little device.

I purchased the mc3 as a Christmas present for my 12 year old daughter. It didn't take her long to get the hang of taking pictures or video and she had a lot of fun doing so. Downloading them to our PC (uses Windows XP) was pretty easy. But I do have a few complaints so far. The first is that the mc3 is now shutting itself off even though it says the batteries are OK. A change of batteries may remedy this. The biggest complaint is that we cannot download mp3 files to the mc3. The users guide is really poor with regard to this. And the fact that it is on CD makes it hard to flip back & forth. Kodak's website says to look at the users guide (big help!) The guide says to use Real Jukebox(included) to download but Real Jukebox doesn't offer the mc3 as a storage device. Very frustrating!! Somebody more familiar with mp3's may know what to do but the mc3 is supposed to be a toy, not a job. My last complaint makes me wonder how much thought went into the design and did Kodak even try it out. You cannot close the flash card door - it causes the card to pop out of the connector!! 9/25/02 Just found out from a friend that you need to push the lever up to get it out of the way so you can close the door. He found out by accident. How hard would it have been for Kodak to let me know? BTW, anyone else notice how badly AMC has gone downhill lately?

The emphasis here is that the MC3 is a toy - it's a lot of fun to play with, but it's not the sort of tool to use if you're planning on doing any serious publishing (online or on paper) or video work.

That said, this camera is fine for taking lots of fair quality VGA-resolution photos for e-mailing or sticking on your webpage (for what it's worth, the photo quality is notably better than other bottom-of-the-line dedicated digital cameras). The quality of the videos is at least comparable (if not slightly better) than the first generation Sony Cybershot cameras, although the MC3 doesn't limit the length of the video clips to 15 seconds like the Sony (a definite plus). The MP3 player component seems to handle various CBR-encoded MP3 files (I've tried 64, 128, 160, and 192Kbps with success), although it doesn't seem to support WMA. Finally, the USB cable allows for surprisingly fast file transfer, slightly slower than a dedicated card reader.

For $200 (which is how much this camera costs if you supply your own CF card), the MC3 is a fine gadget. If you want a good digital camera, video camera, or digital music player, you'll probably have to resort to getting three separate devices.

I have had this for over 2 years now and I still love it. The camera part is great fun, though low resolution is noticable in prints, prints look good. I upgraded to a 128 mb card which holds about 1.5 hours of music or 900 photos or 45 minutes of video. The best thing about this is it's TOUGH. I have dropped it numerous times, it has gone flying off of my desk. Sometimes the card pops out and the batteries always scatter, but it is always fine. It works just like the day I got it. Although there is one thing that I did not like. When Realplayer updated Jukebox, they did not upgrade the drivers for MC3. I eventually was not able to transfer files to the unit, so I bought a CF card reader. It works amazingly fast and lets me transfer my files through Windows Media Player. It now works like a charm, I would recommend this for anyone who uses Windows XP. If you can get a card reader, don't install the included software!

I thought that this is a great MP3 player. I went to a media store, knowing that it was small, but when I first saw it, it amazed me. It was really tiny. Once I got home, I downloaded the software onto my computer, and started downloading songs on it. It has worked great ever since. The batteries last long, up to 15 hours. The software was easy to use. The only problems I had with it were that it didn't have very much memory, I couldn't pause, and some of the songs would't go onto it. I wish it either had more memory, or it had an expansion slot. When I stopped it, it turned off unlike a CD player. The worst problem was trying to download some of the songs. When I tried from My Computer, the songs wouldn't play. I found that I could use Windows Media Player. The songs played and most of the songs took up less memory than they should have. I would recomend this MP3 player to anyone who wants something small and easy.

I bought this item used, and it didn't include the software... so the first thing I did was download the software free from the samsung website, which is way better than what comes in the box (my roommate has the same model). The headphones that came with it aren't good, but I have some cool back-band headphones from philips. A really cool thing is that this player can play variable bit rate MP3s, so I've got 28 full songs on my 64MB model, and it sounds the same as 96K mp3s. Battery life is good on alkalines, alright on the NiMHs that I use with my PDA. Oh yeah, it is very customizable, Samsung has a program you can download to make your own (even animated) logo to replace the YEPP logo that shows when you turn it on. Also it has a feature that is a necessity for me, Shuffle play, I can't stand hearing music in order, and it also can show the time remaining on songs, which is pretty cool. So the player is about as customizable (if not more so) than a full-size music player. Incredibly light (1-2 Oz.) and a little larger than a Zippo lighter. Which is pretty amazing!

This little thing is truly amazing ! As I read through all the reviews of users having problems, I can not help but wonder, if they might lack a bit of technical expertise. First of all, I have used this player on both, a Mac and a PC and if you handle the unit as you should any USB device, there are no hang-ups or any other technical issues. Never just disconnect a USB device from your PC or Mac or you are just asking for trouble (and that has nothing to do with the Yepp). Samsung has released a software addition for iTunes and if you are using a Mac, this unit fully integrates into this application and makes managing your mp3s on the Yepp a breeze ! The sound quality is outstanding and the unit is so small and light, it is no problem taking it with you anywhere you want to go. The perfect little companion if you are a runner or if you just want to take some of your music with you.

The DM-1 appears to be a high quality device. The recording and playback sound quality is acceptable with internal speaker and mike.
The playback quality in the Music mode with WOW is better than expected.
However, for dictation, the basic ability to rewind and "edit" a voice file after it is recorded is missing. That is a serious limitation for using this for dictation.
Also the Music Match Jukebox software necessary to load Music files is limited unless one pays another $20 to upgrade. The limitations are bad enough, but the constant nagging messages about upgrading are disruptive and offensive. Also transfer of files to the device is very slow using the Music Match Software.
Also of note, drivers for Windows Media Player are not available.
The best way to transfer files between the DM-1 and PC is to use a card reader. That is much faster.
The concept of a voice recorder with MP3 capability and removable media is great but the missing voice file edit capability and crippled Music software are disappointing and very limiting. I expected more at this price.

Please read the other 2 star reviews before buying! I didn't and... I wish I could have my money back.

The product is just average. Hardly deserving the Olympus brand.
As a recorder it... records! No editing, no inserting, if you want to see the date/hour data you have to go to the begining of the recording and be fast as the info will vanish in a split second.

Also, if you rewind when listening at low volume, the volume will decrease! There are small software bugs like these, not serious but annoying. The bateries will run out much faster than expected (sometimes only 3 to 4 hours use if you happen to leave them in the recorder for a month). The buttons are cool but seem fragile: you'll never be confident while pushing.

MP3 player: since I'm not a expert on computers, I had to ask for especialized help to have the mp3 player to work: it needed a specific Olympus program put inside the DM-1 card. I don't find this a problem: what is a problem is the fact that nowhere in the instructions such requirement was mentioned. Playing games, are we?

The sound? Not all that pleasant, noisy and sometimes "metalic".

I always relied on Olympus for my dictation/recording needs but this product is a non buy. There is better at half the price (at least).

Okay. Here is a write up, that I did, on the comparisons/contrasts on MP3 players. Mainly, the Harddrive versions (I.E. Rio Riot/Apple IPOD -both of which I own) and the flash memory type... (I.E. Memorex 3642 Mp3 Player, of which I own as well).
What prompted this little jaunt (of which you may send to as many people as you like) My (expensive) Apple IPOD died during a sync last month. Just me copying files over to it, and the battery ran out of juice. I would have not attempted to copy music had I known the battery was low, but the battery read FULL STRENGTH. Anyhoo, I called Apple, they said return it for maintenance.
I did. Sent it back.
They returned it, still broke.

To my suprise, there is only a TEN DAY return policy.

TEN DAYS.

I did not realize this at all... and will not ever buy another apple product.

So, after a month or so of messing around trying to find another MP3 player... I decided to go with a flash memory MP3 player, the ones that use memory sticks.

SO, here are the pro and cons of these devices.

Pro's for the Memory Stick Mp3 players

-Cheaper. WAY CHEAPER than Hard drive types.

-If you go into music match and file convert to MP3 Pro and shrink the size of your MP3 to like, say 3o percent... you can really make a good Kompression. Example. My Memorex MP3 player has 32mbs of memory on board. It is expandable to 256mb. 32 mb will basically let you put one cd's worth of music. It is easy to put music on and off of them, due to your computer reading the USB as just another hard drive, so you drag and drop to put on, delete them to take them off. But, after you shrink your files to MP3 Pro 30 percent, you can put twice as many. So, basically a 256mb chip will allow me to put 208 songs on my little less than palm size MP3 player. And it wieghs like 3 ounces.

- More on memory. These little chips are the size of the upper part of your thumb, at least my thumb anyway. They come in 128mb, 256mb, 512mb and even though there aren't any MP3 machines out there to handle them YET, you can even buy a 1.5gig thumb size chip thingy. Considering the size of the chips and the shrinking kompression I told you about earlier, I could shrink my whole KOLLEKTION down to 10 of those 1.5gig chips. At the current shrink rate I am at 5 DVD's, which are way bigger and more fragile than these little chips.

- Not as fragile as hard drive type. You can drop one of these chips and not scratch it. I wouldn't stomp on one with my foot, nor get one in water, but they are encased in plastic. Ruggedish.

- Batteries last for like two days. There isn't much going on here, no moving parts, no laser or hard drive to put power to. Most of these flash Memory types have a single AA battery. I use a rechargeable type, so we are talking very low cost here.
In comparison to the hard drive types, where you will get a solid 8 hours of playing, this really whupps up.

- Size. Small. Very small. Mine is three inches by three inches. A square. But, you can get smaller ones. And the memory chips that go in them are the same ones you use for your camera. And you can put files on them. If you want to put a word doc on your memory chip, you can. Your Mp3 won't recognize it, but it is nifty storage.

COMPARISON/CONTRAST

- Size does matter. In the case of hard drive Mp3 players... lets face it, you can, if you so chose to, put a library of congress on these monsters. They are the caddilacs of the hand held devices, and guzzle batteries like gasoline. But when it comes down to it, size is the only thing they have going for them. I don't mean to downplay the hard drive types, but don't drop them, don't shake them, and after shelling out $499 to Apple you might consider insurance. Apple doesn't care about you or your apple after 10 days of ownership.

- Price/Komparison. IPOD ran me $499 bucks. My memorex MP3 player ran me 45 dollars. The 128 memory chip runs you 50 bucks. Owch. There really isn't a comparison to the two. The memory stick Mp3 players just kick ? on this issue. And, you get MORE than a ten day return policy, since you buy these things at Target/Wal Mart etc...

So, that is my review in a nutshell

What a blast this is! I love it. I primarily use it as an MP3 player. You can store about 12 songs on the 16 MB card. Works great, sounds great. Very easy to use. You can transfer songs using the provided Kodak software, or just copy/paste right out of Windows Explorer.

The camera is a nice bonus. Not great resolution but not too bad either. More of a toy than a serious camera. No flash is the biggest drawback. Holds a ton of pictures if the card is not full of MP3's.

The video feature is great too. Takes surprisingly long quicktime movies WITH SOUND! You get several minutes to record, not the 60 seconds you get with a typical digital camera. Very good mic picks up even low volume sounds. The video quality is okay, really meant for computer screens only.

Just buy it! You'll love it. For the price it is one hell of a deal.

I bought the mc3 primarily because I needed a video camera. It is excellent. I originally thought that the funtions were going to be so-so but I thought wrong. The mp3 player is excellent. The sound is CD-quality. It is excellent and it is LOUD. It hurts to turn it on full with the earbuds in. They are not the greatest but those are easily replaceable. The display tells you how many songs you have and the artist and album name. There are 5 equalizers. The software was fairly simple to setup and it may be a little difficult for people who are not used to computers to run it. It is very quick to load and easy to change songs. The camera does not have the greatest quality and no flash, but it works if you have lights on indoors. I have a standard 35mm camera for important occasions and most pictures. The digital camera is purely for fun and fast pictures. The video camera is excellent. It records really well. Overall it is excellent. The software is easy to install and use and it does not freeze up the computer. I had mp3's downloaded about 15 mins after I opened the box.(It would have been 10 but I had trouble finding my USB port). When you hook up the camera it automatically searches for new pictures and videos. It is incredibly easy to use and it is small and lightweight, easy to fit in my purse or pocket. The included wriststrap is useful for carrying it while listening to music.There are two pitfalls 1.The memory card included at 16 mbs holds NOTHING so it will be expensive to buy another. I suggest buy a huge one and then you won't have to change it. The other pitfall is no flash. But that is not as big of a deal as I thought. As all other battery-operated products on the market, it sucks the power like nothing. I suggest rechargables. All in all it is a really really portable all-in-one multimedia player.

They should call this the MC1 because it's only useful as a camcorder. As a camcorder that is $120, it gets 5 stars. Everything else out there that is <$200 are ALL 10 frames per second. They claim to be cool but are extremely choppy and look like web cams. A TV is 30fps, movie theaters are 24fps and the MC3 is 20fps. Not perfect buy light years ahead of everything else. Yes it has other problems but nothing that the exact other brands don't have too. Face it; this is the best camcorder you are going to get for <$200. If you like choppy web cam action it will record in 10fps and give you 4X more recording. A 16mb card (included) will give you 1:17min @ 20fps, and a 256mb card will give you 20:06min @20fps. You should buy a 256mb card ($60 ebay) and at least 6 rechargeable AAA batteries + recharger ($25) I've spent days trying to find something better than this and still can't. This is the best of a the junk that is out there. If that means anything.

New Digital8 Video Recording Up to 500 lines of horizontal resolution Video8/Hi8 Playback New 20x Optical/360x Digital Zoom New NightShot with Slow Shutter 0 lux up to 10 feet away using the built-in infrared system LaserLinkTM Wireless Transmitter with TV Control Wireless connection between your camera and TV, up to 16 feet (requires optional IFT-R10 receiver.) TV Control will power your TV on, and set it to the proper video input (most Sony TVs with Remote Control capability) Steadyshot® Picture Stabilization i.LINKTM DV Interface (IEEE1394) Edit, Dub, Archive, or Playback between two digital components (bi-directional). Photo Mode: Store hundreds of individual still images on the tape. 7 Mode Program AE: Lesson Mode, Spotlight Mode, Beach and Ski Mode, Landscape Mode, Sunset and Moon Mode, and Low Lux. Advanced Color Viewfinder Intelligent Accessory Shoe Digital Effects: Still, Flash Motion, Luminance Key, Slow Shutter, Trail, Old Movie 8 Picture Effects Slim, Stretch, Mosiac, SSolarization, Monotone, Sepia, Neg. Art, Pastel Fader Effects: Black, Mosaic, Bounce, Monotone, Overlap New Analog Recording Capability Record from an analog source and converts to digital video through A/V inputs. Imaging Device 1/4" Color CCD 460k pixels Focusing Full Range Inner Focus-Auto/Manual Shutter Speed 1/60 - 1/4000 (In AE Mode) Viewfinder Color 113K pixels Accessory Shoe Yes-Intelligent Video/Audio Recording System Digital Component Helical Scan System Audio/Video Outputs Yes (Phono - Stereo) Audio/Video INputs Yes (Phono - Stereo) S-VIDEO IN/OUT: Yes External MIC Input Yes (Stereo Plug-in Power) Headphone Jack Yes (Stereo) Control L (LANC) Yes White Balance Auto Exposure Auto/Manual (Dial)

I bought this camera after reading lot of reviews. This is the first video camera that I have bought. Few things which PV-DV910 lacks is that it does not come with any software so as to edit the Digital Video in the PC, no firewire cables - even though it has IEEE1394 port for transfer. Eventhough it says 300x digital zoom, the system does not go beyond 36x. The performance is very poor in low lighting. Out door in normal sunlight, it is great. Overall not too happy for the money that I paid for it.

this camcorder has some wonderful features and the 300X digital zoom is great! also, the included light is very convenient for low-light filming and nightshooting. there are many special effects which i have yet to use, but its nice to know that they are there if i need them. the still-shot camera is great too. its nice to be able to email pictures to family and friends. this camcorder is very light and compact, and the resolution is great.

As my title states, this thing REALLY sucks. I tried every channel, and pressed scan..and everything..and it wouldn't lock on to the signal. Even when it was 5 feet away in the same room. The only thing it would pick up was a bunch of junk, and other peoples phone conversations.

And what did come through was all distorted...

Summary: NEVER buy this...in fact..call up US Robotics and ask them why they made such a horrible product. I bought this because i've had good experiences with USR before....oh well.
Piece of junk.

I recently decided to convert my 300+ CDs to Windows Media format files so I could play them at work through my headphones. As I was recording them at home, I thought about how nice it would be if I could play my music through my home stereo. I then came across this product, which pretty much does the trick.

It comes with two receiver type things that look like fat walkie-talkies. One of them plugs into your computer's audio-out jack. It also has an audio out jack so you can plug your existing computer speakers into it, which is nice. The other receiver goes next to your stereo receiver. You can then either plug it in using patch cords to an audio-in on your receiver, or tune your receiver to 88.1 or 88.3 and flip a switch to broadcast through FM. I personally, for some reason, get better sound in FM mode than through a direct connection, which I can't figure out. I would've thought it would've been the other way around.

I have found that I have to switch the radio station it transmits on periodically for some reason. I have also found that when I first turn it on, sometimes the receivers have a hard time getting in sync with one another, so I just leave them on all the time.

You have to adjust the volume knob on the receiver near your computer. If you have it too high, you will get distortion. Since these music files seem to record at different levels based on the source CD, I just leave it at a middle setting and use the volume on my receiver to make any necessary volume adjustments.

I also am not thrilled that both receivers need to be plugged in. You can use batteries, but since it is all but necessary to leave them on all the time, batteries would be a waste. And they are those stupid big fat plugs that take up valuable space on your power strips. But what can you do. I guess this is the cost of listening to music from your computer.

In summary, I think this audio system does well, and I would recommend it to others.

I bought the usr 6003 ..., a bargain, and it works very well. The sound is good (FM quality) and the level of noise quite low (in fact lower than that of my sound card and FM radio). You probably won't notice any difference when listening to internet radios. Best results are obtained by carefully adjusting the volume of the audio source just below saturation and fine tuning the FM radio (88.1 or 88.3 MHz are not accurate values). A very good buy.

I've had my Yepp for about a year now, and the headphone jack is just about worn out (you have to constantly manipulate the headphones to make it sound normal) and the battery case needs to be held on with a rubber band because an important piece of plastic snapped off. I don't know if this reflects on product quality or my treatment of it, but either way, it's no good.
Transfer times are painfully slow, and even worse when transferring to the Smart Media card (which you must buy separately, I paid about 100 bucks for mine). The Yepp comes with a version of RealJukebox you can't get anywhere else, and mine is constantly crashing and needing to be re-installed. Searching through tracks can be tedious, especially when you've got two hours of music to go through. On the upside, battery life isn't too bad, and the Yepp is very compact, lightweight and portable. But it's expensive, and for [a little more] more, you can get an MP3 player with a capacity in gigabytes, not megabytes.

THIS MP3 PLAYER IS NOT REALLY THAT BAD. ALTHOUGH THE DOWNLOADS ARE PRETTY SLOW AND GRUELING.

MY BEEF? HERE IT IS... I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE GOOFBALL WHO DESIGNED THE BATTER DOOR THAT KEEPS THE BATTERY IN PLACE. TOTALLY BAD CONCEPT AND DESIGN. FUNNY THING IS, THEY GIVE YOU AN EXTRA BATTER DOOR BUT THIS IS NOT WHERE THE PROBLEM OCCURS.
THE SMALL "TOOTH" THAT THE BATTER DOOR CLOSED ONTO, BROKE OFF AND A NEW DOOR MEANS NOTHING WITHOUT THAT SMALL "TOOTH" TO CLING TO. I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO... I FEEL LIKE I HAVE WASTED A LOT OF MONEY HERE!...

I've had my Yepp for a few months now, and I've found it to be wonderful, overall. It has good sound quality, it's small and light to the point you can have it in your pocket while jogging and not be annoyed by it, and it's got a sleek design. There are a few points where the Yepp could use some improvement, however. First, it's too dependant on the remote control: the shuffle and repeate functions, the battery life indicator, and the song indicator are all on the remote, the only display on the player itself is a green or red LED. That's not a problem if you plan to use the remote a lot, but for me it's just one more thing to carry. Second, it takes a lot of power to record files onto the player. If you plan on adding and removing songs often, plan to buy a lot of batteries. Additionally, be aware that you can't insert new songs between old songs in the memory card. Finally, the player doesn't have upgradeable firmware. There's a new file format that ought to be out this fall sometime that'll have files half the size of current MP3s, and this player won't be able to play them. Sure, you can get a converter if you want, but it'd be better to get an upgradeable player that'll be able to hold twice the music in a few months. Still, overall, it's a great player and I'm glad I bought mine. You could do far worse than the Yepp.